Environment of Azerbaijan
The Caspian Sea is the largest lake on Earth by both area and volume, with a surface area of 371,000 square kilometres (143,244 mi²) and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometres (18,761 mi³). It is a landlocked endorheic body of water and lies between Asia and Europe. It has a maximum depth of about . It is called a sea because when the Romans discovered it they tasted the water and found it to be salty. It has a salinity of approximately 1.2 percent, about a third the salinity of sea water.
Caspian Sea
In the 18th century, during the rule of Peter I the Great, Fedor I. Soimonov, hydrographer and pioneering explorer of the Caspian Sea charted the until then little known body of water. Soimonov drew a set of four maps and wrote "Pilot of the Caspian Sea", the first report and modern maps of the Caspian, that were published in 1720 by the Russian Academy of Sciences.