The region has paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch, preserved in ice or in permafrost. Horseman hunting, with characteristic Xiongnu horse trappings, Southern Siberia, 280-180 BCE. Another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sirtya (also "Syopyr" (sʲɵpᵻr), a Paleoasiatic ethnic group assimilated by the Nenets. He suggests that the name might be a combination of two words with Turkic origin, "su" (water) and "bir" (wild land). He said that the neighbouring Chinese, Turks, and Mongolians, who have similar names for the region, would not have known Russian. Anatole Baikaloff has dismissed this explanation. The Polish historian Chyliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the proto-Slavic word for "north" (север, sever), same as Severia. A further variant claims that the region was named after the Xibe people. The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Empire's conquest of the Siberian Khanate. Some sources say that "Siberia" originates from the Siberian Tatar word for "sleeping land" (Sib ir). Over 85% of the region's population is of European descent. European cultural influences, specifically Russian, predominate throughout the region, due to it having had Russian emigration from Europe since the 16th century, forming the Siberian Russian sub-ethnic group.
It is geographically situated in Asia however, due to it being colonized and incorporated into Russia, it is culturally and politically a part of Europe. Siberia is known worldwide primarily for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 ☌ (−13 ☏). Beyond the core, Siberia's western part includes some territories of the Ural region, the far eastern part has been historically called the Russian Far East. The central part of Siberia ( West and East Siberian economic regions) was considered the core part of the region in the Soviet Union.
Siberia stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the northern parts of Mongolia and China. The river Yenisey divides Siberia into two parts, Western and Eastern. Traditionally, Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean. Novosibirsk and Omsk are the largest cities in the region.īecause Siberia is a geographic and historic region and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), but home to merely one-fifth of Russia's population. It has been a part of Russia since the latter half of the 16th century, after the Russians conquered lands east of the Ural Mountains. Sibir', IPA: ( listen)) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east.