Baku

Baku is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located 28 metres below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world and also the largest city in the world located below sea level. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal parts: the downtown area and the old Inner City . At the beginning of 2009, Bakus urban population was estimated at just over two million people. Officially, about 25 percent of all inhabitants of the country live in Bakus metropolitan area. Baku is divided into eleven administrative districts and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on islands in the Baku Bay and the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, 60 km away from Baku. The Inner City of Baku along with the Shirvanshahs Palace and Maiden Tower were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. According to the Lonely Planets ranking, Baku is also among the worlds top ten destinations for urban nightlife. The city is the scientific, cultural and industrial center of Azerbaijan. Many sizeable Azerbaijani institutions have their headquarters there, including SOCAR, one of the worlds top 100 companies and others. The Baku International Sea Trade Port, sheltered by the islands of the Baku Archipelago to the east and the Absheron Peninsula to the north, is capable of handling two million tons of general and dry bulk cargoes per year. In recent years Baku has become an important venue for international events. It hosted the 57th Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 and will host the 2015 European Games, 2016 European Grand Prix and Euro 2020. The city is renowned for its harsh winds. This is reflected in the citys nickname, the "City of Winds".

Nakhichevan

The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is a landlocked exclave of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The region covers 5,500 km2 with a population of 410,000, bordering Armenia to the east and north, Iran to the south and west, and Turkey to the northwest. The area that is now Nakhchivan became part of the Safavid dynasty of Iran in the 16th century. In 1828, after the last Russo-Persian War and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the Nakhchivan Khanate passed from Iranian into Imperial Russian possession. After the 1917 February Revolution, Nakhchivan and its surrounding region were under the authority of the Special Transcaucasian Committee of the Russian Provisional Government and subsequently of the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When the TDFR was dissolved in May 1918, Nakhchivan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Zangezur (today the Armenian province of Syunik), and Qazakh were heavily contested between the newly formed and short-lived states of the Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA) and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). In June 1918, the region came under Ottoman occupation. Under the terms of the Armistice of Mudros, the Ottomans agreed to pull their troops out of the Transcaucasus to make way for British occupation at the close of the First World War. In July 1920, the Soviet Union occupied the region and on July 28, declared the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with "close ties" to the Azerbaijan SSR, beginning seventy years of Soviet rule. In January 1990 Nakhchivan declared independence from the USSR to protest against the suppression of the national movement in Azerbaijan, and became the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic within the newly independent Republic of Azerbaijan a year later. The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is an autonomous area of Azerbaijan, governed by its own elected legislature. The region continues to suffer from the effects of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and its Karki exclave has been under Armenian occupation ever since. The administrative capital is the city of Nakhchivan. Vasif Talibov has been the leader of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic since 1995.

Gazakh-Goranboy

Gazakh is a rayon of Azerbaijan. It has two exclaves inside Armenia, Yukhari Askipara and Barkhudarli, both of which came under Armenian control during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Garabagh

Yukhary Garabagh

Absheron-Guba

Lankaran

Lankaran is a city in Azerbaijan, on the coast of the Caspian Sea, near the southern border with Iran. It has a population of 83,300 . It is next to, but independent of Lankaran rayon. The city forms a distinct first-order division of Azerbaijan.

Shaki-Shirvan

Ganja

Ganja (Persian: گنجه‎‎; in Azerbaijani: Gəncə, Ҝәнҹә) is Azerbaijan's second largest city with a population close to 820,000. It was named Elisabethpol (Russian: Елизаветпо́ль, tr. Yelizavetpol; IPA: [jɪlʲɪzəvʲɪtˈpolʲ]) in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name Ganja in 1920 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again in 1935 to Kirovabad (Russian: Кироваба́д; IPA: [kʲɪrəvɐˈbat]) and retained it throughout the later Soviet period from 1935. Finally in 1989, during Perestroika, the city regained the original name.

Aran

Mughan

Qarabağ

Sulutepe

Sulutəpə is a settlement in Baku, Azerbaijan. The settlement forms part of the municipality of Biləcəri in Binəqədi raion. It is an unofficial township built up in the 1980s by rural migrants and refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh. There is oil there, and oil wells, on the land occupied by residents, ownership being claimed by "Binagadi Oil", which is, in turn, owned by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan and the Company "Global Energy Azerbaijan" which is registered in the Virgin Islands. Attempts by the oil company to evict squatters and demolish illegal construction have been controversial with residents strongly contesting the oil companies claims. It was reported that on April 17, 2012 a mob of local residents attacked oil company employees demolishing houses and that the employees, in turn, severely beat a local Azeri reporter, Idrak Abbasov, while he was filming the incident.

Hajigabul Rayon

Qazax-Goranboy

Muğan

Abşeron-Quba