Siberia - Geography

Geography

Gulf of Ob Novaya Zemlya Kara Sea Yenisei Ob Taymyr Peninsula Severnaya Zemlya Arctic Ocean Central Siberian Plateau Siberian Federal District Lena Sakha Republic Laptev Sea New Siberian Islands Kolyma Verkhoyansk Range
Urals Federal District Kazakhstan Ob Irtysh Altai Tian Shan Syr Darya Taklamakan Himalayas Pamir Hindukush Tibetan Lake Baikal Mongolia Gobi North China Plain Yangtze Plain Plateau Stanovoy Range Manchuria Korea Sakhalin Amur Sea of Okhotsk Japan Pacific Ocean
Further information: Geography of Russia

With an area of 13.1 million km² (5.1 million square miles), Siberia takes up roughly 77% of Russia's total territory. Major geographical zones include the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau. Siberia covers almost 10% of Earth's land surface (148,940,000 km²).

Eastern and central Sakha comprise numerous north-south mountain ranges of various ages. These mountains extend up to almost three thousand meters in elevation, but above a few hundred meters they are almost completely devoid of vegetation. The Verkhoyansk Range was extensively glaciated in the Pleistocene, but the climate was too dry for glaciation to extend to low elevations. At these low elevations are numerous valleys, many of them deep, and covered with larch forest, except in the extreme north, where the tundra dominates. Soils are mainly turbels. The active layer tends to be less than one meter deep except near rivers.

The highest point in Siberia is the active volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka, on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Its peak is at 4,649 meters (15,253 ft).

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