Bolshezemelskaya Tundra (Russian: Большеземельская тундра) is a hilly lowland in the

Timan-Pechora Basin The Timan-Pechora Basin is a sedimentary basin located between Timan Ridge and the Ural Mountains in northern Russia. The basin contains oil and gas fields. Oil and gas extraction A planned project to mine its oil and gas was conceived in the ...

in northwestern Russia on the coast of the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

, between the

Pechora Pechora (russian: Печо́ра; kv, Печӧра, ''Pećöra'') is a town in the Komi Republic, Russia, located on the Pechora River, west of and near the northern Ural Mountains. The area of the town is . Population: History Pechora was ...

and

Usa The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

rivers and the Pay-Khoy Range of the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

. It covers more than It is situated within the territory of the

Nenets Autonomous Okrug The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (russian: Не́нецкий автоно́мный о́круг; Nenets: Ненёцие автономной ӈокрук, ''Nenjocije awtonomnoj ŋokruk'') is a federal subject of Russia and an autonomous okrug of ...

and the

Komi Republic The Komi Republic (russian: Республика Коми; kv, Коми Республика), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. Its capital is the city of Syktyvkar. The population of th ...

. It rises to an average height of above sea level, the highest parts reaching above sea level. The topography of the Bolshezemelskaya Tundra is dominated by hills and moraine ridges composed of sandy till. The tundra lies in the subarctic climate zone. Winters are long and cold, with the average January temperature in the northwest at , in the south-east, while the summers are short and cool, with the average temperatures in July being around . Frosts also occur in the summer months. In the southern part, the total annual precipitation is about , while in the northern part it is about . The Bolshezemelskaya Tundra has a dense river network, which consists mainly of the tributaries of the Pechora and the Usa rivers. There are many lakes in the upper sections of the main rivers. Much of the lowland is covered with permafrost. The plant cover is

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...

, mainly mosses and

prostrate shrub A prostrate shrub is a woody plant, most of the branches of which lie upon or just above the ground, rather than being held erect as are the branches of most trees and shrubs. Background Prostration may occur because the supporting tissues in ste ...

s. The southern part of the lowland is a forest-tundra. South of the Arctic Circle,

taiga Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruc ...

predominates. The native population of

Izhma Komi The Izhma Komi (Russian: '; endonym: ; Nenets: нысма, ''nysma'') is a sub-group of the much larger Komi people, who traditionally reside in the north of the Komi Republic, primarily in the Izhemsky District, but also in the Nenets Autono ...

is engaged in reindeer herding. Part of the Bolshezemelskaya Tundra area is part of the

Pechora Coal Basin The Pechora coal basin (Печорский угольный бассейн) is located in the Extreme North of European Russia. In covers nearly 90,000 km2 in Komi Republic and Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Arkhangelsk Oblast. The basin is ...

, and there exist large deposits of crude oil and natural gas discovered by the geologist

Georgy Chernov George A. Chernov (April 21, 1906 – April 6, 2009) was a Soviet geologist. He discovered the Vorkuta coal deposits and the petroleum district of the Bolshezemelskaya tundra, including the Usinskoe and Kharyaginskoye oil fields.

References

Landforms of Arkhangelsk Oblast Tundra ecoregions {{ArkhangelskOblast-geo-stub