Physical Geography of the Middle East and North Africa

you are clear for launch and with that shut down your advisors o2 on and prepare for ignition copy that and hey mr ruschaf here all right so in this lesson we're going to the middle east and north africa and we're going to be focusing in on their physical characteristics now the middle east and north africa are often combined as one region as they not only have shared cultural characteristics but as we're going to see they have similar physical characteristics as well well what is this area that we're talking about well the middle east also known as southwest asia is region that is found to the east of the mediterranean sea and extends eastward to the border between iran and the two countries of afghanistan pakistan from north and south the middle east includes the anatolian peninsula which makes up most of the country of turkey and stretches down to the south to include the countries of the arabian peninsula now as we move back to the mediterranean coast we find sub-region which is known as the levant this region includes the countries such as syria lebanon jordan israel and palestine now this region can also be used to describe turkey as well as iraq although iraq does not border the mediterranean as well as the island of cyprus which is an island in the sea then there is north africa and as you might have guessed that stretches across the northern portion of africa now how far north africa extends southward really depends upon who's actually defining the region now for this lesson we're going to define north africa stretching from the mediterranean sea down to the just the south of the sahara desert now in between the middle east and north africa is the sinai peninsula and this is actually the only portion of egypt that is actually part of asia so before we start talking about the landforms of the region let's look at the water that surrounds the middle east and north africa first of all we've already discussed the mediterranean sea lies off the north coast of africa and off the east coast of the levant in the middle east at the western end of the mediterranean sea we find the strait of gabralter which connects to mediterranean sea to the atlantic ocean this choke point is only seven miles wide but is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world now 20 of the world shipping passes through the street each year as major ship moves through the strait every five minutes now separating the middle east and africa is the red sea and there are several theories to explain the name of the sea one theory suggests that in ancient languages the colors black red green and white refer to the directions of north south east and west so the red sea is essentially the sea to the south another theory suggests that it could be named for the algae that occasionally grows near the surface that can give parts of the red sea kind of reddish brownish color now the red sea is connected to mediterranean sea by the suez canal completed in 1869 the 120 mile canal cuts off about 5500 miles of the journey from london all the way to the arabian peninsula this makes the suez canal extremely important for trade as anywhere between 9 and 13 of the world's trade passes through this canal it is also strategic choke point as political or military conflicts could easily stop shifts moving through the canal this occurred in both world war one world war ii and the suez crisis that happened in 1956 but it is within egypt's best interest to keep the canal open as it earns over four billion dollars year levying fees against the ships that actually move through the canal now to the south of the red sea is another choke point the bob mendeb this street connects the red sea to the gulf of aden the baba al-madeb's name actually means the gate of tears in arabic because of the dangers that early sailors face when crafting through the strait now like the suez canal about one-eighth of the world's trade moves through the balboa medeb including over 6 million barrels of oil each day this trade opens to the gulf of aden and in the late 2000s pirates became major concern no no no not pirates-like well actually pretty much exactly like pirates like jack sparrow attacks by somali pirates became problematic in 2007 and at his height in 2010 200 ships were being attacked and 50 were actually being seized and hijacked every year this caused navies from around the world to include the united states and nato to begin escorting ships through the gulf of aden in order to keep the trade route open and while most of the pirate activity has been reduced since 2013 there still are events of piracy in the area today now the gulf of aden opens up into the arabian sea which is sea in the indian ocean now as we move to the eastern side of the arabian peninsula we enter the gulf of oman and once again we get ready to go through another choke point this one is the strait of hormuz this choke point is arguably the most important waterway in the world as one third of the world's natural gas and quarter of its oil must actually pass through the strait now considering that it is only 21 miles wide and lies in the middle of one of the world's most volatile regions this trait has been blocked several times in recent history even as recently as 2019 iran was attacking selected ships that were passing through the strait now once through the strait of hormuz we find ourselves in the persian gulf although several arab governments will call this the arabian gulf or just the gulf and it is the countries surrounding the persian gulf that over 25 percent of the world's oil comes from in fact nearly two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves are found in this region making this very important region to the world's economy unfortunately it's also been the scene of many of the world's most recent conflicts to include the 1991 gulf war and the war in iraq that started in 2003. now there is one other sea that we'll have to look at which is the dead sea that is found in between jordan and israel the dead sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world now let's put this in perspective the salt in the world's oceans are about three and half percent of its weight the dead sea however has over 9 times as much salt and about 33.7 percent of its weight the fact that nothing except for bacteria can survive in such salty water is their reason for the sea's name the dead sea now before we talk about the region's landforms let's take look at its climate we could probably best describe the region's climate in just two words hot and dry now from personal experience my first time in iraq in 2003 my personal thermometer read 132 degrees now that was probably incorrect but the temperatures in iraq and other areas in the middle east routinely go over 120 degrees in 2016 kuwait and southern iraq had official highs of 129 degrees now as this climate map shows despite the mountainous areas of iran and turkey and coastal regions around the mediterranean sea which has mediterranean climate the dominant climate in middle east and north africa is dry arid climate this means deserts the largest desert in the world is the sahara desert which measures over 3.5 million square miles and stretches across northern africa the arabian peninsula is also nearly fully covered by deserts the arabian desert is the third largest desert in the world after the sahara and the australian deserts the southern third of the arabian desert is known as the rubacali or the empty quarter the robot khali is also the largest area of sand in the world now let me put this in perspective the rubakahali has half the amount of sand that the entire sahara desert has despite the fact that the sahara desert is actually 16 times larger than the rubakali now north of the arabian desert we have the syrian desert and if we go down to the southern portion of the country of israel we find the negev desert now there are rivers that flow through these deserts now more than just providing scarce water to the region these rivers are also have been the home of the world's earliest cities and empires for example flowing through egypt we have the nile which is the world's longest river now flowing from the south to the north it is along the niles banks that the ancient egyptian civilization and their pyramids are found the nile begins down in the south in uganda where lake victoria feeds the white nile and in ethiopia where the waters flowing out of the ethiopian highlands feeds into the blue nile now the blue and white nile tributaries continue flowing northward until they merge in karkum sudan and become the nile river now in the middle east the euphrates and tigris rivers begin in turkey and flow south through syria and iraq before entering into the persian gulf it is in between these rivers that we find the home of the ancient mesopotamian civilization of the assyrians and the babylonians see the name mesopotamia actually means land between the rivers in ancient greece then there are the mountains in the northwest portion of northern africa are the atlas mountains which are also known as the backbone of the maghreb the maghreb is the western region of the arab world and includes the countries of morocco algeria and tunisia the house mountains are pretty decent-sized mountains rising up to about 13 000 feet and through the rain shuttle effect it actually helps blocking the precipitation from the atlantic ocean from coming to the sahara desert now the two of the mountain ranges we'll talk about are both in iran now in between iran and iraq and stretching up to turkey we find the zagros mountains which stretches up to 14 000 feet and it was within the zagras mountains that the ancient sumerian civilization made their home the second mountain range that ran is the obers mountains which lies through the south of the caspian sea in northern iran in climb tool over eighteen thousand feet now it is these zagros and elbows mountains that gives iran an overall cooler climate than what we find in the rest of the middle east now we have already discussed the importance of oil in the middle east and north africa despite only having six percent of the world's population this region has 59 of the proven oil reserves in the world and 45 of the proven natural gas reserves so in world that still runs on fossil fuels this makes the region extremely important to the world's economies moreover for the oil producing countries in the middle east oil is the major driver of their economy they are also fortunate that not only do they have lots of oil unlike other places in the world their oil is actually much easier thus it is much cheaper to be able to get to and drill see it only costs saudi arabia nine dollars to be able to pump one barrel of oil however in the united states that actually costs as much as 21 this means that saudi arabia easily profits 10 more barrel than in the united states or other places in the world now while oil is so important to the region because of how much oil there is the other most important resource in the region is important because how little there is and that is water now remember the people of the region are only six percent of the world's population but it only has about one percent of the world's renewable fresh water now because most of the surface in the middle east and north africa are deserts most people have to rely upon aquifers or lakes of underwater water for their drinking water however the water in the aquifers is quickly being used up this is causing many problems in the middle east in jordan the price of water has risen by 30 percent just in the last 10 years yemen is already suffering crop failures as water is not available for farming and even the super wealthy country of the united arab emirates is estimated to run out of water in the next 50 years now one solution that arabs are turning to is desalination plants in fact 70 percent of the world's desalination plants are actually found in the middle east what these plants do is they take water from the surrounding seas and they separate the salt from the water providing fresh water today 50 of the drinking water in saudi arabia comes from these desalination plants however these plants take lot of energy to run so much that 25 of saudi arabia's oil and gas products actually are used to run these plants and by 2030 some estimate that 50 percent of saudi arabia's oil will be used to create drinkable water for his people and farms water is literally becoming as valuable as oil in the middle east all right that is the physical geography of the middle east north africa in our next lessons we'll start looking at the culture and the people of the region until then keep on learning