Greater Caucasus

Greater Caucasus (, Azerbaijani: Böyük Qafqaz Dağları, Georgian: დიდი კავკასიონი), sometimes translated as "Caucasus Major", "Big Caucasus" or "Large Caucasus") is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains.

It 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:

• Western Caucasus, from the Black Sea to Mount Elbrus
• Central Caucasus, from Mount Elbrus to Mount Kazbek
• Eastern Caucasus, from Mount Kazbek to the Caspian Sea

Europe—Asia boundary

The watershed of the Caucasus is also considered 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.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 Douglas W. Freshfield, "", Proceedings of the Royal Geographical...
Read More