Caspian Sea the east often changed course to empty into the Caspian through a now-desiccated riverbed called the Uzboy River, as did the Syr Darya farther north. The Caspian also has several small islands; they are primarily located in the north and have a collective land area of roughly . Adjacent to the North Caspian is the Caspian Depression, a low-lying region below sea level. The Central Asian steppes stretch across the northeast coast, while the Caucasus mountains hug the western shore. The biomes to both the north and east are characterized by cold, continental deserts. Conversely, the climate to the southwest
Black Sea turquoise), Middle Persian / ("blue"), and New Persian ("blue"), as well as Ossetic (“dark gray"). The ancient Greeks, most likely those living to the north of the Black Sea, subsequently adopted the name and altered it to . Thereafter, Greek tradition refers to the Black Sea as the "Inhospitable Sea", , which is first attested in Pindar (). The name was considered to be "ominous" and was later changed into the euphemistic name "Hospitable sea", , which was also for the first time attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation for the sea in Greek. In contexts related