Southwest Asia(The Middle East)

Location, Climate and Resources

What is SW Asia?• Corner of huge Asian continent• Surrounded by 5 bodies of water

-- Red, Med, Black, Caspian, and Arabian Sea

• Crossroads for trading to Africa, Asia and Europe

• Conquered many times, each group leaves a cultural “footprint”

Landforms• Not just all desert

• Turkey and Iran—mountains

• Rub’al-Khali – “empty quarter” sand sea in Saudi Arabia

Landforms cont.

• Fresh water is very valuable• Major rivers– Tigris, Euphrates, Jordan • Persian Gulf important—oil and trading • Dead Sea -very salty, no life, float easily• Wadis—dry stream beds, water a few feet

below surface

Climate• Most areas (not all) are

hot and dry

• Winds and elevation influence temp and precip

• Turkey and Iran get good amount of rain, produce food

• most of food has to be imported to region

• Irrigation is huge in area

Oil and Gas

• 60% of the world’s oil

• Only a few countries have it though—most around Persian Gulf

• Oil allows countries to become 1st world

• These countries rely solely on oil –bad

• Natural gas usually found

near oil

Resource Problems

• Many minerals have been depleted—used up

• Area used to have forests--deforestation