Transcaucasia

Transcaucasia (Russian: Закавказье) or the South Caucasus is a geopolitical region located on the border of Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia. More specifically, Transcaucasia spans the southern portion of the Caucasus Mountains and its lowlands, straddling the border between the continents of Europe and Asia, and extending southwards from the southern part of the Greater Caucasus mountain range of southwestern Russia to the Turkish and Armenian borders, and from the Black Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea coast of Iran in the east. The area includes the southern part of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, the entire Lesser Caucasus mountain range, the Colchis Lowlands, the Kura-Aras Lowlands, the Talysh Mountains, the Lenkoran Lowlands, Javakheti and the eastern portion of the Armenian Highland. Together with Ciscaucasia (North Caucasus), Transcaucasia is a part of the larger Caucasus geographical region that divides Eurasia.

All of Armenia is in Transcaucasia; the majority of Georgia and Azerbaijan, including the exclave of Nakhchivan, fall within the region. Parts of Iran and Turkey are also included within the region of Transcaucasia. Goods produced in the region include oil, manganese ore, tea, citrus fruits, and wine. It remains one of the most politically tense regions in the post-Soviet area, and contains three heavily disputed areas: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Between 1878 and 1917 the Russian occupied province of Kars Oblast was also incorporated into the Transcaucasus, although the region of Kars (including neighbouring Ardahan) is geographically and historically also considered to be part of Eastern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, and is where the Anatolian high plateau converges with the Lesser Caucasus mountain range.

Caucasus

The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas.

It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europe's highest mountain, Mount Elbrus, 5,642 metres (18,510 ft). Politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the northern parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.

The region is known for its linguistic diversity: aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian, and Northeast Caucasian families are indigenous to the area.

Name

Pliny the Elder's Natural History (AD 77–79) derives the name of the Caucasus from the Scythian kroy-khasis (“ice-shining, white with snow”).

Throughout Persian history, particularly Sassanid Persia, the Caucasus region was the furthest point of Persian expansion, with areas to the north of Northern Caucasus practically impregnable. Therefore, the mythical mountain of Cafcuh, the highest mountain in the world, was said to be situated in this region, making the Caucasus the limit of the world. Therefore, the Caucasus was the name given to this area for its association with the legendary mountain. The modern name of the region in local languages are all similar to the mountain name, with the main difference being that f has been replaced with a softer w and the last letter being replaced with z.

South (disambiguation)

South is a cardinal direction.

South or The South may also refer to:

Geography

Films, books, music and other media

Books and written media

Film and television titles

Music groups

Recordings and releases

South

South is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. It is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. South is the polar opposite of north and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word south comes from Old English sūþ, from earlier Proto-Germanic *sunþaz ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word sun derived from.

Navigation

By convention, the bottom side of a map is south, although reversed maps exist that defy this convention. To go south using a compass for navigation, set a bearing or azimuth of 180°. Alternatively, in the Northern Hemisphere outside the tropics, the Sun will be roughly in the south at midday.

South Pole

True south is the direction towards the southern end of the axis about which the earth rotates, called the South Pole. The South Pole is located in Antarctica. Magnetic south is the direction towards the south magnetic pole, some distance away from the south geographic pole.

Roald Amundsen, from Norway, was the first to reach the South Pole, on 14 December 1911, after Ernest Shackleton from the UK was forced to turn back some distance short.

Silk Road

The Silk Road or Silk Route is an ancient network of trade routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in Chinese silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty (207 BCE – 220 CE). The Central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BCE by the Han dynasty, largely through the missions and explorations of Chinese imperial envoy, Zhang Qian. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products and extended the Great Wall of China to ensure the protection of the trade route.

Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Europe, the Horn of Africa and Arabia, opening long-distance, political and economic relations between the civilizations. Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies, as well as diseases, also travelled along the Silk Routes. In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network.