Guides to the places worth your time, from the UNESCO Old City of Baku and the Gobustan petroglyphs to Sheki's khan palace, the burning hillside of Yanar Dag, and alpine Lake Goygol. Drive times, tickets, and the right season for each.
QubaQuba
Krasnaya Sloboda, known in Azerbaijani as Qırmızı Qəsəbə, is a town in the Quba district of northern Azerbaijan, separated from Quba itself by the Qudyal river and populated almost entirely by Mountain Jews. It is widely
QubaQuba
Quba is a town of about 47,000 in north-eastern Azerbaijan, 600 metres up on the right bank of the Qudyal river, roughly 170 km from Baku. It was the seat of a khanate under Fatali Khan between 1758 and 1789, it is a cen
Gabala
Gabala is a resort town in the foothills of the Greater Caucasus, about 225 km northwest of Baku on the mountain road between Shamakhi and Sheki. Modern Gabala is built around the Tufandag mountain resort and its four ro
Sumgayit
Sumgayit is Azerbaijan's third-largest city, on the Caspian coast about 35 km north of Baku. Built out as a Soviet industrial centre and granted city status in 1949, it is a working city rather than a sightseeing stop, w
Shamakhi
Yeddi Gunbaz, the Seven Domes, is a hillside burial ground about 1.5 km south of Shamakhi in northern Azerbaijan. It holds the tombs of the family of Mustafa Khan, the last ruler of the Shirvan Khanate, in octagonal ston
NakhchivanNakhchivan
Nakhchivan is an autonomous republic of Azerbaijan separated from the rest of the country by Armenian territory, bordering Turkiye, Iran and Armenia. Because no road crosses from mainland Azerbaijan, the practical way in
BakuBaku
The Palace of the Shirvanshahs is the 15th-century seat of the rulers of Shirvan, standing at the highest point of Icherisheher, the walled Old City of Baku, Azerbaijan. It is a group of buildings rather than one palace,
ShekiSheki
The Sheki Caravanserai, properly the Upper Caravanserai or Yuxarı Karvansara, is a merchants' inn on Akhundzade Avenue in Sheki, northwestern Azerbaijan, built in the 18th or 19th century. It is a fortified trapezoidal b
Khizi
The Candy Cane Mountains are a band of red-and-white striped ridges spread along the Baku to Quba highway and the Khizi road, around the Khizi and Siyazan district boundary about 100 km north of Baku. The colours come fr
QubaQuba
Khinalig (also written Khinaliq or Khinalug) is a stone village at about 2,350 m in the Greater Caucasus of northern Azerbaijan, reached by a paved 60 km mountain road from Quba. Continuously inhabited for roughly 5,000
Qusar
Laza is a mountain village in the Qusar district of northern Azerbaijan, set in an amphitheatre of cliffs and waterfalls at the foot of the Shahdag massif, about 210 km from Baku and roughly 4 km from the Shahdag Mountai
Lankaran
Lerik is a small town high in the Talysh Mountains of southern Azerbaijan, about 55 km up a mountain road from Lankaran and roughly 325 km from Baku. It is known for the longevity of its villagers, holds a museum dedicat
AbsheronBaku (Surakhani)
The Ateshgah Fire Temple is a castle-like pentagonal complex in Surakhani on the outskirts of Baku, built around a former natural gas vent and used through the 17th and 18th centuries by Hindu, Sikh and Zoroastrian worsh
BakuBaku
Baku Boulevard is a seafront promenade along the Caspian Sea in central Baku, founded in 1909. The national park runs about 16.7 km over roughly 215 hectares and links the city centre with the bay. Along it sit the Littl
ShekiKish village
The Church of Kish is a small round-apse stone church in Kish village, about 5 km north of Sheki in northern Azerbaijan, tied to Caucasian Albania, an ancient Christian kingdom of the eastern Caucasus. The standing build
ShamakhiMaraza
Diri Baba Mausoleum is a two-story rock-cut mausoleum-mosque set into a cliff at Maraza, in Azerbaijan's Gobustan district, on the Baku to Shamakhi road. A dated fragment records its construction in 1402 by order of Shir
GanjaGanja
Ganja is Azerbaijan's second city, in the west of the country about 360 km from Baku. Its landmarks include the Shah Abbas (Juma) Mosque of 1606, the Bottle House clad in 48,000 glass bottles, and the 450-hectare Heydar
GobustanGobustan town
The Gobustan mud volcanoes are a field of small geological cones south of Baku that erupt cold grey mud, water and methane rather than lava. Since 2024 the visited field has been managed as the Mud Volcanoes Tourism Comp
GobustanGobustan town
Gobustan Rock Art is an open-air reserve about 64 km south of Baku holding more than 6,000 prehistoric engravings cut into a boulder-strewn plateau over tens of thousands of years. The carvings show hunters, dancers, ree
BakuBaku
Icherisheher is the walled historic core of Baku, Azerbaijan, a residential quarter of about 22 hectares ringed by 11th to 12th-century fortifications. It holds the Maiden Tower and the 15th-century Palace of the Shirvan
ShamakhiShamakhi
The Juma Mosque of Shamakhi is a working Friday mosque in northern Azerbaijan, founded in 743 to 744 AD under the Umayyads. It is the oldest mosque in Azerbaijan and the second oldest in the Caucasus, after Derbent. Its
OghuzOghuz
Khalkhal Waterfall is a forested mountain cascade near Xalxal village in the Oghuz district of north-western Azerbaijan, about 15 km north-east of Oghuz town on the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. It is reached
GanjaGanja
Lake Goygol (Göygöl, meaning blue lake) is an alpine lake in the Lesser Caucasus near Ganja, formed on 30 September 1139 when the Ganja earthquake collapsed part of Mount Kapaz and dammed a river. It sits at about 1,553
NaftalanNaftalan
Naftalan is a small city in western Azerbaijan built around a rare grade of medicinal crude oil rich in naphthenic hydrocarbons. Bathers sit for about ten minutes in the heated brown oil under sanatorium supervision. The
GanjaGanja
The Nizami Ganjavi Mausoleum is a roughly 20-metre cylindrical red-granite tower on the eastern approach to Ganja, Azerbaijan, marking the presumed grave of the 12th-century poet Nizami Ganjavi (born about 1141, died 120
ShekiSheki
Sheki Khan's Palace is a late-18th-century two-story summer residence of the Sheki khans in northwestern Azerbaijan, the only surviving building of a larger palace complex. It is known for its shebeke windows, latticed s
ShekiSheki
Sheki is a historic silk-trade town in northwest Azerbaijan, in the southern foothills of the Greater Caucasus, about 300 km from Baku by the Shamakhi road or 360 km on the faster M2. Its Yukhari Bash old quarter, fortre
AbsheronBaku
Yanar Dag is a natural gas fire on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula about 25 km from Baku, where methane seeps up through porous sandstone and burns continuously in the open air. The flame runs along the foot of the
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