Encyclopedia > Steppes

  Article Content

Steppe

Redirected from Steppes

In physical geography, steppe (from Russian language "stepe") is a plain without trees (apart from near rivers and lakes), the same as a prairie. It may be semi-desert or covered with grass or shrubs, or both depending on the season.

The term is usually used for the plains of central Russia and neighbouring republics of Central Asia. The steppes begin east of the Volga river and extend through desert or semi-desert south of the Ural Mountains and to the north and east of the Caspian Sea. To the east of the Caspian Sea they extend through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to the mountain ranges of Mongolia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. To the north on the eastern side of the Urals is the forested West Siberian Plain[?] which extends to the Arctic Ocean.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Islip Terrace, New York

... older. The average household size is 3.21 and the average family size is 3.51. In the town the population is spread out with 29.5% under the age of 18, 6.7% from 18 to ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 37.4 ms