Greater Caucasus Greater Caucasus Greater Caucasus (, Бөјүк Гафгаз, بيوک قافقاز; , "Didi K’avk’asioni"; , "Bolshoy Kavkaz", sometimes translated as "Caucasus Major", "Big Caucasus" or "Large Caucasus") is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains. The range stretches for about 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
Caspian Sea human settlements. The Caspian has characteristics common to both seas and lakes. It is often listed as the world's largest lake, although it is not a freshwater lake. It contains about 3.5 times more water, by volume, than all five of North America's Great Lakes combined. The Caspian was once part of the Tethys Ocean, but became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to plate tectonics. The Volga River (about 80% of the inflow) and the Ural River discharge into the Caspian Sea, but it has no natural outflow other than by evaporation. Thus the Caspian ecosystem is a