Greater Caucasus

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Greater Caucasus
Mountainous landscape of Arkhyz
Highest point
Peak Mount Elbrus
Elevation 5,642 m (18,510 ft)
Coordinates 43°21′18″N 42°26′31″E﻿ / ﻿43.35500°N 42.44194°E﻿ / 43.35500; 42.44194Coordinates: 43°21′18″N 42°26′31″E﻿ / ﻿43.35500°N 42.44194°E﻿ / 43.35500; 42.44194
Length 1,200 km (750 mi) NW-SE
Satellite image
Countries Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia
Parent range Caucasus Mountains
Borders on Lesser Caucasus

Greater Caucasus (Russian: Большой Кавказ; Azerbaijani: Böyük Qafqaz; Georgian: დიდი კავკასიონი), sometimes translated as "Caucasus Major", "Big Caucasus" or "Large Caucasus") is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains.

The range stretches for about 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) from west-northwest to east-southeast, between the Taman Peninsula of the Black Sea to the Absheron Peninsula of the Caspian Sea: from the Western Caucasus in the vicinity of Sochi on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea and reaching nearly to Baku on the Caspian.

The range is traditionally separated into three parts:

In the wetter Western Caucasus, the mountains are heavily forested (deciduous forest up to 1,500 m, coniferous forest up to 2,500 m and alpine meadows above the tree line). In the drier Eastern Caucasus, the mountains are mostly treeless.

Europe—Asia boundary[edit]

The watershed of the Caucasus is also considered the boundary between Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The European part north of the watershed is known as Ciscaucasia, the Asiatic part to the south as Transcaucasia.[1]

The border of Russia with Georgia and Azerbaijan runs along the most of the Caucasus' length. The Georgian Military Road (Darial Gorge) and Trans-Caucasus Highway traverse this mountain range at altitudes of up to 3,000 metres (9,800 ft).


The watershed of the Caucasus was the border between the Caucasia province of the Russian Empire in the north and the Ottoman Empire and Persia in the south in 1801, until the Russian victory in 1813 and the Treaty of Gulistan which moved the border of the Russian Empire well within Transcaucasia.[2] The border between Russia and Georgia still follows the watershed almost exactly (with the exception of a narrow strip of territory in northern Mtskheta-Mtianeti and northwestern Kakheti where Georgia extends north of the watershed), while Azerbaijan in its northeastern corner has five districts north of the watershed (Davachi, Khachmaz, Qusar, Siazan, Quba).


7th-century Georgian Orthodox Gergeti Trinity Church, with the Mount Kazbek in the background



The snow-capped peaks of the Greater Caucasus.


  1. ^ 18th-century definitions drew the boundary north of the Caucasus, across the Kuma–Manych Depression. This definition remained in use in the Soviet Union during the 20th century. In western literature, the continental boundary has been drawn along the Caucasus watershed since at least the mid 19th century. See e.g. Baron von Haxthausen, "Transcaucasia" (1854); review Dublin university magazine Douglas W. Freshfield, "Journey in the Caucasus", Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, Volumes 13-14, 1869.
  2. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica o 1833, vol 5, p. 251.