Russia Physical Features

1.  The Soviet Union is located north of Mongolia, China and Iran. It is located west of Japan. It’s absolute location is between 80oN and 40oN, 20oE and 180oE.
2.  Some physical characteristics of the USSR are:
Great Russian Plain
- largest area
- roughly 70% lives there
- used for agriculture
West Siberian Plain
- very few people
- swamps in low-lying areas
- oil and natural gas
Central Siberian Plateau
- very few people
- major industry lumber
- relatively unexplored
Caucasus Mountains
- highest mountain in Europe, Mt. Elbrus
- suited for grazing and fruit
Turan Lowlands
- grazing grain and cotton
- roughly 10% of pop.
Ural Mountains
- less than 700m high
- hills, plateaus and mountains
- steel, mining and lumber
- considered boundary between Europe and Asia
Far eastern highland and Southeastern Mountains
- steep mountains know as the Pamirs in SEM
- mining, lumber
- very few people

Some human Characteristics:
Population
- 65% Europe
- 35% Asia
- 66% Urban
- 44% Rural
- people prefer warm, wet climates over dry, cold climates

Beliefs and Ideas

3.  Body’s of water and rivers were important in the development of industry because they provided for the community. Most of the cities are concentrated around bodies of water. the water was also used for fishing and other primary industries that make up 20% of the total. Also water was a good source of transportation, making it easier to trade with different countries that aren’t neighbors.
4.  The climate, vegetation and soils affected people’s lives. The climate varied greatly between summer and winter. Winter was were very cold, summers very hot and spring, fall were very short. There were seven major climate regions. The main natural vegetation was the coniferous forest. Evergreen forests covered almost one half of the country. The other forms of natural vegetation were the mixed forest, grasslands, desert. There were two kinds of desert, the hot desert and the could desert, called tundra. The grasslands were also called the steppes. A lot of the Soviet Union was covered with gray woodland soils which were not good for farming, The rich, fertile, black and brown soil that was good for growing crop was found in a narrow band of land form western Ukraine, to northeast Kazaskhstan.  This area was very populated. The only other major soil was the desert soil. This soil was used to raise livestock and to pasture.
5.  The population patterns that were evident were that the majority o f the people lived in Europe. It was also evident that the cities were all near or on rivers and bodies of water. If you look on pg. 14 of the textbook Russia: then and now, and you look at where the Amur river was, you can see a lot of little cities spread out down the river.
6.  The country’s largest cities are Moscow,  They are important in the country’s economical growth because that’s where most of the people live.
7.  The four types of industry in the Soviet Union are primary (20%), secondary (40%), tertiary (35%) and quaternary (5%). Primary industry were farms, mines, fishing, lumber. The secondary industries were iron, steel, metal products, machinery, trucks, chemicals, cement. Tertiary industries are transportation, retail trade, health, and government services. Quaternary industries, scientific and research institutes.
8.  The physical and human geography of the country affected the movement of people, products and ideas. There were three main movements of people: to the cities, to other regions, and to other countries. In 1913 17.9% lived in the city. In 1990 66% then lived in the cities. The movement of products depended on who the goods were shipped. They were shipped either by water, land or air. But there were also transportation problems. Because there were many physical regions and different people, it was hard to interact and have the movement of people, products and ideas.