Editing Geography of Russia (section)

==Natural resources and land use==
{{further|Siberian natural resources}}
Russia holds the greatest reserves of mineral resources of any country in the world. Though they are abundant, they are in remote areas with extreme climates, making them expensive to mine. The country is the most abundant in mineral fuels. It may hold as much as half of the world's [[coal]] reserves and even larger reserves of [[petroleum]]. Deposits of coal are scattered throughout the region, but the largest are located in central and eastern [[Siberia]]. The most developed fields lie in western Siberia, in the northeastern European region, in the area around [[Moscow]], and in the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]]. The major petroleum deposits are located in western Siberia and in the Volga-Urals. Smaller deposits are found throughout the country. [[Natural gas]], a resource of which Russia holds around forty percent of the world's reserves, can be found along Siberia's [[Arctic]] coast, in the [[North Caucasus]], and in northwestern Russia. Major [[iron-ore]] deposits are located south of Moscow, near the [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] border in the [[Kursk Magnetic Anomaly]]; this area contains vast deposits of iron ore that have caused a deviation in the Earth's magnetic field. There are smaller deposits in other parts of the country. The Ural mountains hold small deposits of [[manganese]]. [[nickel]], [[tungsten]], [[cobalt]], [[molybdenum]] and other iron alloying elements occur in adequate quantities.

Russia also contains most of the nonferrous metals. [[Aluminium]] ores are scarce and are found primarily in the Ural region, northwestern European Russia, and south-central Siberia. [[Copper]] is more abundant and major reserves are located in the Urals, the [[Norilsk]] area near the mouth of the [[Yenisei River|Yenisey]] in eastern Siberia, and the [[Kola Peninsula]]. Another vast deposit located east of [[Lake Baikal]] only became exploited when the [[Baikal-Amur Mainline]] (BAM) railroad was finished in 1989.

The North Caucasus, far eastern Russia, and the western edge of the [[Kuznetsk Basin]] in southern Siberia contain an abundance of [[lead]] and [[zinc]] ores. These are commonly found along with copper, [[gold]], [[silver]], and a large amount of other rare metals. The country has one of the largest gold reserves in the world; mostly in Siberia and the Urals. [[Mercury (element)|Mercury]] deposits can be found in the central and southern Urals and in south-central Siberia.

Raw materials are abundant as well, including [[potassium]] and [[magnesium]] [[salt (chemistry)|salt]] deposits in the [[Kama River]] region of the western Urals. Russia also contains one of the world's largest deposits of [[apatite]] found in the central Kola Peninsula. Rock salt is located in the southwestern Urals and the southwest of Lake Baikal. Surface deposits of salt are found in salt lakes along the lower Volga Valley. [[Sulfur]] can be found in the Urals and the middle Volga Valley.

Eight percent of the land is used for [[agronomy|arable farming]], four percent—for permanent [[pasture]]s, forty-six percent of the land is forests and woodland, and forty-two percent is used for other purposes.

A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were {{Convert|1,002|km2|abbr=on}} of tidal flats in Russia, making it the 33rd ranked country in terms of tidal flat area.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Murray |first1=N.J. |last2=Phinn |first2=S.R. |last3=DeWitt |first3=M. |last4=Ferrari |first4=R. |last5=Johnston |first5=R. |last6=Lyons |first6=M.B. |last7=Clinton |first7=N. |last8=Thau |first8=D. |last9=Fuller |first9=R.A. |title=The global distribution and trajectory of tidal flats |journal=Nature |date=2019 |volume=565 |issue=7738 |pages=222–225 |doi=10.1038/s41586-018-0805-8 |pmid=30568300 |s2cid=56481043 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0805-8}}</ref>