Russia, or the Russian Federation is located in North Eurasia, is the largest country with over 17,125,000 square kilometers of land, equivalent to one-eighth of the world’s habited land area. It is ranked as the 9th most population with over144 million people. The political system of Russia is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic comprising 83 administrative areas. From the northwest to the southeast, Russia has borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lituania and Poland (with Kaliningrad Administration in between), Belarus, Ukrain, Georgia,Azerbijan, Kazakstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. In addition, it has sea borders with Japan by the Okhotsk Sea and the United States with the Channel. It covers the whole North Asia and 40% of European land with 9 time zones and several different environments and various geological configurations. It possesses the largest reserves of minerals and energy, being the world’s largest energy reserve and largest natural gas producer. In addition, it has the largest forest areas and lakes in Russia hold about one-fourth of the world’s fresh water resources.

With about 144.3 million people in 2016, the population number has been declining since 1990 as a result of higher death rate versus lower birth rate. The birth rate in Russia is about the same as other European countries (at 11.3 per 1,000 population in 2007 compared to the average of European Union’s 10.25 per 1,000 population). However, Russia’s population is more declining than the EU because of more death rate than birth rate (14.7 per 1,000 population compared to the EU’s 10.39 per 1,000 population in 2007. As the declining population has affected the economic development, the government has set up measures to reduce the death rate while increasing the birth rate by improving the people’s health. The ministry of Public Health expects that the death rate and birth rate will be even by 2011.

Russia has the world’s largest land, and so the population density rate is only 40%.

Asian Regions for the Development Plan

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Master plan

by NSUE