Four million square kilometres of Europe barely rise above 170 metres
Also called the Russian or Sarmatic Plain, the East European Plain spreads across some four million square kilometres from about 25 degrees east toward the Urals, averaging only 170 metres in height. Its loftiest point reaches just 480 metres, and it forms the core of Europe's largest mountain-free landscape.
The East European Plain, known also as the Russian Plain and in older usage as the Sarmatic Plain, is a huge interior lowland that picks up where the North European Plain leaves off, roughly at 25 degrees east. Despite covering about four million square kilometres it averages only some 170 metres above sea level. Its summit, a modest 480 metres, sits in the Bugulma-Belebey Upland on the eastern side near the Urals.
Gentle rises interrupt the flatness: the Volhynian-Podolian Upland on the western fringe, the Central Russian Upland in the middle, and the Volga Upland toward the east. Between them spread river lowlands: the Volga Basin, the lowland of the Dnieper and the Oka–Don lowland. Russian geographers use the word uval for features like the Vyatka Uval, a long, flat-topped elevation with soft slopes named after the Vyatka River. In the south the plain takes in the Moldavian Plateau and the Wallachian and Danubian plains on either side of the lower Danube.
Countries on it include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, European Russia and southeastern Romania, and it reaches northern Bulgaria through the Danubian Plain, including Ludogorie and Southern Dobruja. Joined to the North European Plain, which crosses Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Poland, it makes up most of the Great European Plain, the largest stretch of the continent without mountains. Russia's other great lowland is the West Siberian Plain beyond the Urals.
Its edges are drawn by water and mountains. To the west lie the Baltic Sea, the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, the Sudetes and the Carpathian arcs; to the south the Balkan and Crimean ranges, the Caucasus, the Black, Azov and Caspian seas and the Ustyurt Plateau; to the east the Urals and the Turan Depression; and to the north the White, Barents and Kara seas and the Scandinavian mountains.
Source: East European Plain
