Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (officially Republic of Azerbaijan) is a country in Western Asia, with its capital at Baku, and is home to roughly 10.2M people.
Its official languages are Azerbaijani, Russian; the currency in circulation is Azerbaijani manat (₼); people from here are called Azerbaijani.
> INTEL_
> NOTABLE_
- »Fires have burned continuously at Yanar Dag from natural gas seeps for centuries. The country's name is often linked to fire.
- »It contains Nakhchivan, an exclave separated from the rest of the country by Armenian territory.
> BORDERS_
Azerbaijan touches five neighbours: Armenia to the west, Georgia to the northwest, Iran to the southeast, Russia to the northeast and Turkey to the west. Directions run from one centre to the other.
> THE CAPITAL_
Baku sits 28 m below sea level on the Caspian, the lowest-lying capital in the world. Its walled old city is ringed by oil wealth from two separate booms a century apart.
> SCALE_
86,698 km² (33,474 sq mi), 112th largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Portugal.
Population 10,202,830, 95th of 198 on file. That averages 118 per km² (305 per sq mi).
> THE FLAG_
Blue for its Turkic heritage, red for progress, green for Islam; the crescent and eight-pointed star are read as a reference to the Turkic peoples.