Southwest Asia
Landforms Divide the Region
Southwest Asia is mostly desert
 The land ranges from coastal plains to
snow peak mountains
 Forms a land bridge between Asia, Africa
and Europe
 The region is situated on the edge of a
huge tectonic plate
 Part of the Arabian Peninsula is pulling
away from the rest of Africa
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Arabian Peninsula
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Arabian Peninsula
 Separated from Africa by Red Sea, on
Southwest and rest of Asia by the Persian Gulf
 Rea Sea is part of the Great Rift Valley
 Rub Al-Khali is largest sand desert in the world
 Much of the Arabian Peninsula is covered by plains.
 People living on Arabian Peninsula adjusted by living nomadic
lives in search of water
Anatolian Peninsula
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Anatolian Peninsula– occupied by Turkey, marks beginning of the
Asian continent
Much of Anatolia is a plateau, some areas for agriculture, some for
livestock
Both the Arabian and Anatolians Peninsula are on strategic
waterways
Red Sea-connected to the Mediterranean Sea by the Suez Canal
Bosporus Strait and Dardenelles Strait-connects the Black Sea to
the Aegean Sea and Mediterranean Sea (important for trade with
Russia)
Strait of Hormuz-connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean.
This is important because this allows access to the oil fields of
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq
Plains and Highlands
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Arabian Peninsula is a plain
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Most of Iran is a plateau surrounded by mountains.
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Few activates occur here
Most of the land is barren (empty) with some low hills, ridges
and wadis – riverbeds that remain dry except during rainy
seasons
It is isolated and very high.
The land is very arid.
The surrounding the plateau can produce some crops.
Northern Plain of Afghanistan is a well-watered area that
is surrounded by high mountains (which isolate it from
other regions)
Mountains
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Rugged mountains divide the land
 Hindu Kush mountains (isolate Afghanistan from Pakistan)
 Mountains have a series of caves
 Zagros Mountains – Western Iran (isolate it from the rest of
Southwest Asia)
 Elburz mountains-northern Iran (separates Caspian Sea from
Iran)
 Taurus Mountains – separate Turkey from the rest of Asia
 In spite of these barriers, people, ideas, goods still spread.
 One of the ways they spread is water.
Water Bodies
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Region is surrounded by bodies of water.
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Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers
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Called the “Fertile Crescent”
Worlds first civilizations developed here
Valleys are fertile, well- watered and good for agriculture
Jordan River
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Important for trade and access to other parts of the world
The region is arid so few rivers flow the entire year
Forms the boundary between Israel and Jordan
Dead Sea –
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Land locked salt lake.
Only bacteria can live there.
Lowest place on earth. It is 1,349 feet below sea level
Resources
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Oil (most important resource)
 Found on the Arabian Peninsula, Iran and Iraq
 Also found along coast of Persian Gulf and in Persian
Gulf itself
 More than ½ of the world’s oil comes from the Middle
East
OPEC

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
 Regulate supply and prices of oil
Resources
Water
 The most valuable resource in Southwest Asia
 Turkey, Iran, Lebanon and Afghanistan water
is plentiful
 It is harnessed for hydroelectricity
 Elsewhere water is a scarce resource that
must be constantly guarded and carefully
used
 Other resources such as coal, copper, potash
and phosphates
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Arid Lands
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Southwest Asia is extremely arid (dry)
 Receive less than 18 inches of precipitation a year
 Most of the land is covered in sand dunes and salt flats.
 Rivers do not flow year-around
 Vegetation and animals living in the desert can survive on
little water and in extreme temperatures.
 Irrigation is important
Other types of Climate
 Mediterranean
 Land
climate
is green and lush
 Highland
climates
Areas in the mountains of
Southwest Asia have a cool
climate
Deserts Limit Movement
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Rub al-Khali (empty quarter)
 Largest Sand desert in the world
 Called “place where no one comes out,” is a vast
desert
 Size of Texas.
 The temperature can exceed 150° degrees
 Fahrenheit
 Sand dunes up to 800 feet high
An–Nafud desert
 Has several oasis
 Has severe sandstorms and brutal heat
Syrian desert
 separate coastal regions of Lebanon, Israel, and
Syria from Tigris and Euphrates valleys
Negev desert
 occupies Israel, produces crops through irrigation
Rub al-Khali
Salt Deserts
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Lands in the rain shadow of a mountain range are usually arid
In Iran, mountains block rain and dry winds increase evaporation.
So when winds evaporate the moisture in the soil, chemical salts
remain creating salt flat
 Past-e Kavir – central Iran
 Past- e Luf –eastern Iran
Semiarid Lands
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On the edge of the desert are semi-arid (partly dry) lands
Warm to hot summers with enough rain for shrubs and grasses
Cotton and wheat can be grown here
Good pasture for animals
 In Turkey they herd mohair goats
Well-watered coast lands
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Along the Mediterranean and across most of Turkey, hot summers
and rainy winters create good climate for fruits, olives and
vegetables
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Farmers can grow crops year round
Tigris and Euphrates flood yearly
 Site of intensive farming
Turkey and Iraq have created dams along rivers to provide irrigation
all year.
Providing Precious Water
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Critical resource is water
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Fresh water is available only in small amounts and not
consistently
To meet the needs of large farms and from growing population,
countries must construct dams and irrigation systems.
1. Drip irrigation places water just at the root
zone,
reducing evaporation of precious water. This
system is located in the Negev Desert in Israel.
2. A bag of water is collected by using this pump.
It
is a part of a qanat—a system of underground
brick-lined tunnels and wells that collect runoff
water from the mountains.
3. This irrigation canal in Oman has delivered
water
for over a thousand years. The canals are carefully
maintained to provide water for agriculture.
4. A noria—or waterwheel run by the flow of water
or
by animal power—is used to lift water from the river
to the fields. These two are located in Syria on the
Orontes River.
Dams and Irrigation systems
Ancient practices for providing water work well for small fields but are not
efficient for large-scale farming
 Dams and Irrigation systems must be constructed
 Examples:
 Turkey
 is building a series of dams and a man-made lake using water from
the Euphrates River
 Countries downstream are mad because they will lose the use of
water
 Some countries even threaten war.
 Israel
 National Water Carrier Project in Israel carries water from the north
to the south. It is used for drinking and irrigation.
 Is a source of international conflict because water sources flow
through many countries
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Modern Water Technology
Drip irrigation – using small pipes that
slowly drip water just above ground to
conserve water
 Desalinization-removing salt from water
using sophisticated treatments
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used for farming/used for waste water
Waste water is treated
 Expensive
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Fossil water – water from aquifers. But
only 25-30 years of that supply remains.
Oil from the Sand
Fields discovered in Southwest Asia
contain about ½ of all petroleum
reserves in the world.
 Petroleum is the source of gasoline for
cars, heating oil, and used to make
fertilizers and plastics.
 Southwest Asia is a very important region
economically.
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Forming Petroleum
Dead plant and animal remains mingled
with sand and mud on the bottom of the
sea over time, pressure and heat
transformed the material into
hydrocarbons , which form the chemical
basis of oil and natural gas
 Oil and gas are trapped in rock
 Engineers use sophisticated equipment to
extract, or remove oil
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Early Exploration
Industrialization and the invention of the
automobile made petroleum a highly desired
resource.
 First oil discovered in Southwest Asia was in
1908 in Iran
 In 1938, oil companies found more oil fields in
the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf
 In 1948, oil companies discovered portions of
what would become one of world’s largest oil
fields at al-Ghawar. The field contains more
than ¼ of Saudi Arabia’s reserves of oil
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Transporting Oil
Crude oil- petroleum that has not been
processed
 Refinery – converts the crude oil into
useful products
 Pipelines transport the crude oil either to
refineries or to ports where oil is picked up
by tankers and moved to other places for
processing.
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Risks of Transporting Oil
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Oil spills
 Largest
oil spill was in 1991
 240 million gallons spilled into the Persian
Gulf during Gulf War
Pipes are monitored for drops in pressure
to check for leaks
 Ocean-going tankers are at a much
higher risk for causing pollution.
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 Collisions
or running aground