The Coldest Place on Earth: Documentary

"Siberian" redirects here. For the Federal district, see Siberian Federal District. For other uses, see Siberia (disambiguation) and Siberian (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 60°0′N 105°0′E

Siberia
Russian: Сибирь (Sibir)
Geographical region
Siberia-FederalSubjects.svg
Siberian Federal District
Geographic Russian Siberia

North Asia
Country Russia, Kazakhstan
Region North Asia
Borders on West: Ural Mountains
North: Arctic Ocean
East: Pacific Ocean
South: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China
Parts West Siberian Plain
Central Siberian Plateau
others...
Highest point Klyuchevskaya Sopka
- elevation 4,649 m (15,253 ft)
Area 13,100,000 km2 (5,057,938 sq mi)
Population 36,000,000 (2017)
Density 2.7/km2 (7/sq mi)
Siberia (/saɪˈbɪəriə/; Russian: Сиби́рь, tr. Sibir'; IPA: [sʲɪˈbʲirʲ] (About this sound listen)) is an extensive geographical region, and by the broadest definition is also known as North Asia. Siberia has historically been a part of Russia since the 17th century.

The territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. The Yenisei River conditionally divides Siberia into two parts, Western and Eastern. Siberia stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the national borders of Mongolia and China.[1] With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), Siberia accounts for 77% of Russia's land area, but it is home to just 40 million people—27% of the country's population. This is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre (7.8/sq mi) (approximately equal to that of Australia), making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country in area, but in population it would be the world's 35th-largest and Asia's 14th-largest.

Worldwide, Siberia is well known primarily for its long harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F), as well as its extensive history of use by Russian and Soviet administrations as a place for prisons, labor camps, and exile. The region is of paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch, preserved in ice or permafrost. Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs, Yuka (mammoth) and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a woolly rhinoceros from the Kolyma River, and bison and horses from Yukagir, were found here.[6]

The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest-known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earth's geological history. They continued for a million years and are considered a possible cause of the "Great Dying" about 250 million years ago,[7] which is estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time.[8]

At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago: H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, and the Denisovans.[9] The last was determined in 2010, by DNA evidence, to be a new species.