Sea of Azov is an inland sea situated off the southern shores of Ukraine and Russia.
It forms a northern extension of the Black Sea, to which it is linked on the south by the Kerch Strait.
Into the Sea of Azov flow the great Don and Kuban rivers and many lesser ones such as the Mius, the Berda, the Obitochnaya, and the Yeya.
In the sea’s western part lies the Arabat Spit, a 70-mile- (113-kilometre-) long sandbar that separates it from the Syvash, a system of marshy inlets that divides the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukrainian mainland.
With a maximum depth of only about 46 feet (14 m), the Azov is the world’s shallowest sea.
Vast quantities of silt are brought down by the Don and Kuban rivers, so that in the Taganrog Gulf in the northeast, the sea’s depth is 3 feet (1 m) or less.
The discharge of these rivers ensures that the sea’s waters are low in salinity, being almost fresh in the Taganrog Gulf.
The Sea of Azov handles much freight and passenger traffic, although the progress of heavy oceangoing craft is hampered by shallowness at some points. Icebreakers assist in winter navigation. Principal ports are Taganrog, Mariupol, Yeysk, and Berdyans’k.
Azov Sea