The Greater Caucasus (Azerbaijani: Böyük Qafqaz, Бөјүк Гафгаз, بيوک قافقاز; Georgian:დიდი კავკასიონი, Didi K’avk’asioni; Russian: Большой Кавказ, Bolshoy Kavkaz, sometimes translated as "Caucasus Major", "Big Caucasus" or "Large Caucasus") is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains.
Major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains
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The range stretches for about 1,200 kilometres (750mi) 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 Central Caucasus, between Mount Elbrus and Mount Kazbek
The Eastern Caucasus, between Mount Kazbek and the Caspian Sea
In the wetter Western Caucasus, the mountains are heavily forested (deciduous forest up to 1,500 metres (4,900ft), coniferous forest up to 2,500 metres (8,200ft) and alpine meadows above the tree line). In the drier Eastern Caucasus, the mountains are mostly treeless.
Europe–Asia boundary
The watershed of the Caucasus is also considered by some to be 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, which is dominated by the Lesser Caucasus mountain range and whose western portion converges with Eastern Anatolia.[1]
Most of the border of Russia with Georgia and Azerbaijan runs along 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 (9,800ft).
Watershed
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 Georgia and Russia still follows the watershed almost exactly (except for Georgia's western border, which extends south of the watershed, and a narrow strip of territory in northwestern Kakheti and northern Mtskheta-Mtianeti where Georgia extends north of the watershed), while Azerbaijan is south of the watershed except that its northeastern corner has five districts north of the watershed (Khachmaz, Quba, Qusar, Shabran, and Siazan).
Peaks
14th-century Georgian Orthodox Gergeti Trinity Church building, with the Mount Kazbek in the background
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.
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