The Caucasus, its Peoples, and its History

Caucasia is a broad isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian, traversed by a great chain of mountains rising to a height of 18,000 feet.Caucasian peoples, various ethnic groups living in the Caucasus, a geographically complex area of mountain ranges, plateaus, foothills, plains, rivers, and lakes, with grasslands, forests, marshes and dry steppes. The complex of regions harbours more than 50 separate peoples, ranging from language communities with only a few hundred speakers to large national groups numbering millions. This diversity is not of recent date. In no other region of its size in the world are there so many different races and languages.