Covering over an eight of the Earth's land mass, Russia is the largest country in the World. Encompassing 83 different federal states, it is almost twice the size of the next biggest nation on our planet, Canada, and is home to many of the World's largest river systems and lakes. Parts of it are considered to be in Europe, and actually make up 40% of that continent, but the majority of Russia is situated in Asia. It spans 11 time zones and no other country comes close to calling itself home to so many diverse ethnic groups, but some of these people would prefer to be independent. Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea.