: 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:

Continental shelf: 200 m (depth) or to depth of exploitation;

Exclusive economic zone: 200 nm;

Territorial sea: 12 nm

_#_Disputes: bilateral negotiations are under way to resolve
disputed sections of the boundary with China; US Government has not
recognized the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into
the Soviet Union; Etorofu, Kunashiri, and Shikotan Islands and the
Habomai island group occupied by Soviet Union since 1945, claimed by
Japan; maritime dispute with Norway over portion of Barents Sea; 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; 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; note--the USSR is the world's largest
producer of oil and natural gas, third in coal

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

_#_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

_*_People
_#_Population: 293,047,571 (July 1991), grow