| Greater Caucasus | |
| Range | |
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Mountainous landscape of Arkhyz
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| Countries | Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan |
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| Part of | Caucasus Mountains |
| Borders on | Lesser Caucasus |
| Highest point | Mount Elbrus |
| - elevation | 5,642 m (18,510 ft) |
| - coordinates | |
| Length | 1,200 km (746 mi), NW-SE |
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Satellite image
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Greater Caucasus (Russian: Большой Кавказ, 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 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) 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:
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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.[1]
The border of Russia with Georgia and Azerbaijan runs along the most of the Caucasus' length. The Georgian Military Road (Darial Gorge) and Trans-Caucasus Highway traverse this mountain range at an altitudes of up to 3,000 metres (9,800 ft).
The watershed of the Caucasus was the border between the Caucasia province of the Russian Empire in the north and the Ottoman Empire and Persia in the south in 1801, until the Russian victory in 1813 and the Treaty of Gulistan which moved the border of the Russian Empire well within Transcaucasia.[2] The border between Russia and Georgia still follows the watershed almost exactly (with the exception of a narrow strip of territory in northern Mtskheta-Mtianeti and northwestern Kakheti where Georgia extends north of the watershed), while Azerbaijan in its northeastern corner has five districts north of the watershed (Davachi, Khachmaz, Quba, Qusar, Siazan).