Total area: 22,402,200 km2
land area: 22,272,000 km2

Comparative area: slightly less than 2.5 times the size of US

Land boundaries: 19,933 km total
Afghanistan 2,384 km, Czechoslovakia 98 km, China 7,520 km, Finland 1,313 km, Hungary 135 km, Iran 1,690 km, North Korea 17 km, Mongolia 3,441 km, Norway 196 km, Poland 1,215 km, Romania 1,307 km, Turkey 617 km

Coastline: 42,777 km

Maritime claims: @m5Continental shelf: 200 meters or to depth of exploitation
@m5Extended economic zone: 200 nm
@m5Territorial sea: 12 nm

Disputes: four sections of the boundary with China are in dispute (Pamir, Argun, Amur, and Khabarovsk areas); US Government has not recognized the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the Soviet Union; Habomai Islands, Etorofu, Kunashiri, and Shikotan islands occupied by Soviet Union since 1945, claimed by Japan; Kuril Islands administered by Soviet Union; maritime dispute with Norway; has made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other nation; Bessarabia question with Romania; occupied Afghanistan on 24 December 1979 and departed on 15 February 1989; Kurdish question among Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and the USSR

Climate: mostly temperate to arctic continental; winters vary from cool along Black Sea to frigid in Siberia; summers vary from hot in southern deserts to cool along Arctic coast

Terrain: broad plain with low hills west of Urals; vast coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia, deserts in Central Asia, mountains in south

Natural resources: self-sufficient in oil, natural gas, coal, and strategic minerals (except bauxite, alumina, tantalum, tin, tungsten, fluorspar, and molybdenum), timber, gold, manganese, lead, zinc, nickel, mercury, potash, phosphates

Land use: 10% arable land; NEGL% permanent crops; 17% meadows and pastures; 41% forest and woodland; 32% other; includes 1% irrigated

Environment: despite size and diversity, small percentage of land is arable and much is too far north; some of most fertile land is water deficient or has insufficient growing season; many better climates have poor soils; hot, dry, desiccating sukhovey wind affects south; desertification; continuous permafrost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development

Note: largest country in world, but unfavorably located in relation to major sea lanes of world

NOTE: The information regarding Soviet Union on this page is re-published from the 1989 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Soviet Union Geography 1989 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Soviet Union Geography 1989 should be addressed to the CIA.