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.
- »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.
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.
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.
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).
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.