Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the surface area of the Caspian Sea?
The Caspian Sea is the largest lake on Earth by both area and volume, with a surface area of 371,000 square kilometres (143,244 mi²) and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometres (18,761 mi³). It is a landlocked endorheic body of water and lies between Asia and Europe. It has a maximum depth of about . It is called a sea because when the Romans discovered it they tasted the water and found it to be salty. It has a salinity of approximately 1.2 percent, about a third the salinity of sea water.
The Caspian Depression is below sea-level, consisting of large areas of marshlands in the eastern region. It is one of the largest flat lowland areas in Central Asia, covering approximately . The area is very rich in underground oil and gas reserves, and oil and natural gas pipelines cross the depression from north to south and east to west. Many geologists believe the Caspian Sea and the depression were formed by tectonic forces. Some of them also believe that the North Caspian depression became separated from the open ocean in ancient times to form an enormous salt lake. Part of the ancient Silk Road ran through this region. The two largest cities in the depression are Astrakhan in Russia, and Atyrau in Kazakhstan. Today, the region is used mainly for livestock raising.
The Convention grants jurisdiction over 15 miles of territorial waters to each neighboring country, plus additional 10 miles of exclusive fishing rights on the surface, while the rest is international waters. The seabed, on the other hand, remains undefined, subject to bilateral agreements between countries. Thus, the Caspian Sea is legally neither fully a sea nor a lake.
The Caspians ( "Kaspioi", Aramaic: "kspy", "kaspielebiʿ", "kaspkʿ", "Kāspiān") were a people of antiquity who dwelled along the southern and southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the region known as Caspiane. "Caspian" is the English version of the Greek ethnonym "Kaspioi", mentioned twice by Herodotus among the Achaemenid satrapies of Darius and applied by Strabo. The name is not attested in Old Iranian.
The Republic of Kazakhstan is a landlocked sovereign country located across both Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world as well as the world's largest landlocked country, it has a territory of 2,727,300 km² (greater than Western Europe). It is bordered by Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and China. The country also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea.
Baku, which is the starting point of all sea routes of Azerbaijan, is the largest port of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan has access to the oceans along the Caspian Sea-Volga-Volga-Don Canal, and the Don-Sea of Azov. Along with the Volga-Don Canal, the Azerbaijani vessels have the opportunity to enter the world ocean through the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic canals. Moreover, oil tankers are being transported through the Caspian Sea. Baku Sea Trade Port and Caspian Shipping Company CJSC, have a big role in the sea transportation of Azerbaijan. The Caspian Sea Shipping Company CJSC, along with the transport fleet, also includes a specialized fleet and shipyards. The transport fleet consists of 51 vessels, including 20 tankers, 13 ferries, 15 universal dry cargo vessels, 2 Ro-Ro vessels, as well as 1 technical vessel and 1 floating workshop. The specialized fleet includes 210 vessels, including 20 cranes, 25 towing and supplying vehicles, 26 passenger, two pipe-laying, six fire-fighting, seven engineering-geological, two diving and 88 auxiliary vessels.
Lake Michigan has a surface area of 22,404 sq.mi (58,026 km); (13,237 square miles, 34,284 km lying in Michigan state, 7,358 square miles, 19,056 km in Wisconsin, 234 square miles, 606 km in Indiana, & 1,576 square miles, 4,079 km in Illinois) making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area (Lake Baikal, in Russia, is larger by water volume), and the fifth-largest lake in the world. It is the larger half of Lake Michigan–Huron, which is the largest body of fresh water in the world by surface area. It is long by wide with a shoreline long. The lake's average depth is 46 fathoms 3 feet (279 ft; 85 m), while its greatest depth is 153 fathoms 5 feet (923 ft; 281 m). It contains a volume of 1,180 cubic miles (4,918 km³) of water. Green Bay in the northwest is its largest bay. Grand Traverse Bay in its northeast is another large bay. Lake Michigan's deepest region, which lies in its northern-half, is called Chippewa Basin (named after prehistoric Lake Chippewa) and is separated from South Chippewa Basin, by a relatively shallower area called the Mid Lake Plateau.
Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the largest coastline, at . Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 48 countries, three of them (Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) having part of their land in Europe.
Kazakhstan is located in Central Asia and Eastern Europe at . With an area of about 2,724,800 square kilometers, Kazakhstan is more than twice the combined size of the other four Central Asian states and 60% larger than Alaska. The country borders Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan to the south; Russia to the north; Russia and the Caspian Sea to the west; and China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the east.
The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km (143,200 sq mi) (not including the detached lagoon of Garabogazköl) and a volume of 78,200 km(18,800 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/l), about a third of the salinity of most seawater.
Archeological studies of Gobustan petroglyphs indicate that there once had been dolphins and porpoises, or a certain species of beaked whales and a whaling scene indicates large baleen whales likely being present in Caspian Sea at least until when the Caspian Sea ceased being a part of the ocean system or until the Quaternary or much more recent periods such as until the last glacial period or antiquity. Although the rock art on Kichikdash Mountain is assumed to be of a dolphin or of a beaked whale, it might instead represent the famous beluga sturgeon due to its size (430 cm in length), but fossil records suggest certain ancestors of modern dolphins and whales, such as "Macrokentriodon morani" (bottlenose dolphins) and "Balaenoptera sibbaldina" (blue whales) were presumably larger than their present descendants. From the same artworks, auks, like Brunnich's Guillemot could also have been in the sea as well, and these petroglyphs suggest marine inflow between the current Caspian Sea and the Arctic Ocean or North Sea, or the Black Sea. This is supported by the existences of current endemic, oceanic species such as lagoon cockles which was genetically identified to originate in Caspian/Black Seas regions.
Turkic languages refer to the lake as "Khazar Sea". In Turkmen, the name is , in Azeri, it is , and in modern Turkish, it is . In all these cases, the second word simply means "sea", and 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. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called , "Kaspiy teñizi" (Caspian Sea).
Endorheic drainage basins are inland basins that do not drain to an ocean. Around 18% of all land drains to endorheic lakes or seas or sinks. The largest of these consists of much of the interior of Asia, which drains into the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, and numerous smaller lakes. Other endorheic regions include the Great Basin in the United States, much of the Sahara Desert, the drainage basin of the Okavango River (Kalahari Basin), highlands near the African Great Lakes, the interiors of Australia and the Arabian Peninsula, and parts in Mexico and the Andes. Some of these, such as the Great Basin, are not single drainage basins but collections of separate, adjacent closed basins.
Neogobius pallasi, the Caspian sand goby or the Caspian monkey goby, is a species of fish native to fresh and brackish waters of the Caspian Sea basin including the Volga drainage up to the vicinity of Moscow. It has been introduced into the Aral basin. This species of goby can reach a length of SL. It is also important to local commercial fisheries.
The Caspian tern ("Hydroprogne caspia") is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek "hudros", "water", and Latin "progne", "swallow". The specific "caspia" is from Latin and, like the English name, refers to the Caspian Sea.
The species is distributed throughout brackish and fresh waters of the Ponto-Caspian basin. It is found in the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov, rivers Volga, Don, Kuban and Danube; in the rivers up to over 500 km upstream. All the previous mentionings of "P. baeri" outside the Caspian Sea should probably be attributed to "P. bakuensis". The ranges of "P. bakuensis" and "P. baeri" partly overlap: they can be found together in the Caspian Sea.
By the 17th century, Mare Crisium had acquired the name 'Caspian Sea', being labelled as such by Thomas Harriot, Pierre Gassendi and Michael Van Langren. Ewen A. Whitaker speculates that it received this name because it occupies roughly the same position on the Moon's face as does the Caspian Sea on Earth, with respect to maps of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The English astronomer William Gilbert's map of "c".1600 calls it 'Brittania' after Britain.
Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, and also adjoins a large part of the Caspian Sea. The terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18.3 million people . Given its large land area, its population density is among the lowest, at less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 people per sq mi). The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the country's largest city.
There is considerable topographical variation within Kazakhstan. The highest point is the top of the mountain Khan Tengri, on the Kyrgyz border in the Tian Shan range, with an elevation of above sea level; the lowest point is the bottom of the Karagiye depression at below sea level, in the Mangystau province east of the Caspian Sea. Most of the country lies at between above sea level, but Kazakhstan's Caspian shore includes some of the lowest elevations on Earth. The peak Khan Tengri in the Tian Shan Mountains (and on the border with Kyrgyzstan and China) is Kazakhstan highest elevation at ( with ice cap).
In terms of volume, the largest lake on the list is Lake Tahoe, located on the California–Nevada border. It holds roughly of water. It is also the largest freshwater lake by area, at , and the deepest lake, with a maximum depth of .
Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface-water resources. However, most of Russia's rivers and streams belong to the Arctic drainage basin, which lies mainly in Siberia but also includes part of European Russia. Altogether, 84 percent of Russia's surface water is located east of the Urals in rivers flowing through sparsely populated territory and into the Arctic and Pacific oceans. In contrast, areas with the highest concentrations of population, and therefore the highest demand for water supplies, tend to have the warmest climates and highest rates of evaporation. As a result, densely populated areas such as the Don and Kuban River basins north of the Caucasus have barely adequate (or in some cases inadequate) water resources.
Eridania Lake is a theorized ancient lake with a surface area of roughly 1.1 million square kilometers. Its maximum depth is 2,400 meters and its volume is 562,000 km. It was larger than the largest landlocked sea on Earth, the Caspian Sea and contained more water than all the other martian lakes together. The Eridania sea held more than 9 times as much water as all of North America's Great Lakes. The upper surface of the lake was assumed to be at the elevation of valley networks that surround the lake; they all end at the same elevation, suggesting that they emptied into a lake.
Steppe: Since the Don and Volga are not significant barriers the history of most of this area is part of the general history of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Since this area is far from the centers of literate civilization it is hard to know the details of what happened. Variations in dates below represent early ancestors, late survivals and other irregularities.
The Caspian turtle ("Mauremys caspica"), although found in neighboring areas, is a wholly freshwater species. The zebra mussel is native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins, but has become an invasive species elsewhere, when introduced. The area has given its name to several species, including the Caspian gull and the Caspian tern. The Caspian seal ("Pusa caspica") is the only aquatic mammal and is endemic to the Caspian Sea, being one of very few seal species that live in inland waters, but it is different from the those inhabiting freshwaters due to the hydrological environment of the sea.
Eridania Lake is a theorized ancient lake with a surface area of roughly 1.1 million square kilometers. Its maximum depth is 2,400 meters and its volume is 562,000 km. It was larger than the largest landlocked sea on Earth, the Caspian Sea and contained more water than all the other martian lakes together. The Eridania sea held more than 9 times as much water as all of America's Great Lakes. The upper surface of the lake was assumed to be at the elevation of valley networks that surround the lake; they all end at the same elevation, suggesting that they emptied into a lake.