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Russia (Russian: Росси́я, Rossiya), also the Russian Federation (Росси́йская Федера́ция, Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; listen (help·info)), is a transcontinental country extending over much of northern Eurasia (Europe and Asia). With an area of 17,075,400 km², Russia is the largest country in the world, covering almost twice the total area of the next-largest country, Canada, and has large mineral and energy resources combined with the world's ninth-largest population. Russia shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from northwest to southeast): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It is also close to the United States (the state of Alaska), Sweden, and Japan across relatively small stretches of water (the Bering Strait, the Baltic Sea, and La Pérouse Strait, respectively).

Formerly the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), a republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia became the Russian Federation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. After the Soviet era, more than half of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union (then one of the world's two Cold War superpowers, the other one being the United States) passed on to the Russian Federation.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the newly-independent Russian Federation emerged as a great power and is also considered to be an energy superpower. Russia is internationally recognised as continuing the legal personality of the Soviet Union and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is also one of the five recognised nuclear weapons states and possesses the world's largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is the leading nation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a member of the G8 as well as other international organisations.

History

Ancient Russia, Early East Slavs and Kievan Rus'

Prior to the first century, the vast lands of southern Russia were home to scattered tribes, such as Proto-Indo-Europeans and Scythians. Between the first and sixth centuries, the steppes were overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions from Central Asia, led by warlike tribes which would often move on to Europe, as was the case with Huns and Turkic Avars.

Read more at Wikipedia.org