ABSTRACT
In spite of ‘losing’ its fourteen fellow Soviet Socialist Republics, the Russian Federation (hereafter Russia) is still the largest country in the world in area (17,075,000 sq km6,600,000 sq miles) but it is now sixth in the world in population (after China, India, the USA, Indonesia and Brazil). In 1993 it had a mere 2.7 per cent of the total population of the world and in 2025, after increasing from its present 149 million to about 152 million, it will then have about 1.8 per cent of the world total. Its importance in the world economy and in world affairs lies more in its natural resource endowment than in its population size or present economic strength.
