Yanar Dag
Description
Yanar Dag
One of the most famous and popular tourist places of the "eternal flame” in Azerbaijan is the mountain of Yanar Dag. Yanar Dag is located 25 km to the north from Baku, in Mehemmedi village.
It is rather a hill than a mountain, with natural gas burning on its slope from ancient times. Meter-long tongues of fire are licking the stratified earth approximately for 10m in width, searing those who approached too close. In the 13th century, when Marco Polo visited the then-Persian city of Baku, he mentioned numerous mysterious flames that could be found all over the region at various places of the Abseron Peninsula. These fires gave Azerbaijan the moniker “Land of Fire.”
People occupy the benches to watch the blazing hill in the evening, when its sight is the most effective.
From the year 2007 Yanar Dag is declared a state-protected conservation area.