This area is divided in two by the Lena River(3) and its basin. The basin is wider in the south. It expands out around the Vilyuy(4), the Aldan and the upper Lena, then narrows, and finally ends in a large delta on the Laptev Sea. West of the delta the flat land continues as the North Siberian Lowland(5), which extends beyond Sakha. South of this is a large part of the Central Siberian Plateau(6) with altitudes generally in the mid hundreds of meters.
East of the river is the Verchojansk Range(7) with peaks over 2,000 meters. Beyond it is the high basin of the Jana(8) and then the Chersky Mountains(9), which do not reach the Arctic Ocean, and rise to over 3,000 meters. Next is the Indigirka Basin, partly separated by plateaus under 1,000 meters from the Kolyma Lowland(10).
To the southeast the Lena's basin ends at the Stanavoy(11) Mountains. As these are approached, the land rises in the Aldan Highlands(12).
North of the mainland are the New Siberian Islands, which separate the Laptev and East Siberian Seas.
A slight majority speak Russian as their first language. They are concentrated in the south. In the north it is probable that a majority speak Yakut as their first language, though most probably also learn Russian.
Most everyone is Russian Orthodox Christian in background, though the degree of observance and identification varies, a relic of statist aetheism.
Yakutsk, the republic's capital, is the largest city, though its population is smaller than a quarter of a million. This is the old capital of a Yakut kingdom, taken over by the Russians in the 17th century.
(1) Also called, in transliterated Cyrillic, Yakutia or Jakutija.
(2) More strictly transliterated from Cyrillic as Rossiya or Rossija.
(3) Asia's seventh longest.
(4) Also transliterated from Cyrillic as Vil'uj.
(5) In transliterated Russian: Severo-Sibirskaja (Sibirskaya) Nizmennost'. Also called the Khatanga Depression.
(6) In transliterated Russian: Sredne-Sibirskoje (Sibirskoye) Ploskogorje (Ploskogorye).
(7) In transliterated Russian: Verchojansjij (Verkhoyanskiy) Chrebet (Khrebet).
(8) Also transliterated from Russian as Yana.
(9) In transliterated Russian: Khrebet (Chrebet) Cherskogo (Cerskogo, with a diacritical on the c) or Cherskiy Khrebet.
(10) In transliterated Russian: Kolymskaja (Kolymskaya) Nizmennost'.
(11) Or Stanavoj in an alternate transliteration from Cyrillic.
(12) Aldanskoye Nagorye or Aldanskoje Nagorje in transliterated Russian.