Caspian Sea

From Metapedia

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It has a surface area of 371,000 square kilometers (143,244 sq mi) and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometers (18,761 cu mi).[4] It is an endorheic body of water and lies between the southern areas of the Russian Federation and northern Iran. It has a maximum depth of about 1025 meters (3,363 ft). It is called a sea because when the Romans first arrived there, they tasted the water and found it to be salty. It has a salinity of approximately 1.2%, about a third the salinity of most seawater. It is named after the ancient Caspians.

The Caspian Sea is a remnant of the Tethys Sea, along with Black and Aral seas. It became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago. Discoveries in the Huto cave near the town of Behshahr, Mazandaran south of the Caspian, suggest human habitation of the area as early as 75,000 years ago.

In classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the Hyrcanian Ocean. In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as the Khazar or Mazandaran Sea. In Turkic speaking countries it is known as the Khazar Sea. Old Russian sources call it the Khvalyn (Khvalynian) Sea after the Khvalis, inhabitants of Khwarezmia. Ancient Arabic sources refer to Bahr-e-Qazvin — the Qazvin Sea.

The word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people that lived to the 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 Gate, which is the name of a region in Tehran province of Iran, is another possible piece of evidence that they migrated to the south of the sea.