Trans-Siberian Railway Chita, and Khabarovsk to Vladivostok via southern Siberia. A second primary route is the Trans-Manchurian, which coincides with the Trans-Siberian east of Chita as far as Tarskaya (a stop east of Karymskoye, in Chita Oblast), about east of Lake Baikal. From Tarskaya the Trans-Manchurian heads southeast, via Harbin and Mudanjiang in China's Northeastern Provinces (from where a connection to Beijing is used by one of the Moscow–Beijing trains), joining with the main route in Ussuriysk just north of Vladivostok. This is the shortest and the oldest railway route to Vladivostok. While there are currently no traverse passenger services (enter China
West Siberian taiga Siberian taiga ecoregion, which is colder and more rugged in terrain. The southern edge of the region lies north of the belt of temperate forests and forest-steppe that runs along the Trans-Siberian railway. Because the West Siberian ecoregion is thus outside of the normal agricultural and developed strip of southern Russia, it is sparsely populated, although the city of Yekaterinburg is at the extreme southwest corner of the region. The city of Surgut is the largest city in the interior (with just over 300,000 inhabitants). To the north is the tundra of the Yamal-Gydan tundra ecoregion (covering the Ob River