Black Sea–Caspian Steppe Black Sea–Caspian Steppe The Black Sea-Caspian Steppe is an informal name for that part of the Eurasian Steppe that extends south between the Black and Caspian Seas. It is usually treated as part of the Pontic-Caspian steppe which includes the area north of the Black and Caspian Seas, but there is some reason to treat it as a distinct place. Its natural boundaries are the Sea of Azov and Black Sea on the west, the Caucasus Mountains on the south and the Caspian Sea on the east. Its northern boundary may be taken as the triangle formed by the lower
Black Sea 1570 map of Asia titled from Abraham Ortelius's labels the sea ("Great Sea", compare Latin ). English-language writers of the 18th century often used the name "Euxine Sea" ( or ) to refer to the Black Sea. Edward Gibbon, for instance, calls the sea by this name throughout "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". During the Ottoman Empire period, the Black Sea was called either or , both meaning "the Black Sea" in the Ottoman Turkish. In the tenth-century geography book , which was written in Persian by an unknown author, the Black Sea is