Geography
The Urals is an area of Russia around the Ural Mountains. It is a vast territory that includes even polar areas.
The Ural mountains, which are also called the Stone Belt, considered to be “the heart of Eurasia” as the ancient ridge of the Ural mountains stretching for two thousand kilometres presents a natural boundary between Europe and Asia.
The Urals mountains extend for 2500 km from Kazakh steppes to the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Geographers divided this big territory into five regions: South, Middle, North, Subarctic and Arctic Urals. Although Subarctic, Arctic and North regions are interesting to explore, they’re barely suitable for living due to their harsh climates and poor development. Meanwhile the South and Middle Urals present the most lived-in-part of the Urals.
The region itself is consisted from the Urals Federal District (UFD) and four separate objects – Perm region, Orenburg region, the republic of Bashkortostan and Komi republic. The Ural Federal District has 4 regions (Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Tyumen) and 2 autonomous districts (Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous region and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region). The total area of the whole region is more than 400 000 thousand square kilometers that exceeds the area of Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain combined. The “capital” of the Urals is Yekaterinburg city.
The Urals’ climate is extreme continental: the warm season usually lasts for 3.6 months - from May 21 to September 7, with an average daily high temperature above 63°F (17°C). The hottest month of the year in Ural is July, with an average high of 75°F (24°C) and low of 54°F (12°C). The last years, though, summers tend to be hotter every year. On the other hand, the cold season lasts for 3.5 months - from November 19 to March 2, with an average daily high temperature below 24°F (-4°C). The coldest month of the year in Ural is January, with an average low of -6°F (-14°C) and high of 12°F (-11°C).
Based on the score, the best time of year to visit Ural for general outdoor tourist activities is from late June to early August.