The Work of the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1958

The author defines satellites primarily on the basis of their commuting links with the central city or cities. He discusses characteristics of satellite cities and towns and their functions, trends in the development and location of satellites, and recommendations for Soviet city planning. In the following translation, the Russian term gorod has been translated as city, and poselok gorodskogo tipa (urban-type settlement) as town.     

The Location of the Boundary Between the Tropical and Subtropical Landscapes in Eastern Asia (Based on material from a field study of yünnan)

The author, another opponent of large reservoirs in Western Siberia, analyzes the effect of such large inland water areas on the moisture and heat supply of the region. He predicts that the construction of a reservoir would result in a southward shift of the optimal moisture and heat conditions for agriculture and would have an adverse cooling effect on climate, especially In summer.     

The Study of the Heat and Moisture Balance of the Ukraine as a Basis for Measures to Raise the Productivity of Agriculture

The paper discusses the availability of data for calculating the heat balance and the moisture balance for the territory of the Ukraine. The problem of determining total evaporation, evaporation from the surface of the soil and transpiration of agricultural crops is treated in detail. The authors discuss practical applications of heat and moisture balance work, including the setting of irrigation norms, the study of the regimes of stream reservoirs, swamp drainage and the study of the effect of tree plantings on the microclimate of sheltered fields.     

Geographical Aspects and Problems of the Industrialization of Siberia

A review of past industrialization of Siberia and future plans, discussed in terms of three basic zones: (1) the developed belt along the Trans-Siberian Railroad; (2) the southern margins of the tayga immediately to the north of the railroad, and (3) valuable mineral sites selectively developed in the rest of Siberia. Individual industrial nodes are listed and developmental problems outlined.     

Applications of Mathematics to Some Problems in Economic Geography

The author, a staff member of the Institute of Scientific Information of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, discusses some aspects of the use of mathematics in research on settlement geography. He develops a number of methods originated abroad, such as the nearest-neighbor distance and the Zipf rule on city-size distribution, and applies them to the study of patterns of urban settlements and the size and spacing of cities in national and regional systems.     

Basic Principles of Landscape Mapping

This report of the Permanent Commission on Landscape Maps of the Geographical Society USSR defines four groups of landscape maps and their basic mapped objects, ranging from detailed, large-scale facies maps (1:10,000) to small-scale maps of less than 1:1,000,000 showing mainly landscapes (in the sense of a given rank of natural areal unit). The report defines various physical-geographic units, such as facies, urochishche and mestnost' and the Russian terms have been retained where the meaning is ambiguous and there is no clear-cut English equivalent. The report also discusses various ways of formulating map legends. A previous paper on landscape mapping appeared in Soviet Geography, February 1961, pp. 34–47.     

Some Trends in Changes of the Structure and Location of United States Agriculture

Using Lenin's 50-year-old study of United States agriculture as a starting point, the author analyzes structural changes from the Marxist point of view, dealing with such elements as increases in average farm size, mechanization, hired labor, decreases of cultivated land, acreage limitations, and changes in crop specialization.