*The Middle East is an unusual geographic area because it is not easily defined as a continent or a part of a continent:  it stretches across Northern Africa, much of Southwest Asia, and even parts of Europe.  Consequently, it touches many bodies of water, and contains a wide range of physical features, although almost all the region is characterised by dry climates, principally deserts and steppes.

*To the north and west of the region lies the Mediterranean Sea, which links the Middle East with Europe while keeping it separate.  For centuries, the Middle East, especially the Sinai and Arabian Peninsulas, prevent water travel from Europe to Asia, but this has been fixed.

*Between 1858 and 1869, a French company built the Suez Canal, linking the towns of Port Said (on the Mediterranean) and Suez  (on the Red Sea).  Later the British took control of the canal, and in 1954 the Egyptian government nationalised it.

*The Arabian Peninsula is surrounded by the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf, named as Persia, the ancient name for Iran.

*Another major peninsula is Anatolia, once known as Asia Minor.  This is the region occupied by Turkey today, and once the heart of the Eastern Roman Empire.  North of Anatolia lies the Black Sea.

*There are also three major landlocked bodies of salt water (known as seas, although they are technically lakes) in the Middle East.  

*The Dead Sea, on the Israeli-Jordanian border, is the lowest point on the Earth’s surface (at the shoreline it is 1,369 feet below sea level), and it is the deepest salt lake in the world.  It is known as the Dead Sea because it is so salty that nothing (except a few microscopic algae and fungi) can live in it).

*The Caspian Sea is the largest lake in the world.

*The Aral Sea, in Uzbekistan, was once the 4th largest lake in the world, but today is barely the 8th, and it is still shrinking.  Under Soviet rule, the major rivers that fed the Aral Sea were mostly diverted to provided water for irrigation of many different types of crops (including cotton, which remains one of Uzbekistan’s major exports).  As the Aral Sea dries up, it leaves salt flats behind, which poison the land, and the lack of a major body of water removes the maritime effect which once moderated the temperatures of the region.  Although efforts have been made to save the lake (which has, in fact, split into two smaller lakes), chances are that most of it will eventually evaporate.  The Soviets expected this, and had no concerns.  Uzbekistan is not so lucky, but cannot afford to save the Aral Sea.

*Because the region is so dry, the Middle East’s rivers are extremely important where they do exist.  

*The Nile, in Egypt (and Sudan, and farther south) is the longest river in the world, measuring 4,160 miles in length.  Traditionally, it flooded every year, damaging homes and other property, but depositing rich soil that made Egypt one of the most valuable agricultural regions in the world, and site of one of the world’s oldest major civilisations.  These deposits also created the Nile Delta, the vast fan of depositional soil at the river’s mouth.  Even today, 97% of Egypt’s people live in the Delta or the flood plain.  However, the flood cycle has been interrupted by the construction of the Aswan High Dam between 1960 and 1970, which created Lake Nasser and stopped the floods, while also providing cheap electricity.  At first this seemed good, but the loss of flood deposition has hurt Egypt’s fertility, and the vast area of stagnant water has actually increased diseases carried by water and water-based insects and snails.

*The Tigris and the Euphrates both flow out of Turkey, through Syria and Iraq, much of which was historically known as Mesopotamia, or the ‘Land Between the Rivers.’  They empty into the Persian Gulf.  Traditionally, this made what is now Iraq one of the most fertile regions in the Middle East, and it is where some of the oldest empires in history began—Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon all Mesopotamian empires at one time.

*The Jordan River is also significant, not for its length or breadth, but for its position as the border between Israel and Jordan today, and sometimes the site of conflict between Israelis and Arabs.

*There are also numerous dry streambeds known as wadis, that remain dry until very heavy rains fall, when they are subject to flash flooding.

*In addition to its river valleys, the Middle East’s coastal plains tend to be fairly fertile as well, and these, along with the river valleys, are where most Middle Easterners live.

*There are also many highland regions in the Middle East, and some of them create vast deserts in their rain shadows.

*The Atlas Mountains are in North Africa, and, at least in Morocco, they benefit from the orographic effect and are fairly fertile.  Behind them, though, lies the Sahara Desert in a vast rain shadow.

*The Arabian Peninsula also suffers from the rain shadow cast by the Hejaz and Asir Mountains along its Red Sea coast.  The southern interior of the Arabian Peninsula is so dry and barren that it has not even been fully charted—it is known as the Empty Quarter, or Rub’ al Khali.

*The Anatolian Plateau in the centre of Anatolia is bounded by the Taurus Mountains in the South and the Pontus Mountains in the North.  Turkey also contains Mount Ararat, one of the most famous mountains in the region.

*The Caucasus Mountains rise between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and are home to many small ethnic groups known for their fierce independence.

*The Zagros Mountains exist in Southwestern Iran, and the Hindu Kush are in northern Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.

*Many of the mountains in this region are tectonic, created by the movement of the plates in the Earth’s crust.  The Zagros Mountains and the Taurus Mountains were created by tectonic activity, and earthquakes are a serious problem in the region, particularly in Turkey.

*The major deserts in the region are the Sahara, the Arabian Desert, and the Garagum desert of Central Asia.  Despite the popular image, ergs (areas covered by sand dunes) are much less common than regs (stony plains or flat sandstone plateaus).  Some deserts are relieved by oases, however.  An oasis is simply a place where underground water comes to the surface in an otherwise dry area, and a major oasis can often support a large settlement or town.

*Much of the rest of the region has a steppe climate, which fosters pastoralism, a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle based on moving herds of cattle or other livestock around as they feed on the natural vegetation of the region.  The term usually used for pastoralist nomads of the Middle East is Bedouin, from an Arab word for desert-dweller.

*Of course, the most important physical feature of the entire region is underground—the Middle East derives much of its modern wealth and worldwide influence from the oil found beneath its land and waters.