Talk:Caspian Sea

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Caspian Sea article.
Article policies
To-do list for Caspian Sea: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Cite sources (see Wikipedia:Footnotes)
  • Expand Islands section, so it is more than a simple list.
  • Make all sections mostly prosaic. The cities section in particular.

Add more to this list as you see fit.
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Contents

[edit] Jellyfish?

Imo there should be a chapter about Mnemiopsis_leidyi and how it has literally destroyed the fishing economy on the Caspian sea. In a documentary I saw recently I recall the fishermen explaining that they can't make their living on fishing anymore as the jellyfish has killed nearly the whole fish population of the sea. piksi (talk) 05:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll look up some sources for the jellyfish caused decline to the fishing economy but I'd love to have someone elses opinion on the subject too. --piksi (talk) 11:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Area

What is the source for the Caspian Sea area? 43600 km2 seems a bit on the high side.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.37.82.135 (talk • contribs)

That is from: Lake Profile: Caspian Sea. LakeNet. --Lethargy 15:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Other sources:
  • [1] - 374,000 km²
  • [2] - 371 000 square kilometres
  • [3] - 386,400 km2
  • [4] - 371,000 square kilometres
  • [5] - "more than 400 thousand square kilometers."
So yes, what is currently there is a rather high estimate. We'll need to figure out which is the most reliable though. --Lethargy 15:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Update: there is also this,[6] which states that the level of the Caspian Sea is rising. Perhaps that is why the sources differ? --Lethargy 15:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

- Yes, the Caspian Sea is constantly changing in size and seal level due to its landlocked nature. I'd go with the ESA and UN figure of 371000 km2. These are two well respected sources and they seem to agree with each other.

- NASA says 373,000 km2. [7], which would seem to closely agree with the European Space Agency and United Nations figure.

- Since Kara-Bogaz-Gol is dry, it is no longer part of the Caspian surface area, so the lake has 18000 sq.km less from the official figures

[edit] Khazer/Xazer

I heard the real name of the Caspian Sea is Khazer/Xazer, whats up that?

Xazar is new name of it, refering to xazars who were living in eastern coast of Black Sea, they were appeared in geographical maps about 3 century after christ, This name is being used by turks, however arabs no longer using it, they use Qazvin Sea, and there is a conflit among Iranians to using Xazer or Mazandaran Sea, in present day of iran all of the people could understand where is the Xazar or Mazandaran Sea --Ali 11:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Persia/Iran

Do we really need to say 'Persia' next to Iran? The name of the country is universally 'Iran'. It's probably a big issue for some, so I wouldn't touch the text.


Not really the coutry name is Iran and Persia is an obsolete name. Mehrdad 16:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Train ferries?

Are there any train ferries on the Caspian sea, and if so, what gauge?

[edit] The name of the Caspian sea in Iran.

In Iran till early 20th century the caspian used to be called Daryaye e Khazar (دریای خزر) or Bahr e Khazar (بحر خزر). Since Khazar were Turkic people it was not looked at faverably , and due to the ultra nationalist ideological domiancy within the governments of the Pahlavi Era, the new name "Daryaye Mazadndaran" (دریای مازندران) replaced the old name, in some books.

The Arabic name for the Caspian sea Bahri e Qazvin also has been used in some Iranian texts. In fact the the Caspian is drived from this name and not from an imagenary tribe that used to live in Gilan as indicated in the article.

Please refer to Qazvin_Province. I will ask for the fact on this before correcting it. Mehrdad 17:05, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

No, Caspian people were living in the region of Mazandaran, they were ancedors of today Mazandarani people, Also i saw many of maps from Arabs which refer to it as Bahri Mazandaran, meaning Mazanderan Sea, Also Greek historians record it as Hyrcania Maro, the ancient name of Mazandaran ( Former Tabaria kingdom, Tabaristan), During the sassanid period it was known as Daryaye Tabaristan meaning Tabaristan Sea, later Mazandaran used instead of Tabaristan, the former name of Mazandaran, If you need some evidences please fill free to contacting me, Still the Governers and other people in many of newspapers and international issues call it Mazandaran Sea --Ali 11:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

How about a map which shows the location - maybe one similar to those used within Wiki for country articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.245.189.47 (talk • contribs)

Hear hear! I was just about to add a similar comment. QuartierLatin1968 El bien mas preciado es la libertad 21:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
A politcal map that shows bordering countries would also be very helpful. --musicpvm 08:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Even more helpful would be one that shows the bordering countries' boundaries within the Caspian Sea, given that there is an entire confusing section on it -- iMacWin95
Done. Kmusser 21:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where's mention of the Soviet enviro damage?

I find it extremely odd that there is no mention of the massive damage done to the lake by the Soviet Regime. (In point of fact, the Politburo wreaked catatrosphic environmental damage to the entire country--Chernobyl is merely the best known incident. The Aral Sea will soon disappear due to Soviet diversion of the vat majority of its two source rivers' volume for agricultural production.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time (nor the inclination) to do the necessary research to make up for the rather astonishing gap.

Surely the author of the article or a hydrologist (esp Russian or former Russian) could supply the deficiency.

PainMan 15:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Salinity of Garabogazköl?

This article says that the salinity of Garabogazköl approaches that of seawater. According to the article on Garabogazköl, it's salinity is around 35% which is about 10 times that of seawater. Which is correct? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.139.38.79 (talk) 03:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC). Now now, no need for sophistry, you know the author meant parts per thousand, im sure its easy to rectify--

[edit] Should the history section be separated?

I am considering to partition the history section into two; one on geographical history (on the scale of millions of years) and human history (on the scale of thousands). I think it seems appropriate, but does anyone have objections? -Rosywounds (talk) 03:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, go for it. This article probably needs somewhat better organization in general. Vmenkov (talk) 10:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Splitting Human History into a separate section has certainly been an improvement. Perhaps the next task should be rearranging all section into a more logical order. Right now we have this:

  1. Geological history
  2. Geography
  3. Cities near the Caspian Sea
  4. Islands
  5. Human history
  6. Fauna
  7. Hydrocarbon resources
  8. Existing and proposed canals
  9. International disputes
  10. Characteristics and ecology
  11. Transportation
  12. Freezing

It seems like it would be more logical to have "natural history"/physical geography sections next to each other - e.g. something like this:

  1. Geography
  2. Islands
  3. Geological history
  4. Characteristics and ecology
  5. Freezing
  6. Fauna

The history/politics is another logical group

  1. Human history
  2. International disputes

And then the economic geography, if you wish:

  1. Cities near the Caspian Sea
  2. Hydrocarbon resources
  3. Transportation
  4. Existing and proposed canals

Obviously, there may be other plans - so I don't want to do rearrangement myself, but rather let someone with more interest in the article to do it. It would be good idea to compare it with the organization of high-profile articles on other seas and lakes, e.g. Mediterranean Sea or the Great Lakes. It would be interesting to find other sea/lake articles that have been labeled "featured" or "good", and see how they are organized; however, it looks like there no good or featured articles about seas or really big lakes; Great Salt Lake may be the biggest lake with a "good" article. Vmenkov (talk) 00:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Lakes does mention a few (although one is an artificial lake). I think Human history could be expanded a bit. Cities/Islands seem like they could be included as subsections of Geography instead. They should also be turned into prose; the lists are a bit excessive and include a lot of trivial cities that don't even have major ports. Freezing can be a side note in the lakes description, but doesn't really merit its own section (its only a couple sentences long). The article does still have a lot of work, I'll try to give it more attention considering that it is a vital article for an encyclopedia. -Rosywounds (talk) 00:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)