50 Fun Facts About Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea holds what distinction among the world's lakes and seas?

Despite its name and its briny water, it is often listed as the world's biggest lake.

How many countries have a coastline on the Caspian Sea?

Kazakhstan has the longest shoreline and Russia the shortest.

In Iran, on the southern shore, the Caspian is known by what name, after a province on its coast?

That shore is also the saltiest part of the sea, since little fresh water flows in there.

What is the surface area of the Caspian Sea, excluding the saline lagoon on its eastern shore?

It holds 40 to 44 percent of all the lake water on Earth and covers more area than Germany.

The surface of the Caspian Sea lies roughly how far below global sea level?

Baku, on its shore, is the lowest-lying national capital in the world.

The Caspian's salinity is about 1.2 percent, roughly what fraction of average seawater?

It is nearly fresh in the north where the Volga pours in, and saltiest on the Iranian shore.

Roughly how many rivers flow into the Caspian Sea?

The Volga, Europe's longest river, is by far the largest, entering at the shallow northern end.

How deep is the Northern Caspian on average?

The shallow northern shelf holds less than one percent of the water; the south plunges past 1,000 metres.

The Caspian became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago as a remnant of which ancient sea?

It is estimated to be around 30 million years old.

The name 'Caspian' comes from which ancient people?

The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the same root.

Among the ancient Greeks and Persians, the Caspian was known by what name?

Old Russian sources called it the Khvalyn Sea, after Khwarezmia.

Which Central Asian river once repeatedly changed course to reach the Caspian via the now-dry Uzboy channel?

The Syr Darya farther north did the same at times.

Which saline Caspian lagoon in Turkmenistan was dammed off in 1980 and refilled in 1992?

Its salinity averages about 35 percent, and it was cut off over fears it was accelerating a fall in Caspian levels.

In which port city was the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea signed in August 2018?

It settled decades of argument over how to divide the seabed and its oil.

Legally, after the 2018 convention, the Caspian Sea is defined as what?

An earlier Soviet–Iranian treaty had treated it as a lake split into two sectors with shared fishing.

Kazakhstan has the longest Caspian coastline; roughly how long is it?

Turkmenistan is next with 1,035 km, while Russia's share is the shortest at 747 km.

In which year did the Nobel brothers arrive in Baku to invest in its oil boom?

The Rothschilds followed in 1882; the world's first offshore wells were drilled in nearby Bibi-Heybat Bay.

Neft Daşları (Oil Rocks), off Azerbaijan, is recognised by Guinness as the world's first what?

Built after oil was struck in 1949, it is a whole town standing on trestle bridges out at sea.

Which James Bond film features a scene at the Oil Rocks settlement in the Caspian?

Construction of the settlement's trestle bridges linking artificial islands began in 1952.

Baku is the largest city on the Caspian and also the largest in which mountainous region?

At 28 metres below sea level it is also the world's lowest-lying national capital.

Baku is nicknamed the 'City of Winds'; what are its two famous winds called?

The khazri is the cold northerly and the gilavar the warm southerly, blowing in every season.

Baku's UNESCO-listed Old City contains the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and which famous landmark?

The Old City was inscribed in 2000; the modern skyline is dominated by the glass Flame Towers.

Which ever-burning natural gas fire near Baku is a tourist attraction?

The nearby Ateshgah fire temple was built by Indian traders in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Baku hosted which international song contest in 2012?

It has since staged the European Games, a Formula One Grand Prix and a Europa League final.

The Caspian Sea is famous for its caviar and which other industry?

Six species of sturgeon are native to the sea, including the giant beluga.

The beluga sturgeon of the Caspian holds what record?

A female caught in the Volga estuary in 1827 weighed 1,571 kg and measured 7.2 metres.

What is the IUCN conservation status of the beluga sturgeon, hunted for its caviar?

Caviar sells for over 1,500 manats a kilo in Azerbaijan, enough to fund bribes that render fishing rules toothless.

Traditionally, 'caviar' means only wild sturgeon roe from the Caspian and which other sea?

Beluga, ossetra and sevruga are the classic grades; Iran and Russia long dominated production.

What is the only aquatic mammal endemic to the Caspian Sea?

One of the smallest earless seals, it pups on the winter ice of the northern Caspian.

In which year was the Caspian tiger assessed as extinct?

It survived in riverine forests until the 1970s; genetic work links it closely to the Amur tiger.

The experimental Soviet craft nicknamed the 'Caspian Sea Monster' was what kind of vehicle?

Its descendant, the Lun-class, is the only ground-effect vehicle ever deployed as a warship, cruising at 550 km/h just above the waves.

The last Lun-class ekranoplan was towed in 2020 toward a planned museum in which city?

It had sat unused at the naval base since the late 1990s.

Which Caspian city in Dagestan is considered Russia's oldest, guarding the Caspian Gates pass?

Its Sasanian walls, 20 metres high with thirty towers, date to the reign of Khosrow I.

Astrakhan, on the Volga delta near the Caspian, was captured for Russia in 1556 by which tsar?

Its Kremlin was built from bricks salvaged from the Golden Horde capital of Sarai Berke.

The Caspian Sea is divided into how many distinct physical regions?

The Northern, Middle and Southern Caspian differ enormously in depth.

What is the average depth of the Middle Caspian?

The Southern Caspian goes beyond 1,000 metres, far deeper than the Persian Gulf.

Which part of the Caspian Sea typically freezes over in winter?

Only in the coldest winters does ice form in the south as well.

Which forests on the Caspian's southern shore in Iran were added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2019?

They are relics of the ancient temperate forests that once covered much of the region.

Which is the largest island in the Caspian Sea?

Nargin, off Baku, is the largest island in Baku bay and a former Soviet base.

Climate projections suggest the Caspian's level could fall by how much by 2100?

An 18-metre drop could turn 143,000 sq km of seabed into land, a 37 percent loss of area.

Ships from the Caspian reach the world's oceans through the Volga–Don Canal into which sea?

A proposed 700-km 'Eurasia Canal' along the Kuma–Manych Depression would give the Caspian a more direct westward outlet.

Which Kazakh president proposed a 700-km 'Eurasia Canal' running west from the Caspian in 2007?

The likeliest route follows the Kuma–Manych Depression, already linked by irrigation channels.

Türkmenbaşy, the Caspian ferry port linked to Baku, was formerly known by what Soviet-era name?

Ferries also link Baku with Aktau and Kuryk in Kazakhstan.

What did the medieval Arabic name for the Caspian, Bahr al-Khazar, mean?

Some historians think a 10th-century rise in the sea flooded Khazar coastal towns and cost the khaganate two-thirds of its land.

The Caspian is an endorheic basin; what does that mean?

Water leaves only by evaporation, which is why levels swing with the Volga's flow and the climate.

The Caspian Sea straddles the border between which two continents?

It lies west of the Central Asian steppe and north of the Iranian Plateau.

The pioneering Russian explorer Fyodor Soimonov charted the Caspian during the reign of which ruler?

His surveys were published by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1720.

Roughly what share of the Caspian Sea's inflow comes from the Volga River?

The Volga, Europe's longest river, drains a fifth of the continent's land area.

How many sturgeon species are native to the Caspian Sea?

They are the Russian, bastard, Persian, sterlet, starry and beluga sturgeons.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, opened in 2006, carries Azeri oil to a port on which sea?

Ceyhan is on Turkey's southern coast; the route bypasses Russia entirely.