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The Atlas of Caspian Sea Hydromorphology
of water is surrounded by five littoral states of Azerbaijan, Iran,
Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan; each one has respectively the
shoreline of 850 Km, 865 km, 1800 km, 695 km, and 560 km in the
margin of Caspian Sea (Figure 3). The Caspian Sea shape is like a
Latin letter S and is stretched along the meridian ward. It is also
situated between the latitudes 47.57 N and 36.33 N and longitudes
45.43 E and 54.30 E. The length of the Caspian Sea is 1200 km (750 miles)
and its average width is 310 km (200 miles). Its most and least
breadth are 435km and 196 km. The Caspian Sea water level is 27 meters
(90 feet) lower than Baltic Sea water level and in this situation its
surface area and water volume are 392600 km
2
and 78648 km3. Caspian
Sea is a deep lake with an extensive shelf and its depth is only lower
than Baikal (1620 m) and Tanzania (1435 m) lakes which are the
world’s largest lakes. The Caspian sea average depth is 208 meters
and the depth curve of its water volume distribution shows that major
part of its water volume (62 %) is distributed within the depth limit of
100 to 600 meters, 25.7 % is distributed within the depth limit of
1-100 meters, and the other 16 percent is distributed within the depth
limit of more than 800 meters.
In Caspian Sea, the continental shelf is stretched with a low slope up
to the depth of 100 meters of the sea bed. The continental slope,
which begins from the terminal edge of continental shelf, continues to
the 500-600 meters depth of the middle part and with a high slope it
continues to the 700-800 meters depth of southern part. The width of
continental shelf in western coast narrows down and reaches to
40 km. In the western coast, the continental shelf narrows and its
width reaches to 40 km which again decreases in southern coast
