Russia extends across eleven time zones, and has the most borders of any country in the world, with sixteen sovereign nations.

Along the 20,139-kilometre (12,514 mi) land frontier, Russia has boundaries with 14 countries: Poland and Lithuania (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea.

As of 2014, there were eighty-five administrative territorial divisions (called federal subjects): twenty-two republics, nine krais (territories), forty-six oblasts (provinces), one autonomous oblast, four autonomous okrugs, and three cities with federal status, namely the cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Sevastopol.

The tundra is Russia's northernmost zone, stretching from the Finnish border in the west to the Bering Strait in the east, then running south along the Pacific coast to the northern Kamchatka Peninsula.

The zone is known for its herds of wild reindeer, for so-called white nights (dusk at midnight, dawn shortly thereafter) in summer, and for days of total darkness in winter.

The long, harsh winters and lack of sunshine allow only mosses, lichens, and dwarf willows and shrubs to sprout low above the barren permafrost.

Although several powerful Siberian rivers traverse this zone as they flow northward to the Arctic Ocean, partial and intermittent thawing hamper drainage of the numerous lakes, ponds, and swamps of the tundra.

Frost weathering is the most important physical process here, gradually shaping a landscape that was severely modified by glaciation in the last ice age.

Coniferous forest, however, does not form a continuous array and sparse areas of birch, alder, willow (mainly in river valleys), the wetlands - marshes.

Within the taiga are widespread fur-bearing animals - sable, marten, ermine, moose, brown bear, Wolverine, wolf, and muskrat.

The main trees are Oak and Spruce, but many other growths of vegetation such as ash, aspen, birch, hornbeam, maple, and pine reside there.

Separating the taiga from the wooded steppe is a narrow belt of birch and aspen woodland located east of the Urals as far as the Altay Mountains.

It is a broad band of treeless, grassy plains, interrupted by mountain ranges, extending from Hungary across Ukraine, southern Russia, and Kazakhstan before ending in Manchuria.

In a country of extremes, the steppe zone provides the most favorable conditions for human settlement and agriculture because of its moderate temperatures and normally adequate levels of sunshine and moisture.

The Ural Mountains form the natural boundary between Europe and Asia; the range extends about 2,100 kilometres (1,300 mi) from the Arctic Ocean to the northern border of Kazakhstan.

The maximum height of the Stanovoy Range, which runs west to east from northern Lake Baikal to the Sea of Okhotsk, is 2,550 metres (8,370 ft).

The small Moneron Island, the site of the shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, is found to its west.

Between the Black and Caspian seas, the Caucasus Mountains rise to impressive heights, forming a boundary between Europe and Asia.

The geological structure of the Caucasus extends to the northwest as the Crimean and Carpathian Mountains and southeastward into Central Asia as the Tian Shan and Pamirs.

The same is true of other river systems, including the Pechora and the Northern Dvina in western Russia, and the Kolyma and the Indigirka in Siberia.

The Amur River and its main tributary, the Ussuri, form a long stretch of the winding boundary between Russia and China.

The 1,860-kilometre (1,160 mi) Don, which is the fifth-longest river in Europe, originates in the Central Russian Upland south of Moscow and then flows into the Sea of Azov at Rostov-on-Don.

[29] The sheer size of Russia and the remoteness of many areas from the sea result in the dominance of the humid continental climate, which is prevalent in all parts of the country except for the tundra and the extreme southwest.

Mountains in the south and east obstruct the flow of warm air masses from the Indian and Pacific oceans, while the plain of the west and north makes the country open to Arctic and Atlantic influences.

Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea, is claimed and de facto administered by the Russian Federation since Russia occupied and annexed it from neighboring Ukraine in March 2014.

Aluminium ores are scarce and are found primarily in the Ural region, northwestern European Russia, and south-central Siberia.

Copper is more abundant and major reserves are located in the Urals, the Norilsk area near the mouth of the Yenisey in eastern Siberia, and the Kola Peninsula.

Another vast deposit located east of Lake Baikal only became exploited when the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad was finished in 1989.

The North Caucasus, far eastern Russia, and the western edge of the Kuznetsk Basin in southern Siberia contain an abundance of lead and zinc ores.

Raw materials are abundant as well, including potassium and magnesium salt deposits in the Kama River region of the western Urals.