Key Stage 3 geography · Locational knowledge

KS3 Russia geography: a guide for parents

Russia is the largest country in the world, and in Key Stage 3 geography children study it as a place where scale, climate and population all work in unusual ways. They locate Russia and its major cities on world maps, learn how its environmental regions run in broad bands from the Arctic to the south, and start to explain why most people live in the west of such a vast country. It builds on primary work on Europe, latitude and time zones.

Russia: the world’s largest country, explained

The National Curriculum asks schools to extend pupils’ knowledge of the world’s countries using world maps, and Russia is one of the four named areas of focus, alongside Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The wording stresses environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities. It does not list particular rivers or cities, so schools choose their own examples. Most lessons cover the same ground: where Russia is, how big it is, what its landscapes and climates are like, where people live and why.

Russia covers about 17 million square kilometres and stretches across Europe and Asia, with the Ural Mountains marking the conventional boundary between the two. Its environmental regions run in broad east–west bands. In the far north, along the Arctic Ocean, is tundra, with frozen ground called permafrost; the northern islands, such as Franz Josef Land, are cold, dry and largely ice-covered, which is the polar desert that the curriculum mentions. South of the tundra lies the taiga, a huge coniferous forest that forms the largest area of forest in the world. Further south are mixed forests and then the steppe, a grassland that is good farmland. The country has great rivers: the Volga, the longest in Europe, flows south into the Caspian Sea, while the Ob, Yenisei and Lena flow north to the Arctic. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake on Earth. Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus is Russia’s highest peak and, by the usual convention, the highest in Europe.

Russia’s climate is mostly continental, with huge seasonal swings: warm summers and winters so cold that in parts of Siberia temperatures have fallen below minus 60 degrees Celsius. This affects how people live. Roads and buildings in permafrost areas have to be built so the heat of a building does not thaw the ground beneath it. About 145 million people live in Russia, but most of them live in the western, European part, around Moscow, the capital, and St Petersburg. Cities such as Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok lie much further east, linked by the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs more than 9,000 kilometres and takes about a week to travel end to end. Murmansk, on the north-west coast, is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. Oil, natural gas, coal, metals and timber are major resources, and many of them lie in remote places far from the people who use them.

Spatial awareness is a big part of this topic. Russia spans 11 time zones, so children link their primary work on longitude to real numbers. The Arctic Circle crosses the north of the country. Children also meet the idea of exclaves, such as Kaliningrad, which belongs to Russia but is separated from it by other countries on the Baltic coast. Looking at Russia on both a globe and a flat map shows how map projections stretch high-latitude lands.

Words your child will hear

Tundra: Treeless, cold land in the far north, with frozen ground and short, cool summers.
Taiga: A vast belt of coniferous forest, such as pine, spruce and larch, south of the tundra. It is also called boreal forest.
Steppe: Wide, flat, mostly treeless grassland in the south, with fertile soils used for growing crops.
Permafrost: Ground that stays frozen all year round, sometimes to a depth of hundreds of metres.
Continental climate: A climate far from the sea, with big differences between hot summers and cold winters.
Time zone: A region where clocks show the same time. Each zone is roughly 15° of longitude wide, though the edges bend to follow borders.
Exclave: A part of a country that is separated from the main part by other countries, as Kaliningrad is from the rest of Russia.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught to extend their locational knowledge and deepen their spatial awareness of the world’s countries, using maps of the world to focus on Africa, Russia, Asia (including China and India), and the Middle East, focusing on their environmental regions, including polar and hot deserts, key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities
Pupils should consolidate and extend their knowledge of the world’s major countries and their physical and human features.
Pupils will continue to enrich their locational knowledge and spatial and environmental understanding.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: Russia’s time zones

Russia has 11 time zones. When it is 9 a.m. in Moscow, what time is it in Vladivostok, and why does the difference matter?

Remember the rule: the Earth turns 360° in 24 hours, so each hour of time difference is about 15° of longitude. A country that stretches across about 170° of longitude therefore needs around 11 time zones.
Find each city’s time zone. Moscow is 3 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+3). Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast, is 10 hours ahead (UTC+10). Russia does not change its clocks in summer.
```
Vladivostok  UTC+10
Moscow       UTC+3
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Difference   7 hours
```
Decide the direction. The Earth spins towards the east, so places further east see sunrise first and their clocks are ahead. Vladivostok is east of Moscow, so its clocks show a later time and we add the difference.
Calculate: 9 a.m. plus 7 hours is 4 p.m. Check it makes sense: while Moscow is starting its working day, Vladivostok is nearly finished.
Say why it matters: in such a large country, people in the east and the west are at very different points in their day, which affects trains, television schedules, banks and business hours.

When it is 9 a.m. in Moscow, it is 4 p.m. in Vladivostok, because the east is 7 hours ahead of Moscow. Russia needs 11 time zones because it is so wide in longitude.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking all of Russia is frozen and snowy all year

Pictures of Siberian winters are everywhere. But only the north has tundra and permafrost. The south has steppe grassland and warm summers, and cities such as Moscow have hot days in July.

What helps: Compare climate graphs for Murmansk, Moscow and a southern city. Notice the differences in summer temperature as well as in winter.

Believing Russia is either entirely in Europe or entirely in Asia

Country maps usually show one colour, and the line at the Ural Mountains is not a border. Russia covers both continents, though more of its land lies in Asia.

What helps: Trace the Urals on the map, and point out that most Russians live west of them while most of the land lies east of them.

Treating Russia and the Soviet Union as the same thing

Old maps and films use both names, and children hear them mixed up. The Soviet Union, which ended in 1991, included Russia and 14 other republics, such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which are now separate countries.

What helps: Look at a map of Russia’s neighbours, and make a list of those that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

Assuming the huge size means a huge population spread evenly

A large area suggests many people. In fact Russia’s population is far smaller than that of India or China, and the huge Siberian interior is among the least crowded places in the world.

What helps: Compare a population density map with the vegetation map. Ask which regions are best for farming, for travel and for resources.

How to help at home

Trace the Trans-Siberian journey. Ask your child to follow a route from Moscow to Vladivostok on an atlas, listing the cities, rivers and regions on the way. Work out how many time zones the traveller would cross.
Time-zone phone calls. Choose a city in the west and one in the east of Russia, then work out the times together. Try questions like: when is lunchtime in Moscow, and what is the time in Vladivostok then?
Scale it down. Draw Russia on paper at the same scale as the UK. Ask how many UK-sized shapes fit across it, and how far that is compared with the distance from London to Edinburgh.
Sort the regions. Make cards for tundra, taiga, steppe and polar desert, and ask your child to match them with a short description, a likely crop or animal, and a position on the map.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Countries of Europe and Russia
Key Stage 2: North America: countries and features
Key Stage 2: South America: countries and features
Key Stage 2: Counties and cities of the UK
Key Stage 2: UK regions, mountains and rivers
Key Stage 2: UK land use and change
Key Stage 2: Latitude, longitude and hemispheres
Key Stage 2: Tropics and polar circles
Key Stage 2: Prime Meridian and time zones