East European Plain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The East European Plain (also Eastern-European Lowland, Eastern European Lowlands, Eastern European Plain, and Russian Plain) is a plain and series of broad river basins in Eastern Europe. It is the largest mountain-free part of the European landscape. The plain spans approximately 4,000,000 km² (~1,544,408 mi²) and averages about 170 m (~558 ft.) in elevation. It stretches from the Ural Mountains and covers most of the European part of Russia, Baltic states, Belarus, most of Ukraine, Moldova, East Poland and West Kazakhstan.

It is bounded by the White Sea and the Barents Sea in the North, Ural Mountains, Ural River and Caspian Sea in the East, Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea in the South, Carpathian Mountains and other mountainous features in Poland in the West. The plain is subdivided into a number of distinct regions, including the Valday Hills; the Central Russian Upland; the Volga Uplands; and the Dnieper River, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea lowlands.

Within the territory of Imperial Russia and Soviet Union it has been known as the Russian Plain (in Russian: Русская равнина, transliterated as Russkaya Ravnina). Both names are often used interchangeably.

Together with the Northern European Lowlands it constitutes the European Plain.