The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland sea.
It is called a sea and not a lake because when the Ancient Romans arrived there, they discovered that the water was salty (about a third as salty as regular seawater); they named the sea after the Caspian tribe that lived there.
The countries of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran presently border the sea.
The Caspian is about ninety feet below sea level, and at its deepest it is a little over three thousand feet deep.
The Volga River accounts for about eighty percent of the inflow of water into the Sea, the remainder being from other smaller rivers.
Because the Volga accounts for so much of the Caspian’s water, the damming and diversion of the Volga’s water for industrial, agricultural and residential purposes have led to the lowering of the Caspian’s water level.
Caspian Sea