Baku #

Image courtesy of NASA., under PD

Baku Baku, Aserbaidschan is Azerbaijans major city, and the oil capital of the Caspian region. This photo shows details of the city, including the extensive port facilities, and part of the large web of offshore oil platforms in the Caspian Sea.

The oil platforms off Baku were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and were the first offshore oil-drilling efforts in the world. Today, multinational oil exploration, sea-level rise (the Caspian Sea has risen more than 2 m in the past 20 years), offshore platform maintenance, and environmental degradation are all hot topics in Baku.