Borders of Russia

Russia has international borders with 14 sovereign states, as well as South Ossettia and Abkhazia. The last two are both recognized as sovereign states by Russia and a small number of other countries. With a land border of 20,241 kilometres (12,577 mi) in total it has, behind China, the second-longest land border of any country.

Length [edit]

The total length of Russia's borders is 98,061 kilometres (60,932 mi). Of these, the share of maritime boundaries has 38,807 kilometres (24,114 mi) (about 2/3), land - 22,125 kilometres (13,748 mi) (including 7,616 kilometres (4,732 mi) - along the rivers and lakes). The northern and eastern boundaries of the sea, and the western and south - primarily land. The great length of the state of Russia's borders determined by the size of its territory and sinuosity shape coastlines seas of the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans washing over its shores.

Overview [edit]

West [edit]

The western border is not clearly marked by natural boundaries for almost its entire length. It begins on the coast of the Barents Sea, with Norway to the west. and passes first by hilly tundra, and then through the valley of the River Paz. South of Norway, Russia borders Finland for 1,340km (833mi. Along the border is a hill called Manselkya, on very swampy and boggy terrain, the slope of a low ridge, Salpouselkya, and 160 km southwest of Vyborg coming to the Gulf of Finland. West of Finland, the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad borders the Gulf of Gdansk (also spelled Danzig)to the west, Lithuania to the north (on the Neman and Sesupe rivers) and Poland to the south. It is not a connected to the rest of Russia by land

Moving away from the Gulf of Finland, the border goes through the Narva River, lakes Peipsi and Pskov. The landscape in this part mostly consists of low plains and some significant elevations (Vitebsk, Smolensk and Moscow, the southern spurs of the Central, Donetsk ridge) and other rivers (upper reaches of the Western Dvina, the Dnieper, the Desna and Parliament, the Seversky Donets and Oskol). Sometimes one sees minor river valleys and small lakes. Hilly wooded areas occur, as well as gullies and ravines, forest-steppe and steppe. These are mostly plowed, open spaces leading to the Taganrog Bay of the Azov Sea. Here, Russia's neighbors for over 1000 km are the former republics of the Soviet Union: Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine.The southern border area, like the western, mostly covers land. It starts from the Kerch Strait, which connects the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, and passes through the territorial waters of the Black Sea to the mouth of the river Psou.

South [edit]

Here begins the land border with Georgia and Azerbaijan. It passes through the valley of Psou, and then mainly on the Main, or Watershed, the Greater Caucasus mountain range. It goes through the side of the ridge in the area between the Roki and the Kodori passes. Then it covers the Dividing Range to Mount Bazarduzu, where it turns north to the Samur River, the Valley, which reaches to the Caspian Sea. Thus, in the Greater Caucasus, the Russian border is clearly recorded as a natural border. This is because settlements were hard to organize due to the high and steep mountain slopes. The border in the Caucasus is more than 1000 km long.

Further, the Russian border runs along the Caspian Sea, off the coast near the eastern edge of which the Volga delta marks the start of the land border between Russia and Kazakhstan. It passes through the deserts and dry steppes of the Caspian lowlands, near the junction of Mugodzhar with the Urals, on the southern steppes of Western Siberia and the Altai mountains. Russia has the longest border with Kazakhstan (more than 7500 km), but almost no fixed natural boundaries. The territory of the Kulunda plains, for example, is approximately 450 km long, extending from the north-west to south-east almost in a straight line parallel to the Irtysh river. However, about 1,500 km of border runs along the rivers Little Uzen (Caspian Sea), the Urals and its left tributary Jilek, at Tobol and its left tributary - Uy River (the longest smallist border with Kazakhstan) as well as a number of smaller tributaries of the Tobol.

East [edit]

The eastern part of the border is located in the Altai area. It passes through the ridges separating the pool from the Katun basin Bukhtarma - the right tributary of the Irtysh. Almost the whole Russian border from the Altai to the Pacific Ocean is situated on a mountain belt. In the area where the ridges south of Altai and Mongolian Altai join is a mountain site called Sailyugem Tabyn-Bogd Uul (4082 m). Here, the borders of three countries meet: China, Mongolia and Russia. The border between Russia, China and Mongolia is only 100 miles longer than the Russian-Kazakh border.

This border runs along the ridge Sailyugem, the northern edge of Uvs Nuur Basin, Tuva mountain ranges, the Eastern Sayan (Sayan Large) and Trans (Dzhida, Herman and others). Then it reaches out to the rivers Argun, Amur, Ussuri and its left tributary - the river Sungacha. Over 80% of the Russian-Chinese border runs along rivers. The state border crosses the northern part of the waters of Lake Khanka, passes through the ridges of the Border and Black Mountains. In the far south Russia is bordered by North Korea's Tumen River (Tumen). The length of this border is only 17 km. The eastern border of Russia is dominated by sea. It runs on water expanses of the Pacific Ocean and its seas - Japan, Okhotsk Sea and the Bering Sea. The boundary runs along a more or less extensive sea straits: with Japan - the Straits of La Perouse, Kunashir, and a formerly Soviet strait, separating the Russian island of Sakhalin, Kunashir and Tanfilyev (Minor Kuril Ridge) from the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The United States has footing in the Bering Strait, where Diomede is a group of islands. It is here that the narrow (5 km) Strait between Russia and the U.S. island Ratmanov Krusenstern counts as a state border of Russia and the United States.

Table of countries with a land border with Russia listed anti-clockwise around Russia.^[1]

Country	Length (km)
Norway	196
Finland	1313
Estonia	290
Latvia	292
Lithuania	227
Poland	432
Belarus	959
Ukraine	1576
Georgia	723
Azerbaijan	284
Kazakhstan	6846
China (S)	40
Mongolia	3441
China (SE)	3605
North Korea	17.5