Caspian Sea
The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km (143,200 sq mi) (not including the detached lagoon of Garabogazköl) and a volume of 78,200 km(18,800 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/l), about a third of the salinity of most seawater.
Caspian Sea
The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent opening of the region has led to an intense investment and development scramble by international oil companies. In 1998, Dick Cheney commented that "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."