Southwest Asia (The Middle East)

1
Southwest Asia(The Middle East)

• Location, Climate and Resources

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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

3
Landforms

• Not just all desert
• Turkey and Iranmountains
• Rubal-Khali empty quarter sand sea in Saudi
  Arabia

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Landforms cont.

• Fresh water is very valuable
• Major rivers Tigris, Euphrates, Jordan
• Persian Gulf importantoil and trading
• Dead Sea -very salty, no life, float easily
• Wadisdry stream beds, water a few feet below
  surface

5
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

6
Oil and Gas

• 60 of the worlds oil
• Only a few countries have it thoughmost around
  Persian Gulf
• Oil allows countries to become 1st world
• These countries rely solely on oil bad
• Natural gas usually found near oil

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Resource Problems

• Many minerals have been depletedused up
• Area used to have forests--deforestation