Caspian Region

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 Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau of Western Asia. It covers a surface area of (excluding the highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east) and a volume of . It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/L), about a third of the salinity of average seawater. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the southwest, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast.

The sea stretches nearly from north to south, with an average width of . Its gross coverage is and the surface is about below sea level. Its main freshwater inflow, Europe's longest river, the Volga, enters at the shallow north end. Two deep basins form its central and southern zones. These lead to horizontal differences in temperature, salinity, and ecology. The seabed in the south reaches below sea level, which is the second-lowest natural non-oceanic depression on Earth after Lake Baikal (). Written accounts from the ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its salinity and large size.

The Caspian Sea is home to a wide range of species and is known for its caviar and oil industries. Pollution from the oil industry and dams on rivers draining into it have harmed its ecology.

Etymology

The lake's name stems from Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo (died circa AD 24) wrote that "to the country of the Albanians ( Caucasus Albania not to be confused with the country of Albania) belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea; but the tribe has now disappeared". Moreover, the Caspian Gates, part of Iran's Tehran province, may evince such a people migrated to the south. The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with this common name for the sea. The traditional and medieval Arabic name for the sea was Bahr(sea) Xazar but in recent centuries common and standard name in Arabic language is Baḥr Qazvin Arabized from Caspian. In modern russian: Каспи́йское мо́ре, ''Kaspiyskoye more''.''Iran'' (5th ed., 2008), by Andrew Burke and Mark Elliott
p. 28
, Lonely Planet Publications,

Some Turkic ethnic groups refer to it with the Caspi(an) descriptor; in Kazakh it is called , ''Kaspiy teñizi'', ky, Каспий деңизи, Kaspiy deñizi, uz, Kaspiy dengizi. Others refer to it as the ''Khazar sea'': tk, Hazar deňizi; az, Xəzər dənizi, tr, Hazar denizi. In all these the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries.

In Iran, the lake is referred to as the ''Mazandaran Sea'' ( fa, دریای مازندران), after the historic Mazandaran Province at its southern shores.

Old Russian sources use the ''Khvalyn'' or ''Khvalis'' Sea () after the name of Khwarezmia.

Among Greeks and Persians in classical antiquity it was the Hyrcanian ocean.

Renaissance European maps labelled it as the ''Abbacuch Sea'' (Oronce Fine's 1531 world map), ''Mar de Bachu'' (Ortellius' 1570 map), or ''Mar de Sala'' (Mercator's 1569 map).

It was also sometimes called the Kumyk Sea and Tarki Sea (derived from the name of the Kumyks and their historical capital Tarki).

Basin countries

Border countries

*Kazakhstan
*Iran
*Azerbaijan
*Russia
*Turkmenistan

Non-border countries

*Armenia (entirety)
*Georgia (its east part)
*Turkey (extreme north-eastern parts)
*Uzbekistan (extreme western parts)

Physical characteristics

Formation

The Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. Its seafloor is, therefore, a standard oceanic basalt and not a continental granite body. It became landlocked in the Late Miocene, about 5.5 million years ago, due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. The Caspian Sea was a comparatively small endorheic lake during the Pliocene