Welcome to Middle East

Location:

The Middle East is often associated with the Arabian Peninsula. It’s a territory delimited to the north by Europe through Turkey, Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan, to the west by the Mediterranean Sea, Africa and the Red Sea, to the south by the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea and to the east by the countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Area/Surface:

5.693.000 km²

Population:

230.274.000 people

The biggest cities:

Teheran, Baghdad, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Baku and others.

Languages spoken:

Arabic, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Persian, Kurdish and others.

Time zone:

+2 hours to +3.30 hours Greenwich time

Middle East

Religions and relief in the Middle East:

The Middle East is a thousands years old territory, where some of the first civilizations flourished together with their religions. It’s the center of Islamism and Judaism and the home for Christianity. The relief is composed mostly by deserts (Syrian desert, Nafud desert, Rub al Khali desert, Kavir desert and Lut desert) and mountains (Caucasus Mountains, Zagros Mountains, Elburz Mountains and Hadramaut Mountains). Very few areas are covered with plains, because beside the mountains and deserts, there are large areas of plateaus like the Iranian Plateau in Iran.

Climate, rivers, resources and conflicts:

The climate in the Middle East is hot and dry with temperatures that often pass over 40º C. This unfriendly relief has a poor fauna and flora and not too many rivers. The most important rivers are Tigris and Euphrates. On the other hand, this territory is very rich in resources especially oil (one third of the world’s resources of oil). (Find more journeys on blog.worldlifetimejourneys.com) Unfortunately this region is more and more affected by conflicts especially in Israel where some conflicts and wars took place between the Israelis and Palestinians and more recently in Syria and Iraq. The countries that compound the Middle East are below. We recommend you to be very careful and plan well in advance checking the news before visiting Middle East!