West Siberian Plain

Coordinates: 62°00′N 76°00′E / 62.000°N 76.000°E / 62.000; 76.000
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West Siberian Plain
Западно-Сибирская равнина
Plain
View of the Vasyugan River
View of the Vasyugan River
West Siberian Plain is located in Russia
West Siberian Plain
West Siberian Plain
Location in Russia
Coordinates: 62°00′N 76°00′E / 62.000°N 76.000°E / 62.000; 76.000
LocationRussia
Kazakhstan
Part ofSiberia
Area
 • Total2,600,000 km2 (1,000,000 sq mi)
Dimensions
 • Length2,500 kilometers (1,600 mi)
 • Width1,500 kilometers (930 mi)
Western Siberian plain on a satellite map of North Asia
Map of the West Siberian Plain showing its subdivisions

The West Siberian Plain (

Yenisei River in the east, and the Altai Mountains on the southeast. Much of the plain is poorly drained and consists of some of the world's largest swamps and floodplains. Important cities include Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, and Tomsk, as well as Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk
.

Winters on the West Siberian Plain are harsh and long. The climate of most of the plain areas is either subarctic or continental. The plain had large petroleum and natural gas reserves. Most of Russia's oil and gas production was extracted from this area during the 1970s and 80s.[1]

Geography

Trans-Siberian railway outside Tatarskaya

The West Siberian Plain is located east of the

swamps
and large regions of the plains are flooded in the spring.

The long Yenisei river flows broadly south to north, a distance of 3,530 km (2,193 mi) to the Arctic Ocean, where it discharges more than 20 million litres (5 million gallons) of water per second at its mouth. Together with its tributary Angara, the two rivers flow 5,530 km (3,436 mi). The valley formed by the Yenisei acts as a rough dividing line between the West Siberian Plain and the

Kulunda Plain, which extends southwards into Kazakhstan and is limited to the south by the Kokshetau Hills.[8]

The West Siberian Plain is very

Histels. is one of the world's largest areas of peatlands, which are characterized by raised bogs. Vasyugan Swamp, one of the world's largest single raised bogs, covers approximately 51,600 square kilometres (19,900 sq mi). There are numerous lakes in the vast interfluve swamps of the Ob-Taz floodplain.[3]

Flora and fauna

The plain has eight distinct vegetation regions: tundra, forest-tundra, northern taiga, middle taiga, southern taiga, sub-taiga forest, forest-steppe, and steppe. The number of animal species in the West Siberian Plain ranges from at least 107 in the tundra to 278 or more in the forest-steppe region. 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, which had almost all been cleared by the early 21st century.

Geology

See also: Turgay Depression

The West Siberian Plain consists mostly of

Yenisei rivers, redirecting them into the Caspian Sea, and perhaps the Aral Sea
as well.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Western Siberian Plain". Columbia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2006-10-24.
  2. ^ "Russia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2006-10-24.
  3. ^ a b Physical Geography of the Soviet Union - West Siberian Plain
  4. A.M. Prokhorov
    - 3rd ed. 1969-1978.
  5. A.M. Prokhorov
    - 3rd ed. 1969-1978.
  6. A.M. Prokhorov
    . - 3rd ed. - M. Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978. (in Russian)
  7. ^ The history of agricultural development of the Baraba Lowland
  8. ^ Flora of Salt Lakes of the Kulunda Plain (Southern Western Siberia)

External links

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