Territory and Resources
The Far Eastern Republic consisted of four provinces of the former Russian empire — Trans-Baikal, Amur, the Maritime Province, and the northern half of Sakhalin island. The frontiers of the short-lived nation followed the western coastline of Lake Baikal along the northern borders of Mongolia and Manchuria to the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.
The total area of the Far Eastern Republic was reckoned at approximately 730,000 square miles (1,900,000 km2) and its population at about 3.5 million people. Of these an estimated 1.62 million were ethnic Russians and just over 1 million were of Asian extraction, with family lineages originating in China, Japan, Mongolia, and Korea.
The Far Eastern Republic was an area of substantial mineral wealth, including territory which produced about one-third of the entire Russian output of gold as well as that country's only source of domestically-produced tin. Other mineral reserves of the Far Eastern Republic included zinc, iron, and coal.
The fishing industry of the former Maritime Province was substantial, with a total catch exceeding that of Iceland and featuring ample stocks of herring, salmon, and sturgeon. The Republic also boasted extensive forestry resources, including over 120 million acres (490,000 km2) of harvestable pine, fir, cedar, poplar, and birch.
Read more about this topic: Far Eastern Republic
Famous quotes containing the words territory and/or resources:
“A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)
“The poor tread lightest on the earth. The higher our income, the more resources we control and the more havoc we wreak.”
—Paul Harrison (b. 1936)