Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, located between China and Russia. The terrain is one of mountains and rolling plateaus, with a high degree of relief. The total land area of Mongolia is 1,564,116 square kilometres. Overall, the land slopes from the high Altai Mountains of the west and the north to plains and depressions in the east and the south. The Khüiten Peak in extreme western Mongolia on the Chinese border is the highest point. The lowest point is at 560 m (1,840 ft), is the Hoh Nuur or lake Huh. The country has an average elevation of 1,580 m (5,180 ft).
Russia is the largest country in the world, covering over 17,125,191 km2 (6,612,073 sq mi), and encompassing more than one-eighth of Earth's inhabited land area. Russia extends across eleven time zones, and has the most borders of any country in the world, with sixteen sovereign nations.
The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the global conservation organization, as priorities for conservation. According to WWF, an ecoregion is defined as a "relatively large unit of land or water containing a characteristic set of natural communities that share a large majority of their species dynamics, and environmental conditions". For example, based on their levels of endemism, Madagascar gets multiple listings, ancient Lake Baikal gets one, and the North American Great Lakes get none.
The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria, with one major exclave, the Pannonian steppe, located mostly in Hungary.
A forest steppe is a temperate-climate ecotone and habitat type composed of grassland interspersed with areas of woodland or forest.
The Circumboreal Region in phytogeography is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan.
Far Eastern Krai was a krai of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1938. Its capital was Khabarovsk. It was the largest administrative-territorial unit of the Soviet Union after the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, occupying 12% of its territory. On October 21, 1938, the Far Eastern Krai was divided into Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais.
The wildlife of Russia inhabits terrain that extends across 12 time zones and from the tundra region in the far north to the Caucasus Mountains and prairies in the south, including temperate forests which cover 70% of the country. Russia's forests comprise 22% of the forest in the world as well as 33% of all temperate forest.
The Tunka or Tunkinsky National Park is a national park located in south central Siberia. It covers a mountainous region centered on the Irkut River valley that continues from the rift valley of Lake Baikal southwest to the border of Mongolia. To the north and west of the valley is the eastern edge of the Sayan Mountains. To the east are the lower Khamar-Daban mountains. About 1,183,662 hectares in size, the park occupies the entirety of the Tunkinsky District of the Republic of Buryatia.
Shushensky Bor National Park consists of two representative forests in the extreme southwest of Siberia, in the northern foothills of the Western Sayan Mountains. The northern section is forest-steppe in character, while the southern section is mountain conifer forest. The southern section is bordered on two sides by the Yenisei river reservoir behind the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam, the largest hydroelectric dam in Russia. The forest has both high biodiversity value and recreational value for hikers and tourists. It is located in the Shushensky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai.
Sayano-Shushenski Nature Reserve is a Russian 'zapovednik' reserve in a remote area of the West Sayan Mountains of south Siberia. It is on the southern bank of the Yenisei River along the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir. The reserve thus protects a large section of the wooded, mountainous territory above the reservoir created by the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam, the largest power plant in Russia. Both the reserve and the dam were established 1976, and a major purpose of the reserve besides conservation is the study of the ecological effects of a large reservoir on the local ecology. The reserve covers an area of 390,368 ha (1,507.22 sq mi). It is situated in the Shushensky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai.
The Okhotsk-Manchurian taiga ecoregion is an area of coniferous forests in the Russian Far East, covering the Amur River delta, the west coast of the Okhotsk Sea, and the rugged extension of the northern Sikhote-Alin Mountains that run southwest-to-northeast through the Primorsky and Khabarovsk regions. It is the southernmost taiga forest in Eurasia. The ecoregion is distinguished from surrounding ecoregions by the slightly warmer climate due to the maritime influence and the shield of the mountains to the west, and by the mixing of flora and fauna species from Okhotsk-Kamchatka communities to the north and Manchurian species from the south. The forest at lower altitudes is "light taiga", and "dark taiga" at higher altitudes.
The Kamchatka Taiga ecoregion is a "conifer island" in the middle of the Kamchatka Peninsula, along the Kamchatka River. It is the easternmost example of Siberian taiga. The region has unusual ecological conditions, a "snow forest" that combines low temperatures, high humidity and boreal forest with heavy snowfall. The local ecology is also affected by volcanic activity. The region is about 300 km long (north–south), and averages about 100 km west–east. It is in the Palearctic realm, and mostly in the Boreal forests/taiga ecoregion with a humid continental climate, cool summer climate. It covers 147,064 km2 (56,782 sq mi).
The Altai montane forest and forest steppe ecoregion covers patches of the subalpine forest belt on the Altai Mountains, crossing the border region where Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China meet. The region has high biodiversity, as it is located in transition zones between different ecoregions, altitudes, and climate zones. It is in the Palearctic realm, with a Cold semi-arid climate. It covers 35,199,998 km2 (13,590,795 sq mi).
The Sayan montane conifer forests ecoregion covers the mid-elevation levels of the Sayan Mountains, the high mountain range between the taiga of Siberia, Russia to the north, and the steppes of Mongolia to the south. The slopes of the mountains at the mid-altitudes are covered by Temperate coniferous forest. The ecoregion is in the Palearctic realm, with a cold semi-arid climate. It covers 35,741,835 km2 (13,800,000 sq mi).
