By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history.
Commerce, and particularly fur trade, was the driving force behind this expansion. By moving East along Central Eurasia, the Russians also managed to avoid the remaining, powerful steppe peoples. The highways used were the many rivers and their tributaries, allowing even further expansion to the east.
The Mercator projection makes Russia much larger on geographical maps, compared to the territories closer to the equator. No other nation found any particular reason to grab sub-Arctic Russia, Siberia and the Far East.
In the late 1800s, Russia was the largest country in the world. Stretching from the Black Sea in Europe to the Bering Straits in the extreme east of Asia. It would take at least ten days to travel from one end to another by train.
Defeat in the Crimean War further reduced Russian interest in this region. Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing the United States would off-set the designs of Russia's greatest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain.
It has enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. It is the world's eighth-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the sixth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). Due to a volatile currency exchange rate, Russia's GDP as measured in dollars fluctuates sharply.
However, large parts of Russia are uninhabited or uninhabitable because permafrost (soil that remains frozen throughout the year and is unsuitable for agriculture) covers more than 60% of Russia's territory.
The Mercator projection, the most popular world map, distorts the size of the shape of landmasses near the pole. This results in Russia looking bigger than Africa. Actually Africa can nearly fit two Russias. In fact, Africa has an area of 11.73 million square miles while Russian one is only 6.6 million square miles.
The three largest sovereign countries by surface area are Russia, Canada, and the United States. Together they occupy roughly a quarter of Earth's landmass. Other heavyweights in size are China, Brazil, Australia, India, Argentina and Kazakhstan.
Following Swedish losses in the 1808-1809 Finnish War with Russia, Finland became part of the Russian Empire from 1809 until its independence in 1917. Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, although during this time it retained many of the laws that it had adopted while part of Sweden.
Prints and Photographs Division. On March 30, 1867, the United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl.
A new Guardian analysis of Institute for the Study of War data shows that, after once having seized as much as 51,000 sq miles (132,000 sq km) of Ukrainian land, Russia has since lost a fifth of this. It now controls 40,000 sq miles of Ukrainian land, entirely in the south and east.
United States. The United States of America is a North American nation that is the world's most dominant economic and military power.
The United States remains the most powerful country in the world, followed by China and Russia. However, the balance of power may shift in the coming years as countries like India and Brazil continue to grow economically and assert themselves on the global stage.
Australia is the planet's sixth largest country after Russia, Canada, China, the USA, and Brazil. At 7 692 024 km2, it accounts for just five percent of the world's land area of 149 450 000 km2, and although it is the smallest continental land mass, it is the world's largest island.
The continents are, from largest to smallest: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.
The world map you are probably familiar with is called the Mercator projection (below), which was developed all the way back in 1569 and greatly distorts the relative areas of land masses. It makes Africa look tiny, and Greenland and Russia appear huge.
Sakha Republic, Russia
Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, is an expansive and vastly unexplored area of Siberia where temperatures can drop to as low as -52°C.
Russia may be different. Its population is falling unusually fast and may drop to 130m by mid-century. The decline is associated with increased misery: the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of covid, partly from alcohol-related disease.
Iceland. The mountainous and barren interior of the country is largely uninhabited because the weather and terrain are brutal. Lava deserts, volcanic mountains, snow and ice cover the majority of the region, with little vegetation.
In short, Russia is ranked 2nd out of 140 in military strength while the US is ranked 1st. As per the army population, Russia has 142,320,790 soldiers while The US has 334,998,398 soldiers. The available manpower is 69,737,187 with Russia and 147,399,295 with the United States.
The US dominates the air with far more bases, fighter jets and bombers than Russia but Russia is superior on the ground with more tanks, artillery and land vehicles. At sea, the countries are more evenly matched, but here the US has the edge with more destroyers, submarines and aircraft carriers.
Russia's military capabilities outnumbered those of Ukraine for most indicators as of 2023. For example, the number of aircraft at the disposal of the Russian Army was close to 4.2 thousand, while the Ukrainian Armed Forces possessed over 310 aircraft. Russia's naval fleet was nearly 16 times larger than Ukraine's.
The world's 12th largest economy
Strong growth in 2021 solidified Australia's position as the world's 12th largest economy in 2021. Nominal GDP was around A$2.2 trillion (US$1.6 trillion) in 2021. Australia is home to just 0.3% of the world's population, but accounts for 1.7% of the global economy.