Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is in an endorheic basin (it has no outflows) located between Europe and Asia. It is bounded to the northeast by Kazakhstan, to the northwest by Russia, to the west by Azerbaijan, to the south by Iran, and to the southeast by Turkmenistan. The Caspian Sea lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia. Its northern part, the Caspian Depression, is one of the lowest points on Earth. The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness and large size.

The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km² (143,200 sq mi) (not including its detached lagoon of Garabogazköl Aylagy) and a volume of 78,200 km³ (18,800 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/l), about a third of the salinity of most seawater.

Etymology

The word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the south-west of the sea in Transcaucasia.Strabo wrote that "to the country of the Albanians 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, which is the name of a region in Iran's Tehran province, possibly indicates that they migrated to the south of the sea. The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Bahr al-Qazwin (Sea of Qazvin).