Siberia

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Siberia (orthographic projection).png
Map of the Trans-Siberian Railway

Siberia (Russian: Сибирь) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and the massive central and eastern portion of Russia. Geographically, it includes a large part of the Eurasian Steppe and extends eastward from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between Pacific and Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. It makes up about 77% of Russia's territory (13.1 million square kilometres), but only 25% of Russia's population (36.8 million people).

Vegetation in Siberia consists mostly of taiga, with some temperate forest around the Kazakh border and a tundra belt in the far north.

Most of Siberia's population is of European ancestry and lives on the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway, near the Kazakh, Mongol, and Chinese borders. The largest cities are Novosibirsk and Omsk.

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