Russia’s Most Populous Region: The European Plain

The East European Plain (often called the Great Russian Plain) hosts the overwhelming majority of Russia’s population and its largest cities. Stretching from the Urals to the Baltic and from the Arctic to the Black Sea, this lowland zone contains:

• Moscow (13+ million metro)
• St. Petersburg (5.6 million)
• Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, and dozens of other million-plus agglomerations.

Favorable climate, fertile chernozem soils, dense river networks (Volga, Don, Dnieper), and historic settlement patterns concentrate 75 % of Russians on just 25 % of the territory.