Kazakhstan
Nature
There are 8,500 big and small rivers in Kazakhstan. The length of seven largest rivers exceeds 100 km. The largest ones are the Ural and the Emba flowing into the Caspian Sea, the Syrdaria falling into the Aral Sea while the Irtysh, the Ishim and the Tobol run all across the Republic to eventually reach the Arctic Ocean.
There are 48,000 big and small lakes in Kazakhstan. The largest among them are the Aral Sea, Balkhash, Zaisan, Alakol, Tenghiz and Seletenghiz. Besides Kazakhstan shares the larger portion of the northern and half of the eastern littoral of the Caspian Sea — the largest ever sea on the planet. The length of the coastline of the Caspian Sea (its Kazakhstani portion) is 2,340 km.
Steppes occupy some 26% of the territory of Kazakhstan. 167,000,000 ha account for deserts (44%) and semi-deserts (14%) with forests occupying 21,000,000 ha.
When speaking about the flora and fauna of the Republic, we have to mention 155 species of mammals, 480 and 150 species of birds and fish respectively and about 250 species of medicinal herbs. Worth noting is that such exceedingly rare plant, as santonica wormwood grows nowhere else but in the South of Kazakhstan.