The total length of Russia's borders is the longest in the world, because our country is the largest on the planet. By the number of neighbors, we are also ahead of everyone - 18 countries border the Russian Federation.
And our country, like no other, has enclaves, exclaves and semi-exclaves, that is, territories that belong to the Russian Federation, but do not have a common border with it - carried out in other countries.
Some discrepancies
62,262 kilometers is the total length of the land and sea borders of Russia. It is divided this way - the maritime border, stretching for 37,636.6 kilometers, is much longer than the land border, equal to 24,625.3 km. It should be noted that the data in some sources vary. The inconsistencies are due to the unrecognized republics and the annexation of Crimea. Of the total length of maritime borders, a large part, namely 19,724.1 km, falls on the Arctic sector, that is, on the northern border of Russia.
Border in the north
The eastern border also runs exclusively along the seas, but already of the Pacific Ocean - it accounts for 16,997.9 km of the total water border of Russia. The length of the sea borders of Russia is one of the longest in the world. Its shores are washed by 13 seas, and by this indicator our country is the first in the world. What kind of seas are the cordons of our country? In the north, Russia is washed by the seas of the Arctic Ocean. Located from west to east, they follow in this order: Barents and Kara, Laptev and East Siberian.
The easternmost is the
Chukchi Sea. In the western part there is also the White Sea washing Russia, but it is completely internal. In addition to part of the western Barents, all the others are covered with pack-ice (sliding from the continental glaciers) perennial ice floes, which makes the passage of vessels very difficult and possible only with the help of
atomic icebreakers. True, now the ice is melting so much that unknown islands appear from under them. The entire territory from the northern shores to the pole belongs to Russia. And all the islands, except a few in the Svalbard archipelago, belong to our country.
Eastern frontiers
The maritime borders themselves pass at a distance of 22 km from the coastline. In addition, there is such a thing as a maritime economic zone. It extends from the mainland and islands for 370 km. What does it mean? And the fact that only ships from all over the world can sail in these waters, and only Russia has the right to extract minerals from the bottom of the seas and conduct other economic activities.
The length of Russia's borders in the east, as indicated above, is 16,997.9 km. Here, the boundaries pass through the following seas: the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Japanese Sea, which does not freeze in winter in the Pacific Ocean. The eastern neighbors are the USA and Japan. With the United States, a border of 49 km runs through the Bering Strait between the islands of Romanov and Kruzenshtern. The first belongs to Russia, the second to the USA. The border between Russia and Japan with a total length of 194.3 km passes along the Laperouse Strait.
Borders passing through the western and southern seas
The nine seas of the north and east are listed. What are four more called along which the border passes? Baltic, Caspian, Black and Azov. What countries does Russia border on these seas? The total length of the western border of Russia is 4222.2 km, of which 126.1 km are on the Baltic coast. The northern part of this sea freezes in winter, and the movement of ships is possible only with the help of icebreakers. “Window to Europe” allows you to trade with all the Baltic countries.
Russia borders on Ukraine along the Black and Azov Seas, and Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan along the Caspian Sea. It should be noted that the total length of Russia's borders includes 7 thousand km passing along rivers and 475 km going along lakes.
The length of the borders with neighbors in the west
The land border runs mainly in the west and south of Russia. Here the neighbors are Norway and Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. Kaliningrad region of Russia borders on Poland. In the south, we are adjoined by Abkhazia, Georgia (its border with Russia in the middle is torn by the border of South Ossetia), Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and North Korea in the southeast.
The total length of the borders of Russia, passing by land, between the neighbors is divided as follows. The land border with Norway is 195.8 km, of which 152.8 km along the seas, rivers and lakes. With Finland, our land borders extend over 1271.8 km (180.1). With Estonia - 324 km (235.3), with Latvia - 270.5 km (133.3), with Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) - 266 km (233.1). The Kaliningrad region has a border with Poland of 204.1 km (0.8). Further at 1239 km, a completely land border with Belarus stretched. The length of the borders of Russia with Ukraine is 1925.8 km (425.6).
Southern neighbors
The border with Georgia is 365 km, while Abkhazia and South Ossetia account for 329 km. The Georgian-Russian border itself has split into two parts - western and eastern, between which a 70-kilometer Russian-South Ossetian border has wedged. The Russian-Azerbaijani border is 390.3 km. The longest border between Russia and Kazakhstan is 7512.8 (1576.7 km pass through the seas, rivers and lakes). 3485 km - the length of the Russian-Mongolian borders. Further, the border with China stretches for 4209.3 km, and with the DPRK it is only 30 km. 183 thousand border guards guard the borders of our vast country.