Wheat, barley, and corn are the major grain crops. Rice is grown through irrigation. Potatoes, fruits, grapes, and vegetables are other crops. Tea and citrus fruits are specialties of the humid Lenkoran lowland. Cattle, sheep, and goats graze the lowlands and the mountains and are the basis of wool and meat production.
Silk is a major product.
The Baku area is the site of extensive petroleum and natural gas fields. Most of the republic's industry is in the Baku-Sumgait area, where petroleum refining and the manufacture of steel, oil equipment, and chemicals are significant. A petroleum pipeline extends from Baku to Batumi in Georgia, and gas pipelines also extend to the nearby republics. Before the 19th century the territory of the present republic consisted of a number of khanates, which were conquered by the Russians by the 1820s. At the time of the Russian Revolution in 1918, an independent Azerbaijan republic was declared with the help of the Turks and, later, the British.