# Map of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Source page: https://geographichistory.app/empire/soviet-union/

On the Geographic History map, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics appears from 1917 to 1991. It reaches its largest mapped extent in 1944: about 23 million km² across 342 provinces.

The Soviet Union was formed in 1922 by Soviet Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics, five years after the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. Under Stalin it was industrialised by force, and it suffered the heaviest losses of the Second World War before emerging as one of two superpowers. It was dissolved in December 1991 into fifteen independent states.

## Mapped area by year (km²)

- 1917: 4,697,000
- 1922: 19,976,000
- 1927: 21,258,000
- 1932: 21,258,000
- 1937: 21,258,000
- 1942: 19,978,000
- 1947: 21,882,000
- 1952: 21,731,000
- 1957: 21,731,000
- 1962: 21,731,000
- 1967: 21,731,000
- 1972: 21,731,000
- 1977: 21,731,000
- 1982: 21,731,000
- 1987: 21,731,000
- 1991: 3,000

## About this map

Territory comes from the Chronas historical dataset used by the Geographic History app. Areas are approximate, computed from about 2,400 province shapes, and describe this map rather than official historical figures - border data for the ancient and medieval world is necessarily a reconstruction.