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Bodies of water in Asia — natural (e.g. lakes, rivers) and constructed (e.g. canals, reservoirs). Subcategories This category has the following 13 subcategories, out of 13 total.
- Overview
- Physical features
- Shoreline features
- Submarine features
The Caspian Sea lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia.
What is unique about the Caspian Sea?
The Caspain Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water and the world's largest salt lake.
What countries border the Caspian Sea?
The Caspian Sea is bordered by five countries: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia.
How salty is the Caspian Sea?
The Caspian basin, as a whole, is usually divided into the northern, middle, and southern Caspian, based partly on underwater relief and partly on hydrologic characteristics. The sea contains as many as 50 islands, most of them small. The largest are Chechen, Tyuleny, Morskoy, Kulaly, Zhiloy, and Ogurchin.
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The shores of the northern Caspian are low and reflect the great accumulation of alluvial material washed down by the Ural, Terek, and, above all, Volga rivers, whose deltas are extensive. The western shore of the middle Caspian is hilly. The foothills of the Greater Caucasus Mountains loom close but are separated from the coast by a narrow marine plain. The Abşeron Peninsula, on which the city of Baku is sited, thrusts out into the sea there, while just to its south the floodplain of the Kura and Aras rivers forms the Kura-Aras Lowland along the western shore of the southern Caspian. The southwestern and southern Caspian shores are formed of the sediments of the Länkäran and Gīlān-Māzanderān lowlands, with the high peaks of the Talish and Elburz ranges rearing up close inland. The eastern shore of the southern Caspian is low, formed partly by sediments derived from the erosion of the cliffs along the sea. The shoreline there is broken sharply by the low, hilly Cheleken and Türkmenbashi peninsulas. Just to the north, behind the east shore of the middle Caspian, is the Kara-Bogaz-Gol (Garabogazköl), formerly a shallow gulf of the Caspian but now a large lagoonlike embayment that is separated from the sea by a man-made embankment. For the most part, the eastern shore of the middle Caspian is precipitous, with the sea destroying the margin of the limestone plateaus of Tüpqaraghan and Kendyrli-Kayasansk.
The major rivers—the Volga, Ural, and Terek—empty into the northern Caspian, with their combined annual flow accounting for about 88 percent of all river water entering the sea. The Sulak, Samur, Kura, and a number of smaller rivers flow in on the western shore of the middle and southern Caspian, contributing about 7 percent of the total flow into the sea. The remainder comes in from the rivers of the southern, Iranian shore. Apart from the Atrak (Atrek) River of southern Turkmenistan, the sea’s arid eastern shore is notable for a complete lack of permanent streams.
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The northern Caspian, with an area of 38,380 square miles (99,404 square km), is the shallowest portion of the sea, with an average depth of 13 to 26 feet (4 to 8 metres), reaching a maximum of 66 feet (20 metres) along the boundary with the middle Caspian. The bottom is formed of a monotonously rippling sedimentary plain, broken only by a line of ...
Apr 12, 2023 · World's Major Bodies Of Water. Earth is the only planet known to host life. One of the biggest factors supporting life on this planet is water. Earth is indeed a watery place. About 71% of the surface of Earth is covered by water with oceans accounting for 96.5% of this area. The remaining water on the planet can be found in the form of rivers ...
- Diptarka Ghosh
Apr 11, 2024 · For periods of time after 2010, the eastern lobe dried up altogether. Aral Sea, a once-large saltwater lake of Central Asia. It was once the world’s fourth largest body of inland water but has shrunk remarkably because of the diversion of its sources of inflowing water for irrigation beginning in the second half of the 20th century.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Apr 14, 2021 · The Caspian Sea is the largest lake in Asia as well as the largest inland water body in the world. Covering an area of 386,400 km 2 , the Caspian Sea is located to the east of the Caucasus Mountains, west of the Central Asian steppes, south of the Russian plains in Eastern Europe, and north of Western Asia’s Iranian Plateau.
- Diptarka Ghosh
Weather in the region is tropical and largely controlled by monsoon winds. Annual rainfall varies from about 80 inches (2,000 mm) to as much as 160 inches around the southern basin; summer typhoons are frequent. Monsoons also control the sea-surface currents as well as the exchange of water between the South China Sea and adjacent bodies of water.
Bodies of water of Turkey (10 C, 1 P) Bodies of water of Turkmenistan (5 C, 3 P) Bodies of water of the United Arab Emirates (9 C, 2 P) Bodies of water of Uzbekistan (4 C, 1 P) Bodies of water of Vietnam (7 C, 1 P) Bodies of water of Yemen (5 C, 5 P) Categories: Bodies of water of Asia. Landforms of Asia by country.
