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.
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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