Southwest Asia and North Africa

 Rich cultural legacy  Agricultural revolution  Urban civilization  Petroleum industry  68% of world’s oil reserves  OPEC  Political issues  Islamic fundamentalism Introduction Aleppo, Syria

Environmental Geography

Maghreb Levant  Deserts: Sahara, Libyan, Nubian  Uplands: Arabian Peninsula, Anatolian Plateau, Iranian Plateau  Lowlands: Tigris-Euphrates River, Nile River Mostly composed of deserts and uplands

Salinization  How? Extensive irrigation + arid climates  Salt accumulation in topsoil  Lower crop yields, and land abandonment  Where? Iraq, central Iran, Egypt, and irrigated Maghreb

Water management  Qanat system  Tapping into groundwater through tunnel  Iran  Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa

Water management  Aswan High Dam (1970)  Benefits  Year-round cropping  Hydroelectricity  Detriments:  Salinization  Schistosomiasis  Damages fishing industry near the Nile Delta Fish catches between 1962 and 1992

 What? Interplay of water resource issues and politics  Where? Nile River  Sudan  Egypt Tigris-Euphrates River  Turkey  Iraq, Syria Jordan River  Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria Hydropolitics

Population and Settlement

 More than 400 million  Highest physiological densities  Tie between water and life  Population cluster  North Africa  The Nile Valley, and Maghreb region  Southwest Asia  Highlands, and better-watered shores of the Mediterranean

Rural settlement patterns  What is the most important indicator of rural settlement? water

Rural settlement patterns  Home to early form of agriculture  1. Domestication  10,000 years ago  Wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, goats  2. Fertile Crescent  Early agricultural activity (5,000 years ago)  Lebanon, Syria, northern Iraq, and eastern Turkey

Rural settlement patterns  Reflects interrelationship between water and life  1. Pastoral nomadism  In the drier portions of the region, inadequate moisture make permanent settlement impossible  Seasonal movement of livestock from place to place  2. Oasis settlement  Tightly clustered permanent settlement

Rural settlement patterns  3. Irrigated agriculture along exotic rivers  Exotic rivers  Transport water from distant, more humid lands into drier regions  eg. Nile, Tigris, Euphrates  Irrigated collective farming  eg. Kibbutzes  4. Dryland agriculture  Depends on seasonal moisture to support farming  Practiced on the Mediterranean climate regions

Urban settlement patterns  What shaped the urban landscapes?  Political system  Trades  Religion  Colonialism  Globalization

Cities as centers of political authority  3500 BC Mesopotamia  3000 BC Egypt  Temples, palaces, tombs, and public buildings

Cities as trading centers  2000 BC the shores of the eastern Mediterranean  Beirut (Lebanon), Damascus (Syria)  Port facilities, warehouse districts, and commercial thoroughfares

 Islam (622)  8 th century Baghdad, Cairo  Walled urban core (medina), bazaar Cities as religious centers

colonialism  Added another layer of urban landscape features  Late 19 th century North Africa  Algiers (French), Cairo (British)

 Since 1950 added to traditional urban centers  High-rise apartment houses, and sprawling squatter settlements Cairo, Egypt globalization

 Since 1970 oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf  Modern Western urban design, futuristic architecture, and new transportation infrastructure globalization Abu Dhabi, UAE

Coexistence of old and new Fes, Morocco

Migration patterns  Rural-to-urban shift  Saudi Arabian: 18% (1950)  83% (2000)  Migration within the region  To oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE  Migration between the region  Job  Turkish  Germany  Algerian, Moroccan  France  Political forces  Lebanese, Iranian  western Europe, North America  Jewish  Israel

Cultural Coherence and Diversity

Religion  Which religion has originated in Southwest Asia?  Judaism (4000 years ago)  Christianity (2000 years ago)  Islam (622)

Geographies of religion  Judaism BC 2000 Mesopotamia to Canaan AD 70 Jewish Diaspora 1948 Jew’s return to Israel  Christianity  Outgrowth of Judaism  Emerged 2000 years ago near Israel

Geographies of religion  Islam  Originated in Makkah (or Mecca) in AD 622  Follows Quran (or Koran)  Divided into Shiites and Sunnis  Diffused to Persia (656), North Africa & Iberian Peninsula (750), Central/South Asia, and Southeast Asia

Diffusion of Islam

Modern religions

Geographies of language  Afro-Asiatic  Semitic language  Arabic  Hebrew  Berber language  Indo-European  Indo-Iranian language  Persian  Kurdish  Altaic  Turkish language

Geopolitical Framework

Colonial legacy  When?  Late arrival because of Turkish Ottoman Empire  Began after WWI (1918)  Ended by the 1950s

Colonial power - France  Maghreb  Algeria (1830s)  Tunisia (1881)  Morocco (1912)  After WWI  Syria (1918)  Lebanon (1918)

Colonial power - Great Britain  British Protectorate before 1900  Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Aden  Suez Canal (1869)  Egypt (1882), Sudan (1896)  After WWI  Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq

 So which countries have NOT been occupied by European powers?  Turkey  Saudi Arabia

Decolonization and independence  North Africa  Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco (1950s)  Algeria (1962)  Southwest Asia  Iraq (1932), Lebanon (1946), Syria (1946), etc… while containing the cultural seeds of its later trouble

Arab-Israeli conflict

 “Intifada” (1987)  Demonstration, led by Palestinian, against the rule of Israel in Gaza Strip and the West Bank  Agreements between the PLO and Israel (1990s)  Potential control of the ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip and West Bank

Islamic fundamentalism  Khomeni took power in Iran (1979)  “Rule the country by the Islamic law”  Sudan (1989)  Algeria (1992~)  Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia…

Conflicts within states  Lebanon ( )  Discord among Christian and Muslim communities  Spillover of Arab-Israeli conflict  Iraq  South: Shiites  North: Kurds  Cyprus  Northern third: Islamic Turkish  South: Greek Orthodox

Conflicts between states  Western Sahara  Morocco (late 1970s)  Libya  Israel, Western Europe, U.S…. (1969~)  Sudan  Egypt (1995)  Iran-Iraq war ( )  Persian Gulf war ( )

Geopolitical issues  What is the destablizing force after WWII?  Creation of Israel  Rise of Islamic fundamentalism  Cold war (eg. Libya)  Ethnic differences (eg. Kurds)  Political/religious divide (eg. Sudan, Labanon)

Relations with the U.S.  Strong allies Israel, and Turkey  Strongly opposed Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya  Ambiguous relations Saudi Arabia

Economic and Social Development

The geography of fossil fuels

Regional economic patterns  Higher-income oil exporters  Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and UAE  Lowe-income oil exporters  Algeria, Libya, Iraq, and Iran  Prospering without oil  Israel, Turkey, Tunisia, and Cyprus

Regional patterns of poverty  Sudan  Civil war  Morocco  Berber communities  Brain drain  Egypt  Population growth  Yemen  Civil unrest

The role of women  Is major social issues  Lowest female labor participation rates  Large gap between male and female literacy  But is changing  Iran  Libya  Israel

Connections with global economy  Oil economy  Influences oil price  Outflow of capital  Economic integration  E.U., AFTA, Union of the Arab Maghreb  Role of Saudi Arabia  Tourism  Ancient historical sites; significant religious localities

The geography of tourism