Shirvan

Shirvan National Park was established in 2003 in south-eastern Azerbaijan, on the Caspian coast south of Baku, and protects some 543 km². It was created on the basis of a nature reserve that had existed since the 1960s.

The landscape is semi-desert and salt steppe on a coastal plain lying below sea level, with brackish lagoons, marshes and dunes, an arid, wind-beaten environment where the vegetation is reduced to wormwood, salsola and scattered grasses.

Its reason for being is the goitered gazelle, a steppe antelope that came close to extinction in the Caucasus and of which Shirvan holds the most important population in the world, with several thousand animals after decades of strict protection; translocations have been carried out from here to restock other areas of Azerbaijan and Georgia. The park's lagoons are also a stop on the Caspian migration route, with winter concentrations of flamingos, waterfowl and waders, and the Caspian seal, endemic and threatened, is seen in its waters.