Caucasus

Caucasus Mountains

Caucasus, Russian Kavkaz, mountain system and region lying between the Black Sea (west) and the Caspian Sea (east) and occupied by Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

Caucasus Mountains

The great historic barrier of the Caucasus Mountains rises up across the wide isthmus separating the Black and Caspian seas in the region where Europe and Asia converge. Trending generally from northwest to southeast, the mountains consist of two ranges—the Greater Caucasus (Russian: Bolshoy Kavkaz) in the north and the Lesser Caucasus (Maly Kavkaz) in the south. Mount Elbrus in the Greater Caucasus range, at 18,510 feet (5,642 metres), is the highest peak. The watershed of the Greater Caucasus, the backbone of the system, traditionally has been part of the line dividing Europe and Asia, but Europe’s eastern boundary has been the subject of much debate. One widely accepted scheme draws the dividing line along the crest of the Greater Caucasus range, putting the portion of the region north of the line in Europe and the portion south of it in Asia. Another puts the western portion of the Caucasus region in Europe and the eastern part (the bulk of Azerbaijan and small portions of Armenia, Georgia, and Russia’s Caspian Sea coast) in Asia. Still another scheme identifies the Aras River and the Turkish border as the line of continental demarcation, thereby locating Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in Europe.

The name Caucasus is a Latinized form of Kaukasos, which the ancient Greek geographers and historians used; the Russian Kavkaz is of the same origin. The ultimate derivation is thought to be from Kaz-kaz, the Hittite name for a people living on the southern shore of the Black Sea. This ancient nomenclature reflects the historical importance of the region: in Greek mythology the range was the scene of the sufferings of Prometheus, and the Argonauts sought the Golden Fleece in the land of Colchis (the modern Kolkhida Lowland of Georgia), which nestles against the range on the Black Sea coast. The ranges also became a major land route to the north for cultural diffusion of the Middle Eastern Fertile Crescent civilizations. The peoples of the region have exhibited an extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity since early times: the Colchians, for example, as described in the 5th century bce by the Greek historian Herodotus, were black-skinned Egyptians, though their true origin remains unclear. In subsequent centuries, successive waves of peoples migrating across Eurasia added to and were molded by the more established groups in the region. Not surprisingly, a greater variety of languages is spoken in Caucasia than in any other area of similar size in the world.

Caucasia includes not only the mountain ranges of the Caucasus proper but also the country immediately north and south of them. The land north of the Greater Caucasus is called Ciscaucasia (Predkavkazye, or “Hither Caucasia”) and that south of it is Transcaucasia (Zakavkazye, or “Farther Caucasia”). The whole region, which has an area of 170,000 square miles (440,000 square km), is nevertheless predominantly mountainous. It extends southward from the lowlands of the Kuma and Manych river basins (the Kuma-Manych Depression) in the north to the northern frontiers of Turkey and Iran in the south and so comprises the southernmost portion of Russia (including Dagestan and several other administrative units constituted on an ethnic basis) and the Transcaucasian republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.