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Known Scientist 2020 · CC BY-SA 4.0

RussiaIranTurkmenistanAzerbaijanKazakhstanSalt lake · Russia · Iran · Turkmenistan · Azerbaijan · Kazakhstan

Caspian Sea

Largest landlocked salt lake, located between Europe and Asia

Area
377,002km²
Max depth
1,025m
Average depth
200m
Elevation
-29m a.s.l.
Shoreline
15,829km
Volume
75,600km³

Caspian Sea is a salt lake in Russia. It covers 377,002 km². On average it is 200 m deep, and 1,025 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 29 m below sea level.

Plan your visit

Stay, sail and get there

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The water

Water temperature

There is no reliable satellite record of the water temperature for this lake yet.

On the shore, afternoons reach 28 °C on average in August and 10 °C in February. The driest month is June (14 mm of rain), the wettest October (105 mm).

From above

The whole lake from space

Caspian Sea seen from space (Sentinel-2)
38.589°N 51.376°E · Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0 · Places © OpenStreetMap contributors

Month by month

The year at the lake, month by month

Not a forecast: these are averages over many years. Water is the 2013–2021 average; air, rain, sun and wind are the 1991–2020 average.

Climate: 1991–2020 average

The year at the lake, month by month
MonthWater°CWater high°CAir high°CAir low°CRainmmRainy daysdaysSunh/dayWindkm/h
January——11962113.518
February——10858104.119
March——111053105.418
April——14124486.516
May——19171769.514
June——242214311.016
July——26252139.916
August——28263149.917
September——25247088.418
October——2120105106.018
November——1615105124.119
December——131170113.319

Water: LakeTEMP (Landsat 8, 2013–2021). Air, rain, sun and wind: NASA POWER, 1991–2020 averages. A rainy day has at least 1 mm of rain. Sunshine hours are derived from measured solar radiation.

Size & depth

How big, how deep

Caspian SeaLake SuperiorLake Victoria500 km
Drawn to the same scale, next to lakes you may know.
  • On average, water stays in the lake for about 295 years before flowing out.
  • Its catchment drains 1,404,108 km² of land.
  • About 8,111 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
  • Its shoreline is 7.3 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.

Around the shore

What's around Caspian Sea

Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.

    Towns on the shore

    • Baku2,351,300 people
    • Makhachkala596,356 people
    • Sumgayit427,000 people
    • Aktau147,443 people
    • Bandar-e Anzalī118,564 people
    • Derbent105,965 people
    • Türkmenbaşy91,745 people
    • Lankaran89,300 people

    Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Ramsar Airport (RZR), 197 km in a straight line.

    Car hire at GYD airport (Baku)Discover Cars · Affiliate link

    OpenStreetMap is built by volunteers: when a number is low, it may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.

    Photos

    Seen by visitors

    Recent years

    How each month compared

    Afternoon high on the shore. The first row is the reference, the 1991–2020 average in °C; the years below show the difference from it: warmer in orange, cooler in blue.

    JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
    1991–2020 average10.910.111.413.618.823.526.227.625.321.216.512.8
    2020+0.4+1.4+0.6−0.3−0.4+0.1+0.3−1.9−0.3−0.4−0.7−1.8
    2021+0.3+0.2−0.4+1.8+0.2+1.2+1.3+1.6+0.1−1.9−0.8+1.3
    2022+1.6+1.7+0.1+1.5−1.5±0.0−0.6+0.8+0.5+1.2+0.8−0.8
    2023−1.5+0.2+1.5+1.5−0.1+0.2−0.1+0.6−0.3+0.6+3.7+3.0
    2024+1.7+1.1+0.4+2.8+0.2+1.3+0.4−0.6+0.2−0.4±0.0+0.2
    2025+0.7−0.9+1.1+2.3−0.3−1.1−0.1+0.6−0.8+1.1+2.4+2.2

    +1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual

    About these numbers

    Outline, area, depth, volumeHydroLAKES v1.0 (Messager et al. 2016) · CC BY 4.0
    Water temperature and iceLakeTEMP v1 (Korver et al. 2024), Landsat 8 2013–2021 · CC BY 4.0
    Air, rain, sun, windNASA POWER, 1991–2020 · public domain
    Names and descriptionWikidata (Q5484) · CC0
    Around the shore© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
    ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

    Every figure is an average or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

    Read more on Wikipedia

    The family

    Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves or dark skies?

    Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.

    beachesCoastyaFind your beach: sea temperature, sun and swimming month by month.Visit
    lakesLakeyasEvery lake on Earth: water temperature, ice, depth and the shore.You are here
    mountainsPeakyasEvery summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit waterfallsCascadyasEvery waterfall: height, flow month by month and when it roars.Visit islandsIslandyasEvery island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Visit riversRiveryasEvery river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.Visit canyonsCanyonyasEvery canyon cut to scale: depth to the floor, rim and floor temperatures, trails and viewpoints.Visit
    cavesCavernyasEvery cave with its real depth and length: the rock above, the temperature inside all year, and how to visit.Coming soonVisit
    dark skiesDarkskyasWhere the night is still dark: the sky of every place, the Milky Way month by month, the Moon, eclipses and auroras.Coming soonVisit