Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and Natural Resources 2022 number 1

This article deals with the categorization of Russia as the continental type of countries typical of classical geopolitics and the concepts based on its approaches. An analysis is made of the main aspects of continentality of countries: the territorial, populaton distribution and activity aspects. A number of indicators have been proposed to reflect these aspects. The resulting sample of countries, including Russia, are characterized according to the degree of continentality based on these indicators. It is pointed out that in terms of transport and geographic continentality, the number of seaports, the cargo turnover of the country’s largest port and the location of the capital city relative to the sea, Russia should be classified as a continental country. In terms of the ratio of sea and land borders, the potential of the Navy, the number of merchant ships and fish catch, Russia should be assigned to the oceanic type of countries. It has been determined that integrally Russia can be assigned to the transitional continental-oceanic type. A positive correlation was found between the number of merchant ships per capita and gross domestic product per capita, exports per capita and life expectancy. This correlation shows (confirms) that the more continental a country is, the less economically developed it normally is. It is noted that within the framework of classical geopolitics, the classification of Russia as a continental country is associated with the concept the difference between «sea» and «land» which gives rise to international conflicts. A departure from the idea of explaining the conflict between Russia and the West by these geographical factors also entails a rejection of the image of Russia as a purely continental country. The use of military-political and economic advantages of both the sea and continental location was characteristic of Russia in the past and is relevant at present.