Since ancient times, both population and land have been the foundation of a country's development, and both are indispensable. If there is only land and no population, the country's development potential will be limited. Taking Russia as an example, after the collapse of the former superpower Soviet Union, the successor Russia obviously has the most extensive land and the most energy, but the economy is still unable to develop, the main reason is that the population cannot support such a large country, and the population is unevenly distributed.
There are currently only four countries in the world with a territory area of more than 9 million kilometers, namely Russia, Canada, China, and the United States. Due to the different geographical locations, the administrative division of each country is also different, but these countries have their own largest administrative regions, if China's largest administrative region is Xinjiang, the United States' largest administrative region is Alaska, Canada's largest administrative region is Ontario, and Russia's largest administrative region is the Republic of Yakutia, also known as the Republic of Sakha.
The Republic of Yakutia in Russia is the largest of the four largest administrative regions, but the opposite of the territory is the poor population, with an area of more than 3.1 million kilometers and only 1 million people, and the population density is smaller than that of the least populated state of Alaska, and even less than that of Outer Mongolia.
Although Yakutia is called a republic, it is a provincial-level unit, located in the Far East of Russia, and is an autonomous republican administrative region in the Russian provincial-level unit, with an administrative area larger than an India, equivalent to one-third of China, if Yakutia is regarded as an independent kingdom, it can also rank in the top ten in the world, only slightly inferior to Australia.
Interestingly, this region is not only the largest administrative region in Russia, but also one of the few areas in Russia where the yellow race gathers, with a population of 1 million, the main group is the yellow race, and the ethnic ** is currently considered to be one of the branches of the Jurchens. Although both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union have immigrated to this place in history, the population structure has never changed, and the main reason is not only the cold natural environment, but also the historical origin of this area.
The history of Yakutia can be traced back to the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, after Genghis Khan began his expedition to the west, from his generation to the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty by Kublai Khan, the Mongols have been expanding to Europe, as far as Egypt, although they were eventually abandoned because of the struggle for the throne, but also indirectly led to Russia being ruled by the Mongols for more than 200 years.
After the Mongols divided the ruling area into four khanates, Yakutia belonged to the Yuan Dynasty, which was called Lingbei and other places at that time, also known as Lingbei Province, which was the farthest province of the Yuan Dynasty in the north, and from this time on, Yakutia established contact with China, the largest yellow country in Asia, and there are still a large number of yellow people staying here.
The climate of Yakutia is cold, and the geographical environment is mainly ice and snow, which is not suitable for agriculture and the development of animal husbandry, so the Yuan Dynasty did not pay much attention to this area and only treated it as a dependent land. In the period of Tsarist Russia, in the process of opening up the eastern outlet to the sea, Tsarist Russia discovered this area, so it established towns and fortresses here, and after hundreds of years of development, gradually formed the current Republic of Yakutia.
However, because of the relatively harsh geographical environment, Tsarist Russia did not care about Yakutia, and simply served as a place of exile for criminals and vagabonds. At first, Tsarist Russia planned to use these criminals to reclaim wasteland, so as to revitalize the economy here, but because most of the land here is frozen soil, the policy of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union to develop the economy here is not very effective, and at the same time, the bad weather here makes many foreigners unwilling to live here, and the population has not risen until now.
In fact, Russia has not thought about the development of Yakutia's economy in history, for example, in the Soviet era, the Soviet Union had a large-scale immigration here, and the current population of 1 million in Yakutia is the result of Soviet immigration, and then millions of ** prisoners were used to build a highway M56 through the north and south to promote the flow of materials here.
However, with the outbreak of World War II, which led to the loss of a large number of young people in the Soviet Union, and the long-term political and economic center of gravity of the Soviet Union was in Europe, the subsequent immigration actions were not stopped, and the population of Yakutia has remained at the level of 1 million.
Because during the Tsarist period, Yakutia was a place of exile for criminals for a long time, so whether it was policy planning or administrative status, Yakutia was the lowest in Russia, and even the M56 highway built was called the "ghost road" by the outside world because of the sparse foreign population.
For example, after the outbreak of the Klimia referendum in 2014, Yakutia proposed a similar bill, and even when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Yakutia also had an independence movement, although it was unsuccessful, but it still won the right to autonomy.
However, the seemingly barren Yakutia is actually a treasure land, buried in a large number of mineral resources under the permafrost, according to the statistics of relevant agencies, nearly 40% of Russia's oil, coal and natural gas are stored in the Republic of Yakutia. Twenty minerals such as copper, gold, silver, and tungsten are available, and diamond reserves account for a quarter of the world's total.
With such abundant resources, why can't the population of Yakutia go up? Many people believe that the cold weather is the cause of the reluctance of the locals to have babies. In fact, the population of local residents in Yakutia has doubled compared to the Soviet era, and the population of Yakutia during the Soviet period was only 100,000 people, and its birth rate was among the best in the whole of Russia.
It's just that relative to East Asia, or Northern Europe, Yakutia's population and birth rate are still difficult to match, which gives people the illusion that the Yakut population can't go up, plus a territory larger than India, only these 1 million people live here, and it can't fill the 3.1 million kilometers at all.
Secondly, although Yakutia is rich in resources, due to the lack of industrial support, it is extremely difficult to develop resources, but as Russia gradually attaches importance to the development of the Far East, in order to open up the connection with the Chinese market and gradually open up the Far East, I believe that with the blessing of the Chinese market and industrial technology, the life of the people in Yakutia will gradually improve and live a better life than before.