Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What is the Caspian Sea named for?
Turkic languages refer to the lake as Khazar Sea. In Turkmen, the name is Hazar deňizi, in Azeri, it is Xəzər dənizi, and in modern Turkish, it is Hazar denizi. In all these cases, the second word simply means "sea", and the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called Каспий теңізі, Kaspiy teñizi (Caspian Sea).
The Caspian red deer ("Cervus elaphus maral"), is one of the easternmost subspecies of red deer that is native to areas between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea such as Crimea, Asia Minor, the Caucasus Mountains region bordering Europe and Asia, and along the Caspian Sea region in Iran. The Caspian red deer is sometimes referred to as maral, noble deer, or eastern red deer.
Iranrud Baku oil fields Caspians Ekranoplan, a ground effect plane which was developed on the Caspian Sea. Epoch of Extreme Inundations Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea Shah Deniz gas field South Caucasus Pipeline Southern Gas Corridor Tengiz Field Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline Trans-Caspian Oil Transport System Wildlife of Azerbaijan Wildlife of Iran Wildlife of Kazakhstan Wildlife of Russia
Soimonov made the first thorough hydrographic survey of the Caspian Sea between 1719 and 1727, building up on the survey previously done by Karl Van Verden during tsar Peter the Great's drive for reform and modernization at the beginning of the 18th century. He led the Caspian Expedition that explored the coasts of the sea. As a result of the survey Soimonov drew a set of maps of the Caspian for the 'Atlas of the Caspian Sea' "(Atlas Kapiiskago Moria)" and wrote the 'Pilot of the Caspian Sea'. Published in 1731 by the Russian Academy of Sciences, these became the first comprehensive report and the first modern maps of the Caspian in history. Between 1730 and 1738 he was employed as a cartographer for the Russian Admiralty Board, which had been established in 1718 by Peter I the Great.
The Rostov Nature Reserve is located in the south of the East European plain, in the Manych River valley. The dominant geological feature of the reserve is Lake Manych-Gudilo, a saltwater reservoir which is surrounded be dry steppe and semi-desert landscape. The lake is long and narrow, occupying a portion of the Manych trough between the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea; this long depression is the remains of what was once a sea connection between the Black and Caspian Seas.
The British Caspian Flotilla was a naval force of the Royal Navy established in the Caspian Sea in 1918. It was part of the allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The flotilla initially reported to the Rear-Admiral Commanding, Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Sea of Marmora until 1919.
Baku, which is the starting point of all sea routes of Azerbaijan, is the largest port of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan has access to the oceans along the Caspian Sea-Volga-Volga-Don Canal, and the Don-Sea of Azov. Along with the Volga-Don Canal, the Azerbaijani vessels have the opportunity to enter the world ocean through the Volga-Baltic and White Sea-Baltic canals. Moreover, oil tankers are being transported through the Caspian Sea. Baku Sea Trade Port and Caspian Shipping Company CJSC, have a big role in the sea transportation of Azerbaijan. The Caspian Sea Shipping Company CJSC, along with the transport fleet, also includes a specialized fleet and shipyards. The transport fleet consists of 51 vessels, including 20 tankers, 13 ferries, 15 universal dry cargo vessels, 2 Ro-Ro vessels, as well as 1 technical vessel and 1 floating workshop. The specialized fleet includes 210 vessels, including 20 cranes, 25 towing and supplying vehicles, 26 passenger, two pipe-laying, six fire-fighting, seven engineering-geological, two diving and 88 auxiliary vessels.[44]
Stretching out southwestwards this headland is located in the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea south of Aktau. Its name means 'Sandy Cape' in Russian.
Strabo mentions the name "Mardi" several times. He places their location to the south of the Caspian Sea in what is now Gilan and Mazanderan, in northern Iran. On his map, he mentions (and the Amardos river), the name attributed to the region of Sefidrud at the time.
The Aral–Caspian Depression is a lowland depression straddling Europe and Asia around the Aral Sea and Northern Caspian Sea. The most northern part is called the Caspian Depression. The desert part to the east of the Caspian Depression and Caspian is called the Turan Depression. In Azerbaijan, the Kura-Aras Lowland is part of the Aral–Caspian Depression. 
The Caspian tyulka "Clupeonella caspia" has been long considered a subspecies of "C. cultriventris", "C. cultriventris caspia", and a common name "Black and Caspian Sea sprat" was then applied to the whole.
In 2012, Turkmenistan announced its first naval exercises in the Caspian Sea programmed for early September. Named Khazar-2012 ("Khazar" is the Persian name of the Caspian Sea), these tactical exercises came after a summer of somewhat heightened tensions with Azerbaijan over natural gas fields in a contested part of the sea.
The Caspian turtle (Mauremys caspica), although found in neighboring areas, is a wholly freshwater species. The zebra mussel is native to the Caspian and Black Sea basins, but has become an invasive species elsewhere, when introduced. The area has given its name to several species, including the Caspian gull and the Caspian tern. The Caspian seal (Pusa caspica) is the only aquatic mammal and is endemic to the Caspian Sea, being one of very few seal species that live in inland waters, but it is different from the those inhabiting freshwaters due to the hydrological environment of the sea.
The Caspian tern ("Hydroprogne caspia") is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek "hudros", "water", and Latin "progne", "swallow". The specific "caspia" is from Latin and, like the English name, refers to the Caspian Sea.
The word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia.[3] Strabo wrote that "to the country of the Albanians belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea; but the tribe has now disappeared".[4] Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Iran's Tehran province, possibly indicates that they migrated to the south of the sea. The Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Baḥr al-Qazwin (Sea of Qazvin).[5]
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is an endorheic basin (a basin without outflows) located between Europe and Asia, to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the broad steppe of Central Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast. The Caspian Sea is home to a wide range of species and may be best known for its caviar and oil industries. Pollution from the oil industry and dams on rivers draining into the Caspian Sea have had negative effects on the organisms living in the sea.
On 4 September 2008, Iran's deputy foreign minister Mehti Safari confirmed that Tehran opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian because of environmental concerns. This jeopardizes the Trans-Caspian Gas pipeline project, according to regional expert Paul Goble. However, on 22 December 2008 Austria's OMV and Germany's RWE, both partners in Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, announced they were setting up a joint venture named the Caspian Energy Company, to carry out exploration for a gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea that would feed into the Nabucco pipeline. Based on exploration outcomes the company plans to build and operate a gas transport system across the Caspian Sea.
It had a distinct coastline in former times, but since the 1990s, with higher Caspian Sea levels, the water penetrates inland through the neck of the bay producing waterlogged marshes. Located at the mainland end of the bay, the Kaydak Inlet cuts deep into the coast extending east and then southwards. Nowadays both the bay and the inlet are filled with Caspian Sea water. Currently there are oil fields in the area.
Owing to its special colour the Dead Kultuk is the bay which appears in early maps of the Caspian Sea as 'Blue Sea' ( in maps in that language). The area was mapped by Fedor Ivanovich Soimonov during the Caspian Expedition, which surveyed the Caspian Sea from 1719 to 1727, but was not accurately described until G. S. Karelin did so in 1832.
The Garabogazköl Aylagy or Kara-Bogaz-Gol (, black (or mighty) strait lake) is a shallow inundated depression in the northwestern corner of Turkmenistan. It forms a lagoon of the Caspian Sea with a surface area of about . It is separated from the Caspian Sea proper, which lies immediately to the west, by a narrow, rocky ridge having a very narrow opening in the rock through which the Caspian waters flow, cascading down into Garabogazköl, leading to the Turkmen language name of the bay, "Mighty Strait Lake". The water volume of the bay fluctuates seasonally with the Caspian Sea; at times it becomes a large bay of the Caspian Sea, while at other times its water level drops drastically.
Paramysis (from the Greek affix "", "near", "beside", and the genus name "Mysis") is a genus of mysid crustaceans (Mysidacea) in family Mysidae, distributed in coastal zone of low boreal East Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and the basins of Black Sea, Sea of Azov and Caspian Sea (Ponto-Caspian Basin).
The Black Sea-Caspian Steppe is an informal name for that part of the Eurasian Steppe that extends south between the Black and Caspian Seas. It is usually treated as part of the Pontic-Caspian steppe which includes the area north of the Black and Caspian Seas, but there is some reason to treat it as a distinct place. Its natural boundaries are the Sea of Azov and Black Sea on the west, the Caucasus Mountains on the south and the Caspian Sea on the east. Its northern boundary may be taken as the triangle formed by the lower Don River and Volga River which are about 60 km apart to the west of Volgograd. This article excludes the north slope of the Caucasus which is not steppe and has a distinct geography and history.
The Caspian Depression (, Caspian Lowland) or Pricaspian/Peri-Caspian Depression/Lowland is a low-lying flatland region encompassing the northern part of the Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. It is the larger northern part of the wider Aral-Caspian Depression around the Aral and Caspian seas.
The species is distributed throughout brackish and fresh waters of the Ponto-Caspian basin. It is found in the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov, rivers Volga, Don, Kuban and Danube; in the rivers up to over 500 km upstream. All the previous mentionings of "P. baeri" outside the Caspian Sea should probably be attributed to "P. bakuensis". The ranges of "P. bakuensis" and "P. baeri" partly overlap: they can be found together in the Caspian Sea.
A similar Sasanian defence wall and fortification lies on the opposite, western, side of the Caspian Sea at the port of Derbent, in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. There the remains of a line of fortifications run inland for some from the shore of the Caspian Sea () to what is today an extraordinarily well preserved Sassanian fort () on the first foothills of the Caucasus mountains.
Differences between the three regions are dramatic. The Northern Caspian only includes the Caspian shelf,[15] and is very shallow; it accounts for less than 1% of the total water volume with an average depth of only 5–6 metres (16–20ft). The sea noticeably drops off towards the Middle Caspian, where the average depth is 190 metres (620ft).[14] The Southern Caspian is the deepest, with oceanic depths of over 1,000 metres (3,300ft), greatly exceeding the depth of other regional seas, such as the Persian Gulf. The Middle and Southern Caspian account for 33% and 66% of the total water volume, respectively.[12] The northern portion of the Caspian Sea typically freezes in the winter, and in the coldest winters ice forms in the south as well.[16]