Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive
geographical region, constituting all of
North Asia
North Asia or Northern Asia, also referred to as Siberia, is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geographical terms and is coextensive with the Asian part of Russia, and consists of three Russian regions east of the Ural Mountains ...
, from the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
in the west to the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
in the east.
It has been a part of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
since the latter half of the 16th century, after the Russians
conquered lands east of the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over , but home to merely one-fifth of Russia's population.
Novosibirsk,
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk ( ; rus, Красноя́рск, a=Ru-Красноярск2.ogg, p=krəsnɐˈjarsk) (in semantic translation - Red Ravine City) is the largest city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yeni ...
and
Omsk are the largest cities in the region.
Because Siberia is a geographic and historic region and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and includes most of the
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
of the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
. The river
Yenisey
The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas: Ким суғ, ''Kim suğ''; Ket: Ӄук, ...
divides Siberia into two parts,
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
and
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
. Siberia stretches southwards from the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
to the hills of north-central
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
and to the northern parts of
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
and
China.
The central part of Siberia (
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
and
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
Siberian economic regions) was considered the core part of the region in the Soviet Union. Beyond the core, Siberia's western part includes some territories of the
Ural
Ural may refer to:
*Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan
*Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan
*Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan
* Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India
*Ural Federal District, in Russia
*Ural econ ...
region, and the far eastern part has been historically called the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
.
Siberia is known worldwide primarily for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F). It is geographically situated in Asia; however, having been colonized and incorporated into Russia, it is culturally and politically a part of Europe.
European cultural influences, specifically Russian, predominate throughout the region, due to it having had
Russian emigration from Europe since the 16th century, forming the
Siberian Russian sub-ethnic group.
Over 85% of the region's population is of
European descent.
Etymology
The origin of the name is unknown. Some sources say that "Siberia" originates from the
Siberian Tatar
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
word for "sleeping land" (Sib ir). The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Russian conquest of
Siberian Khanate. A further variant claims that the region was named after the
Sibe people.
The Polish historian Chyliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the
proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
word for "north" (север, ''sever''), same as
Severia
Severia or Siveria ( orv, Сѣверія, russian: Северщина, translit=Severshchina, uk, Сіверія or , translit. ''Siveria'' or ''Sivershchyna'') is a historical region in present-day southwest Russia, northern Ukraine, eastern ...
. Anatole Baikaloff has dismissed this explanation. He said that the neighbouring Chinese, Turks, and Mongolians, who have similar names for the region, would not have known Russian. He suggests that the name might be a combination of two words with
Turkic origin, ''"su"'' (water) and ''"bir"'' (wild land). Another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the (also "Syopyr" (sʲɵpᵻr)), a Paleoasiatic ethnic group assimilated by the
Nenets.
History
Prehistory
![Steppes horseman hunting](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Steppes_horseman_hunting.jpg)
The region has
paleontological
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...
significance, as it contains bodies of
prehistoric animals from the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
Epoch
In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured.
The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...
, preserved in ice or in
permafrost. Specimens of
Goldfuss cave lion cubs,
Yuka Yuka may refer to:
*Yuka (music), an Afro-Cuban style of music
*Yuka (mammoth), mammoth specimen found in Yakutia, Russia
*Manshu Yuka Kogyo K.K. Ssuningkai, a Japanese-German pre-WWII industrial co-operation
People
*Yuka (name), a Japanese perso ...
the mammoth and another
woolly mammoth
The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus s ...
from
Oymyakon
Oymyakon, ; sah, Өймөкөөн, ''Öymököön'', is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands, along the Indigirka River, northwest of Tomtor on the Koly ...
, a
woolly rhinoceros
The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a me ...
from the
Kolyma, and
bison and
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...
s from
Yukagir have been found.
The
Siberian Traps
The Siberian Traps (russian: Сибирские траппы, Sibirskiye trappy) is a large region of volcanic rock, known as a large igneous province, in Siberia, Russia. The massive eruptive event that formed the traps is one of the largest ...
were formed by one of the largest-known volcanic events of the last 251 million years of
Earth's geological history. Their activity continued for a million years and some scientists consider it a possible cause of the "
Great Dying
Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
*Artel Great (born ...
" about 250 million years ago, – estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time.
At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago: ''
H. sapiens'', ''
H. neanderthalensis'', and the
Denisovans.
DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman'
" BBC News. 25 March 2010.
In 2010 DNA evidence identified the last as a separate species.
Late Paleolithic southern Siberians appear to be related to paleolithic Europeans and the paleolithic
Jōmon people of Japan. Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that the oldest fossil known to carry the derived KITLG allele, which is responsible for
blond hair in modern Europeans, is a 17,000 year old
Ancient North Eurasian
In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (generally abbreviated as ANE) is the name given to an ancestral component that represents a lineage ancestral to the people of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture and populations closely related to th ...
specimen from Siberia.
[, ] Ancient North Eurasian populations genetically similar to
Mal'ta–Buret' culture
The Mal'ta–Buret' culture is an archaeological culture of 24,000 to 15,000 BP / 22'050 to 13'050 BC in the Upper Paleolithic on the upper Angara River in the area west of Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russian Federation. The ...
and
Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Ancient Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups (such as the
Ainu people). Evidence from full genomic studies suggests that the first people in the Americas diverged from
Ancient East Asians about 36,000 years ago and expanded northwards into Siberia, where they encountered and interacted with Ancient North Eurasians, giving rise to both
Paleosiberian peoples
Siberia, including the Russian Far East, is a vast region spanning the northern part of the Asian continent, and forming the Asiatic portion of Russia. As a result of the Russian conquest of Siberia (17th to 19th centuries) and of the subseque ...
and
Ancient Native Americans, which later migrated towards the Beringian region, became isolated from other populations, and subsequently populated the Americas.
Early history
![Choris, Tschuktschen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Choris%2C_Tschuktschen.jpg)
During past millennia different groups of
nomad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
s – such as the
Enets
The Enets (russian: энцы, ; singular: , ; also known as Yenetses, Entsy, Entsi, Yenisei or Yenisey Samoyeds) are a Samoyedic ethnic group who live on the east bank, near the mouth, of the Yenisei River. Historically nomadic people, they now m ...
, the
Nenets, the
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
, the
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...
, the
Scythians
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...
, and the
Yugur
The Yugurs, Yughurs, Yugu (; Western Yugur: ''Sarïg Yogïr''; Eastern Yugur: ''Šera Yogor''), traditionally known as Yellow Uyghurs, are a Turko- Mongolic ethnic group and one of China's 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, consisting ...
inhabited various parts of Siberia. The
Afanasievo and
Tashtyk cultures of the
Yenisey
The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas: Ким суғ, ''Kim suğ''; Ket: Ӄук, ...
valley and Altay Mountains are associated with the
Indo-European migrations across Eurasia. The proto-Mongol
Khitan people also occupied parts of the region. In the 13th century, during the period of the
Mongol Empire, the Mongols conquered a large part of this area.
With the breakup of the
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragme ...
, the
autonomous
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...
Khanate of Sibir
The Khanate of Sibir (also Khanate of Turan,
sty, Себер ханлыгы) was a Tatar Khanate located in southwestern Siberia with a Turco-Mongol ruling class. Throughout its history, members of the Shaybanid and Taibugid dynasties often con ...
formed in the late-15th century. Turkic-speaking
Yakut migrated north from the
Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes during the 13th to 15th century. Siberia remained a sparsely populated area. Historian
John F. Richards
John F. Richards (November 3, 1938 – August 23, 2007) was a historian of South Asia and in particular of the Mughal Empire. He was Professor of History at Duke University, North Carolina, and a recipient in 2007 of the Distinguished Contributio ...
wrote: "... it is doubtful that the total early modern Siberian population exceeded 300,000 persons".
The growing power of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
in the West began to undermine the Siberian Khanate in the 16th century. First, groups of traders and
Cossacks began to enter the area. The Russian Army was directed to establish forts farther and farther east to protect new Russian settlers who migrated from Europe. Towns such as
Mangazeya
Mangazeya (russian: Мангазе́я) was a Northwest Siberian trans- Ural trade colony and later city in the 17th century. Founded in 1600 by Cossacks from Tobolsk, it was situated on the Taz River, between the lower courses of the Ob and Ye ...
,
Tara,
Yeniseysk
Yeniseysk ( rus, Енисейск, p=jɪnʲɪˈsʲejsk) is a town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. Population: 20,000 (1970).
History
Yeniseysk was founded in 1619 as a stockaded town—the first town on the Yenise ...
, and
Tobolsk
Tobolsk (russian: Тобо́льск) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1590, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, an ...
developed, the last becoming the ''de facto'' capital of Siberia from 1590. At this time, ''Sibir'' was the name of a fortress at
Qashliq
Qashliq, Isker or Sibir ( Siberian Tatar language: ''Qaşlıq'' or ''Iskär'') was a medieval (14th–16th century) Siberian Tatar fortress, in the 16th century the capital of the Khanate of Sibir, located on the right bank of the Irtysh River a ...
, near Tobolsk.
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
, in a map published in 1595, marks ''Sibier'' both as the name of a settlement and of the surrounding territory along a left tributary of the
Ob. Other sources contend that the
Sibe, an indigenous
Tungusic people, offered fierce resistance to Russian expansion beyond the Urals. Some suggest that the term "Siberia" is a russification of their ethnonym.
[
]
Russian Empire
By the mid-17th century, Russia had established areas of control that extended to the Pacific Ocean. Some 230,000 Russians had settled in Siberia by 1709. Siberia became one of the destinations for sending internal exiles. Exile was the main Russian punitive practice with more than 800,000 people exiled during the nineteenth century.
The first great modern change in Siberia was the Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...
, constructed during 1891–1916. It linked Siberia more closely to the rapidly industrialising Russia of Nicholas II (). Around seven million Russians moved to Siberia from Europe between 1801 and 1914. Between 1859 and 1917 more than half a million people migrated to the Russian Far East. Siberia has extensive natural resources: during the 20th century, large-scale exploitation of these took place, and industrial towns cropped up throughout the region.
At 7:15 a.m. on 30 June 1908 the Tunguska Event
The Tunguska event (occasionally also called the Tunguska incident) was an approximately 12- megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 3 ...
felled millions of trees near the Podkamennaya Tunguska (Stony Tunguska) in central Siberia. Most scientists believe this resulted from the air burst of a meteor or a comet. Even though no crater has ever been found, the landscape in the (sparsely inhabited) area still bears the scars of this event.
Soviet Union
In the early decades of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
(especially in the 1930s and 1940s), the government used the Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
state agency to administer a system of penal labour camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
s, replacing the previous katorga
Katorga ( rus, ка́торга, p=ˈkatərɡə; from medieval and modern Greek: ''katergon, κάτεργον'', " galley") was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (see Katorga labor in the Soviet Union). Prisone ...
system. According to semi-official Soviet estimates, which did not become public until after the fall of the Soviet government in 1991, from 1929 to 1953 more than 14 million people passed through these camps and prisons, many of them in Siberia. Another seven to eight million people were internally deported to remote areas of the Soviet Union (including entire nationalities or ethnicities in several cases).
Half a million (516,841) prisoners died in camps from 1941 to 1943 during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. At other periods, mortality was comparatively lower. The size, scope, and scale of the Gulag slave-labour camps remain subjects of much research and debate. Many Gulag camps operated in extremely remote areas of northeastern Siberia. The best-known clusters included ''Sevvostlag
Sevvostlag (russian: Северо-восточные исправительно-трудовые лагеря, Севвостлаг, СВИТЛ, North-Eastern Corrective Labor Camps) was a system of forced labor camps set up to satisfy the wor ...
'' (''the North-East Camps'') along the Kolyma and ''Norillag
Norillag, Norilsk Corrective Labor Camp (russian: Норильлаг, Норильстрой, Норильский ИТЛ) was a gulag labor camp set by Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia and headquartered there. It existed from June 25, 1935 to Aug ...
'' near Norilsk
Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk, ''Norílʹsk'') is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk ...
, where 69,000 prisoners lived in 1952. Major industrial cities of Northern Siberia, such as Norilsk and Magadan, developed from camps built by prisoners and run by former prisoners.
Geography
Siberia spans an area of , covering the vast majority of Russia's total territory, and almost 9% of Earth's land surface (). It geographically falls in Asia, but is culturally and politically considered European, since it is a part of Russia. Major geographical zones within Siberia include the West Siberian Plain
The West Siberian Plain (russian: За́падно-Сиби́рская равни́на ''Zapadno-Sibirskaya ravnina'') is a large plain that occupies the western portion of Siberia, between the Ural Mountains in the west and the Yenisei River ...
and the Central Siberian Plateau
The Central Siberian Plateau (russian: Среднесибирское плоскогорье, Srednesibirskoye ploskogorye; sah, Орто Сибиир хаптал хайалаах сирэ) is a vast mountainous area in Siberia, one of the Gre ...
.
Eastern and central Sakha
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Ea ...
comprises numerous north–south mountain ranges of various ages. These mountains extend up to almost , but above a few hundred metres they are almost completely devoid of vegetation. The Verkhoyansk Range
The Verkhoyansk Range (russian: Верхоянский хребет, ''Verkhojanskiy Khrebet''; sah, Үөһээ Дьааҥы сис хайата, ''Üöhee Chaangy sis khaĭata'') is a mountain range in the Sakha Republic, Russia near the settle ...
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
Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains fur ...
forest, except in the extreme north where the tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...
dominates. Soils are mainly turbels (a type of gelisol
Gelisols are an order in USDA soil taxonomy. They are soils of very cold climates which are defined as containing permafrost within two meters of the soil surface. The word "Gelisol" comes from the Latin ''gelare'' meaning "to freeze", a referen ...
). The active layer tends to be less than one metre deep, except near rivers.
The highest point in Siberia is the active volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Ear ...
Klyuchevskaya Sopka
Klyuchevskaya Sopka (russian: Ключевская сопка; also known as Klyuchevskoi, russian: Ключевской) is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain of Siberia and the highest active volcano of Eurasia. Its steep, symmetrical cone t ...
, on the Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and w ...
. Its peak reaches .
Mountain ranges
* Altai Mountains
* Anadyr Highlands
The Anadyr Highlands ( rus, Анадырское нагорье, r=Anadyrskoye Nagorye) are a mountainous area in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.
Geography
The Anadyr Highlands are one of the two main mountai ...
* Baikal Mountains
The Baikal Mountains or Baikal Range (russian: Байкальский хребет, ''Bajkaljskij hrebet''; bua, Байгалай дабаан, ''Baigalai dabaan'') are a mountain range that rises steeply over the northwestern shore of Lake Bai ...
* Khamar-Daban
Hamar-Daban (russian: Хама́р-Даба́н; bua, Һамар дабаан, from - "nut", and , "pass" or "ridge"), is a mountain range in Southern Siberia, Russia.
Geography
The range is located in Buryatia, with a small section in Irkutsk ...
* Chersky Range
The Chersky Range (, ) is a chain of mountains in northeastern Siberia between the Yana River and the Indigirka River. Administratively the area of the range belongs to the Sakha Republic, although a small section in the east is within Magadan ...
* Chukotka Mountains
The Chukotka Mountains ( rus, Чукотское нагорье) or Chukotka Upland ''(Чукотская горная страна)'' is a mountainous area in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.[Dzhugdzhur Mountains
The Dzhugdzhur Mountains (russian: Джугджу́р) or Jugjur Mountains, meaning 'big bulge' in Evenki, are a mountain range along the western shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in the far east of Siberia.
The mountains are quite deserted, the ...]
* Kolyma Mountains
* Koryak Mountains
The Koryak Mountains or Koryak Highlands () are an area of mountain ranges in Far-Eastern Siberia, Russia, located in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and in Kamchatka Krai, with a small part in Magadan Oblast. The highest point in the system is the ...
* Sayan Mountains
The Sayan Mountains (russian: Саяны ''Sajany''; mn, Соёны нуруу, ''Soyonï nurû''; otk, 𐰚𐰇𐰏𐰢𐰤, Kögmen) are a mountain range in southern Siberia, Russia ( Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tuva Republic ...
* Tannu-Ola Mountains
The Tannu-Ola mountains ( tyv, Таңды-Уула, ''Tañdı-Uula'', uniturk, Taᶇdь-Uula, – Tangdy-Uula mountains; mn, Тагнын нуруу, ''Tağnîn nurú'', , russian: Танну-Ола, ) is a mountain range in southern Siberia, i ...
* Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
* Verkhoyansk Mountains
The Verkhoyansk Range (russian: Верхоянский хребет, ''Verkhojanskiy Khrebet''; sah, Үөһээ Дьааҥы сис хайата, ''Üöhee Chaangy sis khaĭata'') is a mountain range in the Sakha Republic, Russia near the settl ...
* Yablonoi Mountains
The Yablonoi Mountains or Yablonovy Mountains ( rus, Яблоновый хребет, bua, Яабланай шэлэ нуруу, ; mn, Яблоны нуруу, ''Yablony nuruu'') are a mountain range, in Transbaikal (mainly in Zabaykalsky K ...
Geomorphological regions
* Central Siberian Plateau
The Central Siberian Plateau (russian: Среднесибирское плоскогорье, Srednesibirskoye ploskogorye; sah, Орто Сибиир хаптал хайалаах сирэ) is a vast mountainous area in Siberia, one of the Gre ...
* Central Yakutian Lowland
The Central Yakutian LowlandJohn Kimble (ed.), ''Cryosols: Permafrost-Affected Soils'' or Central Yakutian Lowlands (russian: Центральноякутская равнина; sah, Саха сирин ортоку намтала), also known as ...
* East Siberian Lowland
* East Siberian Mountains
The East Siberian Mountains or East Siberian Highlands ( rus, Восточно-Сибирское нагорье) are one of the largest mountain systems of the Russian Federation. They are located between the Central Yakutian Lowland and the Ber ...
* North Siberian Lowland
The North Siberian Lowland (russian: Северо-Сибирская низменность; sah, Хотугу Сибиир намтала), also known as Taymyr Lowland (Таймырская низменность), is a plain with a relatively ...
* South Siberian Mountains
The South Siberian Mountains ( rus, Южно-Сибирские горы) are one of the largest mountain systems of the Russian Federation. The total area of the system of mountain ranges is more than 1.5 million km². The South Siberian Mountain ...
* West Siberian Lowland
Lakes and rivers
* Alazeya
The Alazeya ( rus, Алазея, r=; sah, Алаһыай, translit=Alahıay) is a river in the northeastern part of Yakutia, Russia which flows into the Arctic between the basins of the larger Indigirka to the west and the Kolyma to the east.
Mou ...
* Anabar Anabar may refer to:
* Anabar Bay, Laptev Sea
* Anabar Constituency, Nauru
* Anabar District, Nauru
* Anabar District, Russia, Sakha, Russia
* Anabar Highway, Russia
* Anabar Plateau, Russia
* Anabar (river), Sakha, Russia
* Anabar Shield
An ...
* Angara
* Indigirka
* Irtysh
The Irtysh ( otk, 𐰼𐱅𐰾:𐰇𐰏𐰕𐰏, Ertis ügüzüg, mn, Эрчис мөрөн, ''Erchis mörön'', "erchleh", "twirl"; russian: Иртыш; kk, Ертіс, Ertis, ; Chinese: 额尔齐斯河, pinyin: ''É'ěrqísī hé'', Xiao'e ...
* Kolyma
* Lake Baikal
* Lena
Lena or LENA may refer to:
Places
* Léna Department, a department of Houet Province in Burkina Faso
* Lena, Manitoba, an unincorporated community located in Killarney-Turtle Mountain municipality in Manitoba, Canada
* Lena, Norway, a village in ...
* Nizhnyaya Tunguska
The Nizhnyaya Tunguska ( rus, Ни́жняя Тунгу́ска, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪjə tʊnˈɡuskə, meaning "Lower Tunguska") is a river in Siberia, Russia, that flows through the Irkutsk Oblast and the Krasnoyarsk Krai. The river is a right tribut ...
* Novosibirsk Reservoir
Novosibirsk Reservoir or Novosibirskoye Reservoir (russian: Новосиби́рское водохрани́лище), informally called the Ob Sea (), is the largest artificial lake in Novosibirsk Oblast and Altai Krai, Russian Federation ...
* Ob
* Podkamennaya Tunguska
The Podkamennaya Tunguska (russian: Подкаменная Тунгуска, literally ''Tunguska under the stones''; evn, Дулгу Катэнӈа, Ket: Ӄо’ль) also known as ''Middle Tunguska'' or ''Stony Tunguska'', is a river in Krasno ...
* Popigay
* Upper Angara
The Upper Angara (, ''Verkhnyaya Angara''; , ''Deede Angar'') is a river in Buryatia, Siberia to the northeast of Lake Baikal. the third longest river in the Baikal basin. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .
The Baikal–Amur Mainline run ...
* Uvs Nuur
Uvs Lake ( mn, Увс нуур, Uws nuur, ; russian: Озеро Убсу-Нур, Ozero Ubsu-Nur; zh, 乌布苏湖, wū bù sū hú, pinyin: ''Wū Bù Sū hú'') is a highly saline lake in an endorheic basin— Uvs Nuur Basin in Mongolia with a ...
* Yana
Yana may refer to:
Locations
*Yana, Burma, a village in Hkamti Township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of northwestern Burma
*Yana, India, a village in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India
* Yana, Nigeria, an administrative ca ...
* Yenisey
The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas: Ким суғ, ''Kim suğ''; Ket: Ӄук, ...
Grasslands
* Ukok Plateau
Ukok Plateau is a plateau covered by grasslands located in southwestern Siberia, in the Altai Mountains region of Russia near the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The plateau is recognized as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site ent ...
—part of a UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
Geology
The West Siberian Plain, consisting mostly of Cenozoic alluvial deposits, is somewhat flat. In the mid-Pleistocene, many deposits on this plain resulted from ice dams which produced a large glacial lake. This mid- to late-Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
lake blocked the northward flow of the Ob and Yenisey
The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas: Ким суғ, ''Kim suğ''; Ket: Ӄук, ...
rivers, resulting in a redirection southwest into the Caspian and Aral seas via the Turgai Valley. The area is very swampy, and soils are mostly peaty histosol
In both the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) and the USDA soil taxonomy, a Histosol is a soil consisting primarily of organic materials. They are defined as having or more of organic soil material in the upper . Organic soil materia ...
s and, in the treeless northern part, histels. In the south of the plain, where permafrost is largely absent, rich grasslands that are an extension of the Kazakh Steppe formed the original vegetation, most of which is no longer visible.
The Central Siberian Plateau is an ancient craton
A craton (, , or ; from grc-gre, κράτος "strength") is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere, which consists of Earth's two topmost layers, the crust and the uppermost mantle. Having often survived cycles of merging an ...
(sometimes named ''Angaraland'') that formed an independent continent
A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas t ...
before the Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...
(see the Siberian continent). It is exceptionally rich in minerals, containing large deposits of gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
, diamond
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...
s, and ores of manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
, lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
, zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
, nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...
, cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...
, and molybdenum. Much of the area includes the Siberian Traps
The Siberian Traps (russian: Сибирские траппы, Sibirskiye trappy) is a large region of volcanic rock, known as a large igneous province, in Siberia, Russia. The massive eruptive event that formed the traps is one of the largest ...
—a large igneous province
A large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including intrusive (sills, dikes) and extrusive (lava flows, tephra deposits), arising when magma travels through the crust towards the surface. The formation ...
. A massive eruptive period approximately coincided with the Permian–Triassic extinction event
The Permian–Triassic (P–T, P–Tr) extinction event, also known as the Latest Permian extinction event, the End-Permian Extinction and colloquially as the Great Dying, formed the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as ...
. The volcanic event is said to be the largest known volcanic eruption
Several types of volcanic eruptions—during which lava, tephra (ash, lapilli, volcanic bombs and volcanic blocks), and assorted gases are expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure—have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are oft ...
in Earth's history
The history of Earth concerns the development of planet Earth from its formation to the present day. Nearly all branches of natural science have contributed to understanding of the main events of Earth's past, characterized by constant geologic ...
. Only the extreme northwest was glaciated
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...
during the Quaternary, but almost all is under exceptionally deep permafrost, and the only tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
that can thrive, despite the warm summers, is the deciduous Siberian Larch
''Larix sibirica'', the Siberian larch or Russian larch, is a frost-hardy tree native to western Russia, from close to the Finnish border east to the Yenisei valley in central Siberia, where it hybridises with the Dahurian larch ''L. gmelinii' ...
(''Larix sibirica'') with its very shallow roots. Outside the extreme northwest, the taiga
Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruc ...
is dominant, covering a significant fraction of the entirety of Siberia. Soils here are mainly turbels, giving way to spodosols
In soil science, podzols are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathland, which is often a construct of huma ...
where the active layer becomes thicker and the ice-content lower.
The ''Lena-Tunguska petroleum province'' includes the Central Siberian platform (some authors refer to it as the "Eastern Siberian platform"), bounded on the northeast and east by the Late Carboniferous
Late may refer to:
* LATE, an acronym which could stand for:
** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia
** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law
** Local average treatment effect, ...
through Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...
Verkhoyansk foldbelt, on the northwest by the Paleozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838
by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...
Taymr foldbelt, and on the southeast, south and southwest by the Middle Silurian to Middle Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, w ...
Baykalian foldbelt.[Meyerhof, A. A., 1980, "Geology and Petroleum Fields in Proterozoic and Lower Cambrian Strata, Lena-Tunguska Petroleum Province, Eastern Siberia, USSR", in ''Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade: 1968–1978'', AAPG Memoir 30, Halbouty, M. T., editor, Tulsa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, ] A regional geologic reconnaissance study begun in 1932 and followed by surface and subsurface mapping revealed the Markova-Angara Arch (anticline
In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...
). This led to the discovery of the Markovo Oil Field in 1962 with the Markovo—1 well, which produced from the Early Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago ...
Osa Horizon bar-sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
at a depth of .[ The ''Sredne-Botuobin Gas Field'' was discovered in 1970, producing from the Osa and the Proterozoic Parfenovo Horizon.][ The Yaraktin Oil Field was discovered in 1971, producing from the ]Vendian
The Ediacaran Period ( ) is a geological period that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 538.8 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and the ...
Yaraktin Horizon at depths of up to , which lies below Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...
to Lower Jurassic
The Early Jurassic Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, 201.3 Ma&nb ...
basalt traps.[
]
Climate
The climate of Siberia varies dramatically, but it typically has short summers and long, brutally cold winters. On the north coast, north of the Arctic Circle, there is a very short (about one month long) summer.
Almost all the population lives in the south, along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...
. The climate in this southernmost part is humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
(Köppen ''Dfb'') with cold winters but fairly warm summers lasting at least four months. The annual average temperature is about . January averages about and July about , while daytime temperatures in summer typically exceed . With a reliable growing season, an abundance of sunshine and exceedingly fertile chernozem
Chernozem (from rus, чернозём, p=tɕɪrnɐˈzʲɵm, r=chernozyom; "black ground"), also called black soil, is a black-colored soil containing a high percentage of humus (4% to 16%) and high percentages of phosphorus and ammonia compou ...
soils, southern Siberia is good enough for profitable agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
, as was demonstrated in the early 20th century.
By far the most commonly occurring climate in Siberia is continental subarctic (Koppen ''Dfc'' or ''Dwc''), with the annual average temperature about and an average for January of and an average for July of , although this varies considerably, with a July average about in the taiga–tundra ecotone
An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and gras ...
. The business-oriented website and blog ''Business Insider'' lists Verkhoyansk
Verkhoyansk ( rus, Верхоянск, p=vʲɪrxɐˈjansk; sah, Верхоянскай, ''Verkhoyanskay'') is a town in Verkhoyansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Yana River in the Arctic Circle, from Batagay, the ad ...
and Oymyakon
Oymyakon, ; sah, Өймөкөөн, ''Öymököön'', is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands, along the Indigirka River, northwest of Tomtor on the Koly ...
, in Siberia's Sakha Republic, as being in competition for the title of the Northern Hemisphere's ''Pole of Cold''. Oymyakon
Oymyakon, ; sah, Өймөкөөн, ''Öymököön'', is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands, along the Indigirka River, northwest of Tomtor on the Koly ...
is a village which recorded a temperature of on 6 February 1933. Verkhoyansk
Verkhoyansk ( rus, Верхоянск, p=vʲɪrxɐˈjansk; sah, Верхоянскай, ''Verkhoyanskay'') is a town in Verkhoyansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Yana River in the Arctic Circle, from Batagay, the ad ...
, a town further north and further inland, recorded a temperature of for three consecutive nights: 5, 6 and 7 February 1933. Each town is alternately considered the Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold – the coldest inhabited point in the Northern hemisphere. Each town also frequently reaches in the summer, giving them, and much of the rest of Russian Siberia, the world's greatest temperature-variation between summer's highs and winter's lows, often well over between the seasons.
Southwesterly winds bring warm air from Central Asia and the Middle East. The climate in West Siberia (Omsk, or Novosibirsk) is several degrees warmer than in the East (Irkutsk, or Chita) where in the north an extreme winter subarctic climate (Köppen ''Dfd'' or ''Dwd'') prevails. But summer temperatures in other regions can reach . In general, Sakha
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Ea ...
is the coldest Siberian region, and the basin of the Yana
Yana may refer to:
Locations
*Yana, Burma, a village in Hkamti Township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of northwestern Burma
*Yana, India, a village in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India
* Yana, Nigeria, an administrative ca ...
has the lowest temperatures of all, with permafrost reaching . Nevertheless, Imperial Russian plans of settlement never viewed cold as an impediment. In the winter, southern Siberia sits near the center of the semi-permanent Siberian High, so winds are usually light in the winter.
Precipitation (meteorology), Precipitation in Siberia is generally low, exceeding only in Kamchatka Peninsula, Kamchatka, where moist winds flow from the Sea of Okhotsk onto high mountains – producing the region's only major glaciers, though volcanic eruptions and low summer temperatures allow only limited forests to grow. Precipitation is high also in most of Primorsky Krai, Primorye in the extreme south, where monsoonal influences can produce quite heavy summer rainfall.
Global warming
Researchers, including Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University and Judith Marquand at Oxford University, warn that West Siberian Plain, Western Siberia has begun to thaw as a result of global warming. The frozen peat bogs in this region may hold billions of tons of methane gas, which may be released into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas Global warming potential, 22 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. In 2008 a research expedition for the American Geophysical Union detected levels of methane up to 100 times above normal in the atmosphere above the Siberian Arctic, likely the result of methane clathrates being released through holes in a frozen "lid" of seabed permafrost around the outfall of the Lena
Lena or LENA may refer to:
Places
* Léna Department, a department of Houet Province in Burkina Faso
* Lena, Manitoba, an unincorporated community located in Killarney-Turtle Mountain municipality in Manitoba, Canada
* Lena, Norway, a village in ...
and the area between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea.
Since 1988, experimentation at Pleistocene Park has proposed to restore the grasslands of prehistoric times by conducting research on the effects of large herbivores on permafrost, suggesting that animals, rather than climate, maintained the past ecosystem. The nature reserve park also conducts climatic research on the changes expected from the reintroduction of grazing animals or large herbivores, hypothesizing that a transition from tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...
to grassland would lead to a net change in energy emission to absorption ratios.[Sergey A. Zimov (6 May 2005)]
"Pleistocene Park: Return of the mammoths' ecosystem"
In: ''Science (journal), Science'', pages 796–798. Article also to be found i
www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/ – Materials.
Retrieved 5 May 2013.
According to Vasily Kryuchkov, approximately 31,000 square kilometers of the Russian Arctic has subjected to severe environmental disturbance.
Fauna
Birds
![Tetrao urogallus (mating display) (26738644457)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Tetrao_urogallus_%28mating_display%29_%2826738644457%29.jpg)
Order Galliformes
Family Grouse, Tetraonidae
* Hazel grouse
* Siberian grouse
* Black grouse
* Black-billed capercaillie
* Western capercaillie
* Willow ptarmigan
* Rock ptarmigan
Family Phasianidae
* Daurian partridge
* Grey partridge
* Altai snowcock
* Japanese quail
* Common quail
* Common pheasant, Ring-necked pheasant
Mammals
Order Even-toed ungulate, Artiodactyla
* Moose
* Bactrian camel
* European bison, Wisent (European bison)
* Red deer
* Wild boar
* Siberian roe deer
* Manchurian wapiti
* Siberian musk deer[ Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is of vulnerable.]
Order Carnivora
Family Canidae
* Wolf, Grey wolf
* Tundra wolf
* Arctic fox
* Red fox
Family Felidae
* Snow leopard
* Amur leopard
* Siberian tiger
* Eurasian lynx
* Pallas cat
Family Mustelidae
* Least weasel
* Stoat
* Mountain weasel
* Siberian weasel
* Steppe polecat
* Sable
* Eurasian otter, Eurasian river otter
* Asian badger
* Wolverine
Family Bear, Ursidae
* Asian black bear
* Brown bear
* Polar bear
Flora
* ''Larix sibirica''
* ''Larix gmelinii''
* ''Picea obovata''
* ''Pinus pumila''
Politics
Notable sovereign states in Siberia
* Xianbei state (1st–3rd century CE)
* First Turkic Khaganate (6th–7th century)
* Eastern Turkic Khaganate (7th century)
* Second Turkic Khaganate (7th–8th century)
* Mongol Empire (13th–14th century)
* Khanate of Sibir
The Khanate of Sibir (also Khanate of Turan,
sty, Себер ханлыгы) was a Tatar Khanate located in southwestern Siberia with a Turco-Mongol ruling class. Throughout its history, members of the Shaybanid and Taibugid dynasties often con ...
(1468–1598)
* Tsardom of Russia (1598–1721)
* Russian Empire (1721–1917)
* Russian Republic (1917–1918)
* Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (1918–1922)
* Far Eastern Republic (1920–1922)
* Tuvan People's Republic (1921–1944)
* Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
(1922–1991)
** Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1922–1991)
* Russian Federation (1991–present)
Borders and administrative division
]
The term "Siberia" has both a long history and wide significance, and association. The understanding, and association of "Siberia" have gradually changed during the ages. Historically, Siberia was defined as the whole part of Russia and North Kazakhstan to the east of Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
, including the Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
. According to this definition, Siberia extended eastward from the Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
to the Pacific coast, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the border of Central Asia and the national borders of both Mongolia and China.
Soviet-era sources (''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' and others)[Сибирь — Большая советская энциклопедия]
(The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'', in Russian) and modern Russian ones usually define Siberia as a region extending eastward from the Ural Mountains to the drainage divide, watershed between Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Arctic Ocean, Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. By this definition, Siberia includes the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of the Siberian Federal District, and some of the Ural Federal District, as well as Sakha Republic, Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, which is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District. Geographically, this definition includes subdivisions of several other subjects of Urals and Far Eastern federal districts, but they are not included administratively. This definition excludes Sverdlovsk Oblast and Chelyabinsk Oblast, both of which are included in some wider definitions of Siberia.
Other sources may use either a somewhat wider definition that states the Pacific coast, not the watershed, is the eastern boundary (thus including the whole Russian Far East), as well as all Northern Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
is its subregion in the south-west or a somewhat narrower one that limits Siberia to the Siberian Federal District (thus excluding all subjects of other districts). In Russian, 'Siberia' is commonly used as a substitute for the name of the federal district by those who live in the district itself, but less commonly used to denote the federal district by people residing outside of it. Due to the different interpretations of Siberia, starting from Tyumen, to Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Chita, the territory generally defined as 'Siberia', some people will define themselves as 'Siberian', while others not.
A number of factors in recent years, including the fomenting of 'Siberian separatism' have made the definition of the territory of Siberia a potentially controversial subject. In the eastern extent of Siberia there are territories which are not clearly defined as either Siberia or the Russian Far East, Far East, making the question of 'what is Siberia?' one with no clear answer, and what is a 'Siberian', one of self-identification.
Major cities
The most populous city of Siberia, as well as the third most populous city of Russia, is the city of Novosibirsk. Present-day Novosibirsk is an important business, science, manufacturing and cultural center of the Asian part of Russia.
Omsk played an important role in the Russian Civil War serving as a provisional Russian capital, as well in the expansion into and governing of Russian conquest of Central Asia, Central Asia. In addition to its cultural status, it has become a major oil-refining, education, transport and agriculture hub.
Other historic cities of Siberia include Tobolsk
Tobolsk (russian: Тобо́льск) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1590, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, an ...
(the first capital and the only Tobolsk Kremlin, kremlin in Siberia), Tomsk (formerly a wealthy merchant's town) and Irkutsk (former seat of Eastern Siberia's governor general, near lake Baikal).
Other major cities include: Barnaul, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk ( ; rus, Красноя́рск, a=Ru-Красноярск2.ogg, p=krəsnɐˈjarsk) (in semantic translation - Red Ravine City) is the largest city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yeni ...
, Novokuznetsk, Tyumen.
Wider definitions of geographic Siberia also include the cities of: Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg in the Urals, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, and even Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan and Harbin in China.
Economy
Novosibirsk is the largest by population and the most important city for the Siberian economy; with an extra boost since 2000 when it was designated a regional center for the executive bureaucracy (Siberian Federal District). Omsk is a historic and currently the second largest city in the region, and since 1950s hosting Russia's largest oil refinery.
Siberia is extraordinarily rich in minerals, containing ores of almost all economically valuable metals. It has some of the world's largest deposits of Norilsk#Norilsk-Talnakh nickel deposits, nickel, gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
, lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
, coal, molybdenum, gypsum, diamond
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...
s, diopside, silver and zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
, as well as extensive unexploited resources of oil and natural gas. Around 70% of Russia's developed List of oil fields, oil fields are in the Khanty-Mansiysk region. Russia contains about 40% of the world's known resources of nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...
at the Norilsk
Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk, ''Norílʹsk'') is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk ...
deposit in Siberia. Norilsk Nickel is the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer.
Siberian agriculture is severely restricted by the short growing season of most of the region. However, in the southwest where soils consist of exceedingly fertile black earths and the climate is a little more moderate, there is extensive cropping of wheat, barley, rye and potatoes, along with the grazing of large numbers of sheep and cattle. Elsewhere food production, owing to the poor fertility of the podzolic soils and the extremely short growing seasons, is restricted to the Reindeer herding, herding of reindeer in the tundra—which has been practiced by natives for over 10,000 years. Siberia has the world's largest forests. Timber remains an important source of revenue, even though many forests in the east have been logged much more rapidly than they are able to recover. The Sea of Okhotsk is one of the two or three richest fisheries in the world owing to its cold currents and very large tide, tidal ranges, and thus Siberia produces over 10% of the world's annual fish catch, although fishing has declined somewhat since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Reported in 2009, the development of renewable energy in Russia is held back by the lack of a conducive government policy framework, , Siberia still offers special opportunities for off-grid renewable energy developments. Remote parts of Siberia are too costly to connect to central electricity and gas grids, and have therefore historically been supplied with costly diesel, sometimes flown in by helicopter. In such cases renewable energy is often cheaper.
In 2020 the gross regional product of Siberia was 26.7 trillion Russian rouble, ₽ or around US$400 billion.
Sport
Professional football teams include FC Tom Tomsk, FC Novosibirsk, and FK Yenisey Krasnoyarsk.
The BC Yenisey Krasnoyarsk, Yenisey Krasnoyarsk basketball team has played in the VTB United League since 2011–12.
Russia's third most popular sport, bandy, is important in Siberia. In the 2015–16 Russian Bandy Super League, 2015–16 Russian Bandy Super League season Yenisey Krasnoyarsk Bandy Club, Yenisey from Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk ( ; rus, Красноя́рск, a=Ru-Красноярск2.ogg, p=krəsnɐˈjarsk) (in semantic translation - Red Ravine City) is the largest city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yeni ...
became champions for the third year in a row by beating Baykal-Energiya from Irkutsk in the final. Two or three more teams (depending on the definition of Siberia) play in the Super League, the 2016–17 Russian Bandy Super League, 2016–17 champions SKA-Neftyanik Khabarovsk, SKA-Neftyanik from Khabarovsk (disambiguation), Khabarovsk as well as Kuzbass Kemerovo Bandy Club, Kuzbass from Kemerovo and Sibselmash from Novosibirsk. In 2007 Kemerovo got Russia's first indoor arena specifically built for bandy. Now Khabarovsk has the world's largest indoor arena specifically built for bandy, Arena Yerofey. It was venue for Division A of the 2018 Bandy World Championship, 2018 World Championship. In time for the 2020 Bandy World Championship, 2020 World Championship, an indoor arena will be ready for use in Irkutsk. That one will also have a speed skating rink, speed skating oval.
The 2019 Winter Universiade was hosted by Krasnoyarsk.
Demographics
According to the Russian Census (2010), Russian Census of 2010, the Siberian Federal District, Siberian and Far Eastern Federal District, Far Eastern Federal Districts, located entirely east of the Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
, together have a population of about 25.6 million. Tyumen Oblast, Tyumen and Kurgan Oblast, Kurgan Oblasts, which are geographically in Siberia but administratively part of the Urals Federal District, together have a population of about 4.3 million. Thus, the whole region of Siberia (in the broadest usage of the term) is home to approximately 30 million people. It has a population density of about three people per square kilometre.
The largest ethnic group in Siberia is Slavic-origin Russians, including their sub-ethnic group Siberians, and russified Ukrainians in Siberia, Ukrainians. There are also other groups of indigenous Siberian and non-indigenous ethnic origin. A minority of the current population are descendants of Mongol or Turkic people (Buryats, Yakuts) or northern indigenous people.
The largest non-Slavic groups are the Volga Germans and Russified Romanians with ancestral origins in Bessarabia (present-day Moldova). The original indigenous groups of Siberia, including Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic groups such as Buryats, Tuvinians and Siberian Tatars, are minorities outnumbered by all other non-indigenous Siberians. Indeed, Slavic-origin Russians by themselves outnumber all of the indigenous peoples combined, both in Siberia as a whole and its cities, except in the Republics of Tuva and Sakha.
Slavic-origin Russians make up the majority in the Buryat and Altai Republics, outnumbering indigenous Buryats and Altai people, Altai. The Buryat make up only 30% of their own republic, and the Altai each are only one-third, and the Chukchi, Evenks, Evenk, Khanty people, Khanty, Mansi people, Mansi, and Nenets are outnumbered by non-indigenous peoples by 90% of the population.
According to the 2002 census there are 500,000 Siberian Tatars, Tatars in Siberia, but of these, 300,000 are Volga Tatars who also settled in Siberia during periods of colonization and are thus also non-indigenous Siberians, in contrast to the 200,000 Siberian Tatars which are indigenous to Siberia.
Of the indigenous Siberians, the Mongol-speaking Buryats, numbering approximately 500,000, are the most numerous group in Siberia, and they are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryatia, Buryat Republic. According to the Demographics of Russia#Ethnic groups, 2010 census there were 478,085 indigenous Turkic-speaking Yakuts. Other ethnic groups indigenous to Siberia include Ket people, Kets, Evenks, Chukchis, Koryaks, Yupik peoples, Yupiks, and Yukaghirs.
About seventy percent of Siberia's people live in cities, mainly in apartments. Many people also live in rural areas, in simple, spacious, log houses. Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, with a population of about 1.6 million. Tobolsk
Tobolsk (russian: Тобо́льск) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1590, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, an ...
, Tomsk, Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk ( ; rus, Красноя́рск, a=Ru-Красноярск2.ogg, p=krəsnɐˈjarsk) (in semantic translation - Red Ravine City) is the largest city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yeni ...
, Irkutsk, and Omsk are the older, historical centers.
Religion
There are a variety of beliefs throughout Siberia, including Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox Christianity, other denominations of Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism and Islam. The Siberian Federal District alone has an estimation of 250,000 Muslims.
An estimated 70,000 History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union, Jews live in Siberia, some in the Jewish Autonomous Region. The predominant religious group is the Russian Orthodox Church.
Tradition regards Siberia the archetypal home of shamanism, and polytheism is popular.[Hoppál 2005:13] These native sacred practices are considered by the tribes to be very ancient. There are records of Siberian tribal healing practices dating back to the 13th century. The vast territory of Siberia has many different local traditions of gods. These include: Ak Ana, Anapel, Bugady Musun, Kayra, Kara Khan, Khaltesh-Anki, Kini'je, Ku'urkil, Nga (god), Nga, Nu'tenut, Num-Torum, Yukaghir Pon, Pon, Pugu (deity), Pugu, Todote, Toko'yoto, Tomam, Xaya Iccita and Zonget. Places with sacred areas include Olkhon, an island in Lake Baikal.
Transport
Many cities in northern Siberia, such as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, cannot be reached by road, as there are virtually none connecting from other major cities in Russia or Asia. Siberia can be reached through the Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...
. The Trans-Siberian Railway operates from Moscow in the west to Vladivostok in the east. Cities that are located far from the railway are reached by air or by the separate Baikal–Amur Mainline, Baikal–Amur Railway (BAM).
Culture
Cuisine
Stroganina is a raw fish dish of the indigenous people of northern Arctic Siberia made from raw, thin, long-sliced frozen fish. It is a popular dish with native Siberians. Siberia is also known for its pelmeni dumpling; which in the winter are traditionally frozen and stored outdoors. In addition, there are various berry, nut and mushroom dishes making use of the riches of abundant nature.
See also
*Siberian regionalism
*Tunguska Basin
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
* Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Abby Schrader and Willard Sunderland (eds), ''Peopling the Russian Periphery: Borderland Colonization in Eurasian history'' (London, Routledge, 2007).
*
*
* James Forsyth, ''A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581–1990'' (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994).
*
*
* Steven G. Marks, ''Road to Power: The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia, 1850–1917'' (London, I.B. Tauris, 1991).
*
* Igor V. Naumov, ''The History of Siberia''. Edited by David Collins (London, Routledge, 2009) (Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe).
*
*
*
* Alan Wood (ed.), ''The History of Siberia: From Russian Conquest to Revolution'' (London, Routledge, 1991).
*
*
{{Authority control
Siberia,
North Asia
Eurasian Steppe
Geography of Russia
Regions of Russia
Geography of Kazakhstan