Both leisure and business tourism is hampered significantly by a lack of available information about the region's travel opportunities, accessibility and experienced tour companies. Three-fourths of the territory is covered by mountains and many lakes and rivers. Some of the rivers, such as the Amur and Lena, are more than 4,000 km long. There is perhaps no other area which is more diverse than the Arctic wilderness with swampy tundra, boundless steppes and a stretch of taiga from north to south covering more than 4,000 km. More than one hundred species of flowering plants, such as the arctic poppy and snow buttercup, are still found in the Arctic wilderness.
Some plants are very small, such as the dwarf willow and partridge grass.
In winter there are polar bears and foxes. In summer huge bird colonies gather on the cliffs. The Far East can be divided into two regions, the southern and the northern regions. The northern region includes the Khabarovski and Proimorski territories and the Sakhalin and Amur regions and is more densely populated. The northern region, specifically where it borders the Pacific Ocean, is populated more sparsely with people who mainly derive their livelihood from fishing and related industries.