noun
definition
The grasslands of Eastern Europe and Asia. Similar to (North American) prairie and (African) savanna.
definition
A vast cold, dry grass-plain.
Examples of steppes in a Sentence
The Forest Region of the Russian botanists includes the greater part of the country, from the Arctic tundras to the steppes, and over this immense expanse it maintains a remarkable uniformity of character.
Here we find open plant associations of Haifa or Esparto Grass (Stipa lenacissima) alternating with steppes of Chih (Artemisia herba-alba); and each plant association extends for several scores of miles.
Russia possesses large deposits of sulphur in Daghestan in Transcaucasia, and in the Transcaspian steppes.
There the Volga, the Ural, the Syr-darya and the Amu-darya discharge their waters without reaching the ocean, but they bring life to the rapidly desiccating Transcaspian steppes, and link together the most remote parts of Russia.
In the steppes it is only 60% during summer, and still less (57) at Astrakhan.
The steppes along the bottom of the principal valley are for the most part too dry to be cultivated without irrigation.
On the whole, we may say that the arctic and boreal faunas of Europe extend over Siberia, with a few additional species in the Ural and Baraba region - a number of new species also appearing in East Siberia, some spreading along the high plateau and others along the lower plateau from the steppes of the Gobi.
This section is near the northern border of the arid Patagonian steppes.
The flora of Argentina should be studied according to natural zones corresponding to the physical divisions of the country - the rich tropical and sub-tropical regions of the north, the treeless pampas of the centre, the desert steppes of the south, and the arid plateaus of the north-west.
The water-courses and depressions of the shingly steppes afford pasturage sufficient for the guanaco, and in places support a thorny vegetation of low growth and starved appearance.
On the Patagonian steppes there are comparatively few species of animals.
Then there is a gentle rise to the low steppes, 500 to woo ft.
No evidences of recent lava flows can be found in the interior over the great alluvial plain, the Lower, or the Higher Steppes.
Eremophytes.Under this term, are placed plants of deserts rid steppes.
Xanthium spinosum has spread from the Russian steppes to every stock-raising country in the world, and in some cases has made the industry impossible.
The Intermediate sub-region comprises the vegetation of the large area occupied by the steppes of the Old World, the prairies of the new and the forest region of both.
Wide grassy steppes lead to the organization of the people as nomads whose wealth consists in flocks and herds, and their dwellings are tents.
In the Ala-kul steppes the winds blow away the snow.
Previous to 1899 this province formed part of the generalgovernorship of the Steppes.
Livonia Minsk Mogilev Moscow Nizhniy-Novgorod Novgorod Olonets Orel Orenburg Penza Perm Podolia Poltava Pskov Ryazan St Petersburg Samara Piotrkow Plock Radom St Michel Tavastehus Uleaborg Stavropol Elizavetpol Erivan Kars Saratov Simbirsk Smolensk Tambov Taurida Tula Tver Ufa Vilna Vitebsk Vladimir Volhynia Vologda Voronezh Vyatka Yaroslavl Siedlce Suwalki Warsaw Viborg Vasa Terek Kutais Tiflis with Zakataly Akmolinsk Semipalatinsk The Steppes Turgai Uralsk Semiryechensk Samarkand Ferghana Syr-darya The effects of emigration and immigration cannot be estimated with accuracy, because only those who cross the frontier with passports are taken account of.
On the other hand, several Asiatic species (Siberian pine, larch, cedar) grow freely in the N.E., while numerous shrubs and herbaceous plants, originally from the Asiatic steppes, have found their way into the S.E.
Its true domains are the oak region and the steppes.
Russia, may be subdivided into two zones-an intermediate zone and that of the steppes proper.
The steppes proper are very fertile, elevated plains, slightly undulating, and intersected by numerous ravines which are dry in summer.
A great many species unknown in the forest region make their appearance in the steppes.
European plains - the tundras, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the ante-steppe and steppes of the black earth region.
The absence of Coregoni is a characteristic feature of the fish-fauna of the steppes; the carp, on the contrary, reappears, and the rivers abound in sturgeon (Acipenseridae).
The Zaporozhian Cossacks colonized the steppes farther E., towards the Don, where they met with a large population of Great Russian runaways, constituting the present Don Cossacks.
Urals, that is, the steppes of Ufa and Orenburg, extend also into Perm and Samara.
One section of them crossed the Urals and occupied the steppes between the Urals and the Volga; the remainder belong to Turkestan and Siberia.
The Mongol race is represented in Russia by the Kalmucks, who inhabit the steppes of Astrakhan between the Volga, the Don and the Kuma.
Broadly speaking, the forests here yield to steppes, and the soil is very fertile; but the whole region suffers periodically from drought.
Of the 55 million sheep kept in Russia only about 15 millions belong to the fine merino breed, and these are pastured chiefly on the Black Sea steppes.
Less than a century later it became the prize of Jenghiz Khan, who, having his main interests centred on the Mongolian steppes, declined to move his court southwards.
He spared neither men, money, nor himself in attempting to carry out his gigantic scheme for the colonization of the south Russian steppes; but he never calculated the cost, and more than three-quarters of the design had to be abandoned when but half finished.
Towards the foothills of the Caucasus they are clothed with thick forests, while in the west they merge into the steppes of south Russia or end in marshy ground, choked with reeds and rushes, in the delta of the Kuban.
In the north and east they give place, as the Manych and the coasts of the Caspian are approached, to arid, sandy, stony steppes.
The slopes of the Armenian highlands are clothed with fine forests, and the vine is grown at their base, while on the wide-stretching steppes the Turko-Tatars pasture cattle, horses and sheep. The lower part of the Kura valley assumes the character of a dry steppe, the rainfall not reaching 54 in.
It is still inhabited chiefly by Georgian tribesGurians, Imeretians, Mingrelians, Svanetians - in the basin of the Rion, and by Georgians intermingled with Armenians in the valley of the Kura, while the steppes that stretch away from the lower course of the latter river are ranged over by Turko-Tatars.
In 1865 the rinderpest, or steppe murrain, originating amongst the vast herds of the Russian steppes, had spread westward over Europe, until it was brought to London by foreign cattle.
In the trap-door species of Lycosidae, like, for instance, Lycosa opifex of the Russian steppes, the hinge is weak and the lid of the burrow is kept normally shut by being very much thicker and heavier at its free margin opposite the hinge so that it readily falls by its own weight.
The Balkan hill-peoples of Illyrian or Thracian stock, the hill-peoples of Asia Minor and Iran, the chivalry of Media and Bactria, the mounted bowmen of the Caspian steppes, the camel-riders of the Arabian desert, could all be turned to account.
More dreaded than the frosts are the terrible burans or snowstorms, which occur in early spring and destroy thousands of horses and cattle that have been grazing on the steppes throughout the winter.
They are described under Steppes.
In East Siberia the Buriats occupy the Selenga and the Uda, parts of Nerchinsk, and the steppes between Irkutsk and the upper Lena, as also the Baikal Mountains and the island of Orkhon; they support themselves chiefly by live-stock breeding, but some, especially in Irkutsk, are agriculturists.
Both cattle-breeding and sheep-grazing are more profit able than dairying; but the Kirghiz herds are not well tended, being left to graze on the steppes all the year, where they perish from wild animals and the cold.
Kuchum fled to the steppes, abandoning his domains to Yermak, who, according to tradition, purchased by the present of Siberia to Ivan IV.
It has extensive campos and large areas of exposed rock and stony steppes, but is richly provided with mineral deposits.
Thus, during the last twelve years of his reign, the dominions of Louis the Great included the greater part of central Europe, from Pomerania to the Danube, and from the Adriatic to the steppes of the Dnieper.
The dominance from the Yenisei to the Carpathians of a distinct style of art which, whatever its original elements may have been, seems to have taken shape as far east as the Yenisei basin is an additional argument in favour of a certain movement of population from the far north-east towards the south Russian steppes.