Yanar Dag

Yanar Dağ ( also: Yanar dag or Yanar dagh, in German: mountain burning ) is a burning since ancient times natural gas fire on a hillside in Azerbaijan. The site of Erdbrands located a few kilometers north of the capital Baku and is accessible to tourists.

Up to three meter high flames rising from a ten meter wide ridge of the limestone hills Yanardag, which lies near Baku on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea. Today there are only a handful of such natural burning natural gas fields in the world, most of them in Azerbaijan. Due to the large deposits of natural gas under the Absheron Peninsula of natural origin have been burned there during the ancient fire, what historical writers such as Marco Polo reported.

These fires see the most impressive from at dusk, when tourists and locals sit in the next door tea place to be inspired by the spectacular sight. The fact that Azerbaijan is in connection with the fire in his tradition and in his art, it leads back to the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, who came to this area more than two thousand years ago.

Yanardag calls still excite inspiration; in recent years the Fire Mountain provided the name for a Finnish opera and a French- Canadian stage play.