Russia is huge. Like, mind-bogglingly huge. If you’ve ever looked at a map and wondered why that one country seems to swallow half the northern hemisphere, you aren’t just imagining it. It’s the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world when it comes to sheer real estate.
Honestly, it’s hard to wrap your brain around the scale. We’re talking about 17,098,242 square kilometers. To put that in perspective, that is roughly 11% of the Earth's total landmass. If you were to take a train from one side to the other—the famous Trans-Siberian Railway—it would take you about a week of non-stop travel. Seven days of staring out a window. You'd cross eleven different time zones. You’ve basically gone through half a day just by moving across one country.
By Area What Is the Largest Country in the World: Breaking Down the Numbers
When people ask by area what is the largest country in the world, they usually expect a close race. It isn't. Russia is nearly double the size of the runner-up, Canada. While Canada sits at roughly 9.98 million square kilometers, Russia is cruising at over 17 million. It’s so big that it’s actually larger than the surface area of Pluto. Yeah, the (former) planet.
But here’s where it gets kinda weird. Total area includes water, and Canada actually has more lakes than anyone else. If you stripped away all the water and looked strictly at land area, the rankings shift a tiny bit, but Russia stays firmly at number one.
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- Russia: ~17.1 million sq km
- Canada: ~9.98 million sq km
- China: ~9.7 million sq km
- United States: ~9.37 million sq km
It's a massive gap. The United States and China are often neck-and-neck depending on how you measure coastal waters or disputed territories, but neither of them comes close to touching the Russian landmass.
Why Does It Look So Much Bigger on Maps?
You've probably seen a Mercator projection map in school. It’s the one where Greenland looks the size of Africa. Because the Earth is a sphere and maps are flat, things near the poles get stretched out like crazy.
Since Russia is so far north, it gets the "Mercator boost." On a flat map, it looks like it could eat the rest of the world for breakfast. In reality, Africa is actually much larger than Russia—Africa is about 30 million square kilometers, while Russia is 17 million. Don't get me wrong, 17 million is still massive, but the map makes it look like it's 50 million.
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The Logistics of Running a Giant
Being the largest country in the world isn't all just bragging rights. It’s a logistical nightmare. Imagine trying to build a road system that connects a city on the Baltic Sea to a port on the Pacific Ocean. Most of that land is "taiga"—vast, endless coniferous forests—or "tundra," where the ground is literally frozen year-round (permafrost).
- Population density: It’s super low. Most of the 146 million people live in the European part, west of the Ural Mountains.
- The "Empty" East: Once you cross into Siberia, you can go hundreds of miles without seeing a single soul.
- Natural Resources: This is the big win. Being this big means you probably have everything. Oil, natural gas, timber, and enough fresh water in Lake Baikal to keep the world hydrated for decades.
Actually, Lake Baikal alone holds about 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water. It’s the deepest lake on Earth. It’s just one of those "only in the largest country" kind of stats that feels fake but is totally real.
The Border Situation
When you’re this big, you have a lot of neighbors. Russia shares borders with 14 different countries. It’s got Norway and Finland on one side and North Korea on the other. It even technically has a maritime border with the United States; at the Bering Strait, the distance between the Russian Big Diomede island and the American Little Diomede island is only about 3.8 kilometers. You could basically see your neighbor's house with a good pair of binoculars.
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Survival in the Extreme
Geography dictates destiny, or so they say. The sheer size of Russia has protected it from invasions historically—the "General Winter" effect. Napoleon and Hitler both found out the hard way that when you invade the largest country in the world, the distance kills you as much as the cold does. There’s just too much space to cover, and the supply lines eventually just snap.
But the climate is brutal. In places like Oymyakon, temperatures can drop to -60°C. That’s not just "cold," that’s "your eyelashes freeze together" cold. Living in the world's largest country means dealing with every imaginable landscape, from the subtropics of Sochi on the Black Sea to the polar deserts of the High Arctic.
What This Means for You
If you’re a traveler, the scale means you can’t "do" Russia in a week. You pick a region. You go to the Caucasus mountains for hiking, or you hit the imperial history of St. Petersburg. Trying to see the whole thing is like trying to see all of North America in one go—you'll just end up tired and spending all your money on train tickets.
Actionable Insights for the Curious:
- Check out The True Size Of: Go to thetruesize.com and drag Russia over the equator. You’ll see it "shrink" as the map distortion disappears, giving you a real sense of its scale relative to Africa or South America.
- Understand the Water Factor: When looking at "largest" rankings, always check if they mean "Total Area" or "Land Area." Canada and the US often swap spots depending on whether you count the Great Lakes.
- Look into the Trans-Siberian: If you want to actually feel the size, research the Moscow to Vladivostok route. It’s the ultimate bucket-list way to experience 9,000 kilometers of continuous land.
Understanding by area what is the largest country in the world is really about understanding how geography shapes power, climate, and culture. Russia's size is its greatest asset and its biggest challenge, a massive stretch of earth that remains, in many parts, as wild and empty as it was centuries ago.