I took a quick look at the land area of countries around the world, and Russia's size is really off the charts. With an area of over 17 million km², it's nearly twice as large as Canada, the next biggest. Russia alone accounts for more than one-ninth of the Earth's landmass, so it's no wonder it's considered a superpower.

Following that are Canada, China, and the United States, but these four countries alone make up over 40% of the world's land area. Brazil and Australia are also huge, followed by India, Argentina, and Kazakhstan. Russia's overwhelming size really stands out.

Looking at the numbers again, it makes me realize that geography and national strength are indeed influenced heavily by land area. The scale is just fundamentally different between a continental country like Russia and an island nation.