Azerbaijan

C

Natural Resources

Azerbaijan contains many natural resources, the most important being crude oil. Azerbaijan’s oil reserves are located offshore, beneath the Caspian Sea, with most developed oil fields near the Abşeron Peninsula. Mineral resources include iron ore, aluminum, copper, lead, zinc, limestone, and salt.

D

Climate

The lowlands of central and eastern Azerbaijan have a dry subtropical climate, with relatively mild winters and long hot summers. The average temperature in the lowlands in July is 27°C (80°F), although summer temperatures can enter the upper 30°s C (lower 100°s F); the average temperature in January is 1°C (34°F). Summers are typically dry, with most precipitation falling during the winter months. Humidity is high in the Länkäran Lowland, which receives significantly more precipitation than other areas of the country. Temperatures are colder in the mountains, and snowfall is heavy at elevations of more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) during winter.

E

Environmental Issues

Severe pollution from heavy industries and agriculture has damaged the environment of Azerbaijan. The contamination of the Caspian Sea from oil drilling in Baku has been a problem since the 19th century, when the Russian Empire took control of the region and began to rapidly exploit its oil reserves. Although oil production waned during the Soviet period, petroleum waste was routinely dumped into the Caspian. The Caspian also suffers from the discharge of untreated sewage, and pollution has depleted the sea’s stocks of sturgeon. Severe air pollution is a problem in the major cities due to emissions from petroleum and chemical industries. During the Soviet period, dangerously high concentrations of pesticides and fertilizers were used to increase Azerbaijan’s agricultural output. In the late 1980s, when environmental awareness began to surface in the USSR, Azerbaijan’s high infant mortality rate and high rates of infectious diseases were linked to the chemicals used in cotton growing. Although the people of Azerbaijan are generally aware of the need to protect the environment, the republic’s environmental issues have not received significant attention from the government.

III

The People of Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is more populated than the other South Caucasus states, Georgia and Armenia. Its population was an estimated 8,120,247 in 2007, giving it an average population density of 94 persons per sq km (244 per sq mi). The most densely populated area is the Abşeron Peninsula in the east, where Azerbaijan’s major cities are located. Despite its larger population, Azerbaijan is the least urbanized country of the South Caucasus, as only 50 percent of its population lives in urban areas. The largest city is Baku, the capital. Other important cities include Gäncä, the industrial center of western Azerbaijan, and Sumgayıt, located on the Caspian coast and the second most important industrial center after Baku.

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A

Ethnic Groups

Azerbaijan, including the autonomous exclave of Naxçivan, is populated mostly by ethnic Azerbaijanis, who are also known as Azeris. The ethnic composition of the country changed due to a civil war between the government of Azerbaijan and Armenian secessionists in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Beginning in 1988, when the people of Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally decided to secede from Azerbaijan, nearly the entire Azerbaijani population in Armenia fled to Azerbaijan and northern Iran, while many ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan fled to Armenia. The number of Armenians in Azerbaijan decreased from slightly less than 6 percent of the total population to about 2 percent. Armenians now reside almost exclusively in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, where they constitute a majority. In the 1990s the proportion of Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan increased from about 80 percent of the total population to about 90 percent. This change was largely due to the civil war, but the emigration of many Russians and other Slavs after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 also contributed.

Dagestanis and Russians are the largest minority groups in Azerbaijan, followed by Armenians. Dagestanis, a people whose traditional homeland is Dagestan, a republic of Russia on Azerbaijan’s northern border, make up about 3 percent of the population. Russians constitute about 2.5 percent of the total (a reduction of about 3 percent since the 1989 census). Other ethnic groups include Lezgins, Kurds, and Talysh, who are geographically concentrated in the north, east, and south of the republic, respectively. There are also small communities of Georgians, Ukrainians, and Avars. Most of the republic’s ethnic groups have resided in the area for centuries, although Russians arrived in large numbers in the 19th and 20th centuries.