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Krasnoyarsk Krai

First-level administrative division of Russia

  • 10 min read
  • 6 chapters

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Geography

The krai lies in the middle of Siberia, and occupies nearly half of the Siberian Federal District, almost splitting it in half, stretching 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) from the Sayan Mountains in the south along the Yenisei River to the Taymyr Peninsula in the north. It borders (counting clockwise from the sea) the Sakha Republic, Irkutsk, the Tuva Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Kemerovo, Tomsk, Tyumen Oblasts, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Kara Sea and Laptev Sea of the Arctic Ocean in the north.

The krai is located in the basin of the Arctic Ocean; a great number of rivers that flow through the krai drain into it eventually. The main rivers of the krai are the Yenisei, and its tributaries (from south to north): the Kan, the Angara, the Podkamennaya Tunguska, the Nizhnyaya Tunguska and the Tanama.

There are also several thousand lakes in the krai. The largest lakes include Beloye, Belyo, Glubokoye, Itat, Khantayskoye, Labas, Lama, Pyasina, Taymyr, and Yessey. The rivers and lakes are rich in fish.

The climate is strongly continental with large temperature variations during the year. Long winters and short, hot summers are characteristic for the central and southern regions where most of the krai's population lives. The territory of Krasnoyarsk Krai experiences conditions of three climate belts: arctic, subarctic, and humid continental. In the north there are less than 40 days with temperature above 10 °C (50 °F), while in the south there are 110–120 such days.

The average temperature in January is −36 °C (−32.8 °F) in the north and −18 °C (−0.4 °F) in the south. The average temperature in July is 5 to 10 °C (41 to 50 °F) in the north – where the most poleward tree line in the world is found at Ary-Mas – and +20 °C (68 °F) in the south. The annual precipitation is 316 millimeters (12.4 in) (up to 1,200 millimeters (47 in) in the foothills of the Sayan Mountains). Snow covers the central regions of the krai from early November until late March. The peaks of the Sayan Mountains higher than 2,400–2,600 metres (7,900–8,500 ft) and those of the Putorana Plateau higher than 1,000–1,300 metres (3,300–4,300 ft) are covered with permanent snow. Permafrost is absent at low altitudes south of Lesosibirsk, but as one moves north it grades from sporadic around the 58th parallel to extensive discontinuous around the 60th parallel and continuous north of the 63rd parallel.

The coastline contains several prominent peninsulas – from west to east the main ones are the Minina Peninsula, Mikhailov Peninsula, the Taymyr Peninsula (by far the largest, and itself containing the Zarya Peninsula, Oskara Peninsula and Chelyuskin Peninsula) and the Khara-Tumus Peninsula.

There are also a large number of islands off the krai's coast, the most prominent of which are (from west to east) Sibiryakov Island, Nosok Island, Dikson Island, Vern Island, Brekhovskiye Island (in the Yenisei Gulf), Krestovskiy Island, the Kamennye Islands, the Zveroboy Islands, the Labyrintovye Islands, the Plavnikovye Islands, Kolosovykh Island, the Mona Islands, Rykacheva Island, Gavrilova Island, Belukha and Prodolgovatyy Islands, the Nordenskiöld Archipelago, the Firnley Islands, the Heiberg Islands, Starokadomsky Island, Maly Taymyr Island, the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands, the Faddey Islands, and the Saint Peter Islands. There are also a number of islands further out that fall under the administration of Krasnoyarsk Krai – the most prominent being Bolshoy Island, Sverdrup Island, the Izvestiy TSIK Islands, the Arkticheskiy Institut Islands, the Kirov Islands, Uyedineniya Island, Voronina Island, Severnaya Zemlya (the largest group), and Ushakov Island. The highest point of the krai is Grandiozny Peak in the Eastern Sayan Mountains at an elevation of 2,922 meters (9,587 ft).

In the south there is a Ergaki Nature Park which is a protected area of Krasnoyarsk Krai. It contains the Western Sayan Mountains. The park was established in 2005 and it covers an area of 342,873 ha (847,260 acres). It is bordered by the Yenisei highway.

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