This highland may properly be regarded as a continuation of the great Iranean plateau, with which it is connected at its south-eastern corner.

It comprises a portion of the modern Persia, the whole of Armenia, and most of Asia Minor.

Its principal mountain-ranges are latitudinal or from west to east, only the minor ones taking the opposite or longitudinal direction.
Of the latitudinal chains the most important is the Taurus, which, commencing at the southwestern corner of Asia Minor in longitude 29 deg.
nearly, bounds the great table-land upon the south, running parallel with the shore at the distance of sixty or seventy miles as far as the Pylse Cilicise, near Tarsus, and then proceeding in a direction decidedly north of east to the neighborhood of Lake Van, where it unites with the line of Zagros.

The elevation of this range, though not equal to that of some in Asia, is considerable.

In Asia Minor the loftiest of the Taurus peaks seem to attain a height of about 9000 or 10,000 feet.
Further to the east the elevation appears to be even greater, the peaks of Ala Dagh, Sapan, Nimrud, and Mut Khan in the tract about Lake Van being all of them considerably above the line of perpetual snow, and therefore probably 11,000 or 12,000 feet.
At the opposite side of the table-land, bounding it towards the north, there runs under various names a second continuous range of inferior elevation, which begins near Brusa, in the Keshish Dagh or Mysian Olympus, and proceeds in a line nearly parallel with the northern coast to the vicinity of Kars.