Foreign and Military Affairs

Backgrounder: Basic facts about Russia

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-11-22 14:23

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is scheduled to leave Beijing for Russia later on Monday to start a three-day official visit.

The following are some basic facts about Russia:

Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, covering an area of more than 17 million square km stretching from Europe to Asia. Moscow is the capital city of Russia.

Of the population of 141.9 million in Russia, about 79.8 percent are Russian. The country's official language is Russian.

Russia abounds in natural resources. More than half of the country is covered by forest, with over 48 trillion cubic meters of discovered natural gas reserves ranking the first in the world and 200 billion tons of coal reserves ranking second, apart from 6.5 billion tons of petroleum reserves.

In 2009, Russia's gross domestic product stood at $1.3 trillion, a 7.9 percent fall over the previous year due to the impact of the global financial crisis, according to Russian federal statistics service.

China and the former Soviet Union, the predecessor of Russia, established diplomatic ties on October 2, 1949. On December 27, 1991, China and Russia signed a document in which Russia agreed to carry on the former Soviet Union's diplomatic ties with China.

Over recent years, the two countries had enhanced political trust, boosted bilateral cooperation and promoted exchanges in various fields.

In January and February of this year, bilateral trade between China and Russia reached $7.8 billion, up 67.9 percent compared with the same period last year.