Siberia

Siberia is a vast area of land stretching over 5,207,900 square miles from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the North to Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China in the south. Most of it lies in the present-day nation of Russia, with a small part in northern Kazakhstan. Siberia is divided into three geographic regions: The West Siberian Plain, a swampy and forested area is situated between the Urals and the Yenisey River; from there, the Central Siberian Plateau,rift gold at a height between 1,000 and 4,000 feet extends to the Lena River; and, from there, to the Pacific Ocean, often called Far East Russia, lie mountain ranges and uplands.

Three large rivers cross Siberia, all flowing north and draining into the Arctic Ocean: the Lena, the Ob, and the Yenisey. Another major river, the Amur, flows east to the Sea of Okhotsk, which opens to the Pacific. Just southeast of the central Asian Plateau is Lake Baikal. With a maximum depth of 5,371 feet, Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and is estimated to hold one-fifth of Earth’s freshwater. Siberia has several mountain ranges, including the Yablonovy and Stanovoy Mountains, which run from the border of Mongolia northeast, to the Sea of Okhotsk. The Altai Mountains, with peaks generally between 10,000 and 13,000 feet, stretch along the bottom of the West Siberian Plain, while the Sayan mountains lie just south of the Central Siberian Plateau. To the northeast, along the Kamchatka Peninsula, which extends into the Bering Sea, is a chain of volcanic peaks,rift gold including some active volcanoes, and Siberia’s highest peak, Klyuchevskaya Sopka, at 15,584 feet. Siberia for the most part has long, cold winters and short, moderate summers and is divided into three zones of vegetation. Directly south of the Arctic Ocean is the tundra, a marshy, treeless plain about 270 miles wide covered with permafrost, bearing moss, lichens, and flowers, as well as small shrubs in the summer. South of the tundra is the taiga, a belt of primarily coniferous forests, followed by more deciduous forests. And finally the steppe, a large grassland, stretches to Siberia’s southern limits.