1. Southwest Asia Unit 7 Day 1
Chapter 21
Sections 1 & 2
Pgs

2. Southwest Asia “Middle East”
The “Middle East” shows a Western or European point of view. This term is used to distinguish this area from the “Near East” (parts of Eastern Europe and North Africa) and the “Far East” (China, Japan, and Indochina)
The regions are “East” since they are in the Eastern hemisphere!
Indochina
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Once French states

3. Waterways and Peninsulas?
Straits are the only waterway to HUGE oil fields, making them very popular
Turkey is the Anatolian Peninsula
Both peninsulas are located on strategic waterways
Suez Canal allows goods to travel from Asia into Africa
Straits are the only waterway to HUGE oil fields, making them very popular
Suez Canal
An opening to the Mediterranean Sea
Goods flow through the canal into Europe and North Africa

4. Arabian Peninsula
Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
All of these countries, except Yemen, are called the Arab Gulf States. They are among the wealthiest places in the World.
Dry, sandy and windy conditions cause few things to happen on the Arabian Peninsula. Severe sandstorms and brutal heat
Mostly people move by waterways
World’s largest peninsula
Wadis: riverbeds that are dry until the rainy season
Large barren plains
Mainly desert
Poor weather conditions and nomads search for water
Plentiful in oil and natural gas

5. Anatolian Peninsula Also called: Asia Minor Turkey Large plateaus
Produces agriculture and grazing
Mountains divide the peninsula

6. Hindu Kush Mountains Stretches from central Afghanistan into Pakistan
About 25,000 feet tall at the highest peak

7. Zagros Mountains
Iran
14,000 feet at highest peak

8. Elburz Mountains
Iran

9. Taurus Mountains Turkey
Many of the peaks reach 10,000 to 12,000 feet high

10. --Tigris and Euphrates --Jordan River provides precious water
Large bodies of water?
--Tigris and Euphrates
--Jordan River provides precious water
--Dead Sea is a large salt lake
Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldeans lived in the Fertile Crescent
Dead sea is so salty that nothing can live in the waters and people go there to bathe and use the black mud

11. Climate/Vegetation?
So dry, rivers do not flow year round
Most areas receive less than 18 inches annually.
Plants and wildlife accustomed to dry weather

12. Sandy deserts? Rub al-Khali Approximately the size of Texas
The sand can get as hot as 150 degrees
10 years can pass without rain
40 days to cross in a car with modern day technology
Oasis: underground spring provides vegetation
Sand storms

13. Winds evaporate moisture in the soil
Known as a salt flat
Winds evaporate moisture in the soil
Extremely hot and uninhabited
Salt deserts?
Winds evaporate water in the soil and only chemical salts remain

14. Resources Oil most abundant resource
½ of the world’s oil reserves are found in Southwest Asia.
Water is a major resource in certain parts of the region, but scarce in others.
Coal, copper, salt
Water is a scarce resource that must be guarded and preserved
Efforts to conserve water have been around for thousands of years (in the region)
Water is in short supply and it is critical

15. Why is Oil so important? Petroleum is the source of gasoline for:
Automobiles
Heating oil
Basis of many chemicals used to make everything from fertilizers to plastics