Greater Caucasus


Greater Caucasus is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains.
The range stretches for about 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:
In the wetter Western Caucasus, the mountains are heavily forested. In the drier Eastern Caucasus, the mountains are mostly treeless.

Europe–Asia boundary

The watershed of the Caucasus by some 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, which is dominated by the Lesser Caucasus mountain range and whose western portion converges with Eastern Anatolia.
The border of Russia with Georgia and Azerbaijan runs along most of the Caucasus' length. The Georgian Military Road and Trans-Caucasus Highway traverse this mountain range at altitudes of up to.

Watershed

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.
The border between Russia and Georgia still follows the watershed almost exactly, while Azerbaijan in its northeastern corner has five districts north of the watershed.

Peaks