Introduction

Azerbaijan is the largest and most populous country in the South Caucasus, partially in Eastern Europe and partially in Western Asia.
This country is viewed as an Asian state geographically and a European one politically.

Azerbaijan is a unitary republic of the most secular Muslim nation with an ethnic Azeri majority population.

It is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the west and northwest, Armenia to the southwest, and Iran to the south.

The name of Azerbaijan literally means "the Land of Fires" because still there burning mountains in Azerbaijan has been continuously on fire for thousands of years. The natural gas vents ensure that hot flames roar out of the sides of this hill even when it rains.

It has been famed for its oil springs and natural gas sources, when Zoroastrians, for whom fire is a holy symbol, erected temples around burning gas vents in the ground.

Oil-rich Nation

Azerbaijan is the birthplace of the oil industry. There is evidence of petroleum used in trade in this country as early as the third and fourth centuries.

"...there is a spring from which gushes a stream of oil, in such abundance that a hundred ships may load there at once. This oil is not good to eat; but it is good for burning and as a salve for men and camels affected with itch or scab. Men come from a long distance to fetch this oil, and in all the neighborhood no other oil is burnt but this," says an extract from the famous traveler Marco Polo's accounts.

Azerbaijan is the inventor of many oil and gas extraction and refining equipment and devices.

So, Azerbaijan has many firsts in oil industry, such as the first industrial oil production and the first oil extraction in the sea. Â Azerbaijan enjoys enormous gas reserves too.

In 1806 Russian empire occupied Baku, the present-day capital of Azerbaijan, and took a monopolistic control of oil and gas production.

In the 19th century this part of the Russian empire experienced an unmatched oil boom which attracted international investment. By the beginning of the 20th century Azerbaijan was supplying almost half of the world's oil.

As early as 1947, Oil Rocks (Neft Dashlari) was built in several phases on the Caspian Sea as a unique offshore town in the world, a pearl of Soviet ambition.

The most distinctive feature of the Oil Rocks is that it is actually a functional city with a population of about 5,300 and over 200 km of streets.

Energy-rich Azerbaijan regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 amid political turmoil and against a backdrop of violence in its Nagorno-Karabakh region.

With a large flow of foreign investors, Azerbaijan remerged as an oil hub in the region after 1900s.

Today

Population: 8.7 million
Capital: Baku
Area: 86,600 sq km (33,400 sq miles)
Land: 86,100 sq km
Water: 500 sq km
Major language: Azeri, Russian, English
Major religion: Islam
Climate: dry, semiarid steppe
Life expectancy: 65 years (men), 71 years (women)
Literacy rate: 99.8%
Monetary unit: 1 manat = 100 qapik
Elevation extremes:
Lowest point: Caspian Sea -28 m
Highest point: Bazarduzu Dagi 4,485 m
Arable land: 22%
Irrigated land: 16,550 sq km
Main exports: Oil, oil products
GNI per capita: US $1,240 (World Bank, 2006)
Internet domain: .az
International dial code: +994

Azerbaijan has become the media spotlight around the world against the backdrop of Europe's push for eroding energy dependence on Russia.

When the Soviet Union was going to fall, Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a richly fertile area of great beauty high in the Caucasus Mountains, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, in the late 1980s, sparking a 1992-94 war.

A ceasefire was agreed in 1994 but the search for a lasting peace is stalled.

Azerbaijan said it seeks a peaceful solution to the conflict, but doesn't rule out the probability of any means to wrest back its lands if need be.

Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno-Karabakh and several regions of Azerbaijan around it have remained under the control of Armenia.

In contradiction of UN Security Council resolutions and decisions taken by other international organizations, Armenia refused to give back the occupied lands. Â

The OSCE Minsk Group has been brokering peace talks between governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan since in vain.

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