Astara ( tly, Ostoro, script=Latn) is a city in and the capital of the

Astara District Astara District ( az, Astara rayonu, tly, Ostoro rəyon, script=Latn) is one of the 66 districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the south-east of the country and belongs to the Lankaran-Astara Economic Region. The district borders the districts ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

. Astara is a short walk across the

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...

from Astara, Iran.

Geography

Climate

Astara has a borderline

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

: ''Cfa'') and a

hot-summer mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

(

: ''Csa''). Astara has cool, wet winters and very warm, highly humid summers, nevertheless with lower precipitation. The annual precipitation of the city, however, is one of the highest in Azerbaijan.

Attractions

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland

body of water A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such a ...

, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

. It is an

endorheic basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

(a basin without outflows) located between

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, to the east of the

Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains, : pronounced * hy, Կովկասյան լեռներ, : pronounced * az, Qafqaz dağları, pronounced * rus, Кавка́зские го́ры, Kavkázskiye góry, kɐfˈkasːkʲɪje ˈɡorɨ * tr, Kafkas Dağla ...

and to the west of the broad

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate gras ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

. The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km² (143,200 sq mi) (excluding the detached lagoon of

Garabogazköl The Garabogazköl (also spelt Kara-Bogaz-Gol; "Black Strait Lake"), or Garabogazköl Aylagy ("Black Strait Lake Bay"), is a shallow, highly-saline water-filled depression in the northwestern corner of Turkmenistan. It forms a lagoon of the Caspian ...

) and a volume of 78,200 km³ (18,800 cu mi). It has a

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

of approximately 1.2% (12 g/L), about a third of the salinity of most

seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has appro ...

Astara TV Tower

As the demand for television broadcasting and telecommunication rises during the early 1980s, the

Astara TV Tower Astara Television Tower ( az, Astara televiziya qüllə), is a steel tall Azerbaijani lattice television tower located in the city of Astara, on the southeastern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The tower is used for transmitting FM Radio a ...

was built. The television tower was uniquely designed, as its pinnacle is guyed to a horizontal cross-like steel structure.

Economy

Located next to the Iranian border, Astara attracts numerous visitors from Iran, going to Azerbaijan to purchase goods and services that may not be as readily available in Iran.The Tijuana of the Caspian: At the border between Azerbaijan and Iran, everything’s for sale: sex, booze, tattoos—and maybe some revolutionary fervor
By Peter Savodnik, December 2009, ATLANTIC MAGAZINE

Transport

Astara is currently served by a

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union ( C ...

railway only headed north. A

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...

connection to the Iranian railway network along the shore of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...

is planned. This break of gauge station is likely to be equipped with bogie exchange and

SUW 2000 SUW 2000 is a Polish variable gauge system that allows trains to cross a break of gauge. It is interoperable with the German Rafil Type V system (built by the Radsatzfabrik Ilsenburg). History The SUW 2000 system was designed by Ryszard Suwalski. ...

variable gauge axle A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges. For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge wh ...

track gauge changing facility A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges. For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge wh ...

Notable people

Kazim Azimov Kazim Azimov Agamirza ( az, Kazım Ağamirzə oğlu Əzimov; born February 10, 1951, Astara, Azerbaijan SSR, USSR) – is an Azerbaijani historian of philosophy, culture, sociologist, Orientalist, specialist in the field of history of ancient a ...

(born 1951), Azerbaijani historian of philosophy, culture, sociologist, Orientalist * Ziya Bunyadov (1923–1997), Azerbaijani historian and World War II veteran

Notes

References

*
World Gazetteer: Azerbaijan
– World-Gazetteer.com {{Authority control Populated places in Astara District Azerbaijan–Iran border crossings Port cities in Azerbaijan Divided cities