The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, holds its 2006 summit in Shanghai Thursday.

The following is some basic information about Russia.

Geography: Sharing borders with Norway, Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Russia covers an area of more than 17 million square kilometers stretching from Europe to Asia.

Population: About 143 million, of them 82.95 percent are Russians.

Capital: Moscow

Official language: Russian

Natural resources: Forest covers about 51 percent of Russia's land area. Russia's discovered reserves of natural gas is over 48, 000 billion cubic meters and its reserves of coal of 200 billion tons ranks second in the world. Russia's other mineral resources include iron, zinc, lead, nickel, aluminum, molybdenum, gold, platinum and other nonferrous metals.