Minusinsk Basin

A triangular mountain basin south of Krasnoyarsk in southern Siberia, Russian Federation. Situated at an altitude of between 200–300m (640–980 ft) and 700 m (2,300 ft), it is crossed by the Yenisey River and surrounded by the Kuznetsk Ala Tau and Sayan Mountain ranges. The region is one of the main agricultural areas of Siberia; grain is grown and cattle, sheep, and horses raised.

The climate of the Minusinsk Basin is severely continental and fairly dry; the vegetation west of the Yenisey is steppe, while east of it lies wooded steppe. The Yenisey was virtually the only link with the outside world until 1927, when a railway spur was built from Achinsk on the Trans-Siberian line; coal and gold mining, and forestry developed as a result. In 1959 another railway connected the region with the Kuznetsk Basin, and iron-ore mining began. Finally, with the completion of the Abakan–Taishet leg of the South Siberian Railway in the 1960s, the area's position on a major trunk route stimulated development of the large Sayan industrial complex (engineering, hydroelectric power, and chemical plants).