Ch. 4 North Africa and Southwest Asia Notes:

NORTH AFRICA:

EGYPT (Cairo): Egypt is about the same size as Texas and New Mexico together, yet most of it is desert. The Nile River supplies 85 percent of the country’s water. It begins in East Africa and flows north to the Mediterranean Sea. Aswan High Dam and channels control the river’s flow and its use for farming and generating electric power.

The Suez Canal is one of the world’s most important waterways. Ships use the canal to pass from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, thereby avoiding traveling all the way around Africa. About 29 percent of Egypt’s people work in agriculture raising sugar cane, grains, vegetables, fruits, cotton, and cattle. Egyptian factories make food products and textiles. Egypt’s main energy resource is oil. Another important industry is tourism.

LIBYA (Tripoli): Except for the coastal lowlands, Libya is a desert with only a few oases. An oasis is a green area in a desert fed by underground water. The Sahara covers more than 90 percent of Libya. Libya has no permanent rivers, but aquifers lie beneath the vast desert. Aquifers are underground rock layers that store large amounts of water. Poor soil and a hot climate mean that Libya has to import about three-fourths of its food.

Oasis

The discovery of oil in Libya in 1959 brought the country great wealth. Almost all of Libya’s 5 million people have mixed Arab and Berber heritage. More than two-thirds of Libyans live along the Mediterranean coast. Libya is a Muslim country, and most of its people speak Arabic. In 1969 a military officer named Muammar al- Qaddhafi overthrew the king and became a dictator. For many years, the United States and other democratic nations have accused Qaddhafi of encouraging terrorism.

THE MAGHREB: Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco form a region known as the Maghreb. These three countries make up the westernmost part of the Arabic-speaking Muslim world.

TUNISIA (Tunis): Tunisia is North Africa’s smallest country in terms of land area. Tunisian farmers grow wheat, olives, fruits, and vegetables. Fishing is also an important industry. Tunisian factories produce food products, textiles, and oil products. Tourism is a growing industry. Tunisia’s largest city today is Tunis, the capital city of about 1 million people. Tunsian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced out of power Friday January 14,2011. People were angry over unemployment and wanted more political freedom.

ALGERIA (Algiers): Algeria is the largest country in North Africa. Algeria must import much of its food, which it pays for by selling oil and natural gas. Algeria became a French possession in 1834; so many people in Algeria’s cities speak French as well as Arabic. In 1962, Algeria won its freedom from France. Today, Algeria is a republic, with a strong president and a legislature. Since the early 1990s, however, there have been conflicts between the government and Muslim political parties.

MOROCCO (Rabat): Strait of Gibraltar is at the northern tip of Morocco. Farmers in Morocco grow sugar beets, grains, fruits, and vegetables for sale to Europe during the winter. Morocco is a leading producer of phosphates, used in fertilizers. Tourism is also important to Morocco. Morocco’s traditional culture is based on Arab, Berber, and African traditions. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy

SOUTHWEST ASIA:

TURKEY (Anakara): Turkey has a unique location–it bridges the continents of Asia and Europe. Three important waterways–the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles–separate the Asian and European parts. Turkey’s climate varies throughout the country, from hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters in the central plateau to hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters on the coast. Turkish farmers grow cotton, fruits, and wheat, and raise livestock.

Turkey has many mineral resources such as coal, copper, and iron. Tourism is also a growing industry. About 97 percent of Turkey’s nearly 66 million people are Muslims. The Kurds, an ethnic group who make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s people have demanded their own independent state. Almost 75 percent of Turkey’s people live in cities or towns.

Istanbul (largest city) began as a Greek port called Byzantium. Later it was renamed Constantinople. When the Ottomans conquered the city in the 1400s, they renamed it Istanbul. Turkey has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1952 and is seeking to join the European Union.

ISRAEL (Jerusalem): Israel lies completely in Southwest Asia, but its people include immigrants from Europe, Central Asia, and the United States. Israel includes the mountains of Galilee, the Golan Heights (plateau), the Dead Sea (saltiest and lowest in the world), the desert of Negev (in the southern part), and the Jordan River. Israel’s best farmland stretches along the Mediterranean coastal plain and produces citrus fruits, such as oranges, grapefruits, and lemons. In very dry areas, Israel uses computers to release specific amounts of water from underground tubes to the roots of plants. As a result of technology, Israel’s farmers are able to export some food to other countries.

Some Israelis live in farm settlements called kibbutzes, where property is shared. Other people live in moshavs where they share in farming, production, and selling, but may own private property as well. Israel’s skilled workforce produces electronic products, clothing, chemicals, food products, and machinery. Most industrialized country in Southwest Asia. Diamond cutting and polishing is also a major industry. Eighty percent of Israel’s people are Jews and the other 20 percent are Palestinians, who are Arabic. There are many conflicts between these two groups.

SYRIA (Damascus): Syria’s land includes fertile coastal plains and valleys along the Mediterranean Sea, and vast deserts covering the eastern regions. Agriculture is Syria’s main economic activity. Farmers raise mostly cotton, wheat, and fruits. The Euphrates River provides water for irrigation as well as hydroelectric power. Almost half of Syria’s 17 million people live in rural areas. A few are Bedouins–nomadic desert people who follow a traditional way of life.

Damascus, the capital, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It was founded more than 4,000 years ago. It is also a trading center. Islam has deeply influenced Syria’s traditional arts and buildings. Syria became an independent country in Since the 1960s, one political party has controlled Syria’s government, and it does not allow many political freedoms. As of May 2002, Syria was one of several nations named by the U.S. government as being “state sponsors” of terrorism.

LEBANON (Beirut): Because Lebanon is so small, you can swim in the warm Mediterranean Sea, and then play in the snow in the mountains, both in the same day. About 88 percent of Lebanon’s nearly 4.3 million people live in coastal urban areas. About 70 percent of the Lebanese are Arab Muslims and most of the rest are Arab Christians. Conflict between these groups led to a civil war lasting from 1975 to Arabic is the most widely spoken language. French is also an official language because France ruled Lebanon until its independence in the 1940s.

JORDAN (Amman): Jordan stretches from the fertile Jordan River valley in the west to dry rugged country in the east. The country lacks water resources, but small amounts of irrigated farmland lie in the Jordan River valley. Jordan also lacks energy resources. Most people work in service and manufacturing industries. Most of Jordan’s 5.2 million people are Arab Muslims. They include about 1.3 million Palestinian refugees. Jordan became independent from Great Britain in 1946 and now has a constitutional monarchy.

SAUDI ARABIA (Riyadh): Saudi Arabia is the largest country in Southwest Asia. The country is covered by vast deserts and has no rivers or permanent bodies of water. Saudi Arabia holds about 25 percent of the world’s oil and the nation belongs to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Today the 11 OPEC countries supply more than 40 percent of the world’s oil. By increasing or reducing supply, they are able to influence world oil prices.

Oil has helped Saudi Arabia boost its standard of living. Aware that someday its oil will run out, the government is trying to broaden its economy through industry and agriculture. The capital and largest city, Riyadh, sits amid a large oasis in the center of the country. Makkah (Mecca), in western Saudi Arabia, is Islam’s holiest city. Millions of Muslims from around the world visit Makkah each year.

IRAQ (Baghdad): The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are the major geographic features of Iraq. Between the two rivers is an alluvial plain–an area that is built up by rich fertile soil left by river floods. Most farming takes place there. Oil is the country’s major export. About 70 percent of Iraq’s 23.6 million people live in urban areas.

Muslim Arabs make up the largest group in Iraq’s population. The second-largest group consists of another Muslim people, the Kurds, who want to form their own country. In 1958 the last king was overthrown. The current leader, Saddam Hussein, is a dictator who rules with an iron hand. In 1990, partly because of a dispute over oil, Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait. By April of 1991, at the end of the Persian Gulf War, a United Nations force led by the United States pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

IRAN (Tehran): Iran is an oil-rich nation, but is trying to become less dependent on oil earnings. It has limited supplies of water, and less than 12 percent of its land can be farmed. More than half of Iran’s 66.1 million people are Persians, not Arabs or Turks. They speak Farsi, or Persian. Nearly 98 percent of Iran’s people practice some form of Islam. In 1979 Muslim religious leaders overthrew the last monarchy, and Iran now has an Islamic republic, a government run by Muslim religious leaders. The government has introduced laws based on its understanding of the Quran and have forbidden many western customs.

AFGHANISTAN (Kabul): Afghanistan is a landlocked nation mostly covered with the rugged peaks of the Hindu Kush mountain range. The country’s almost 27 million people are divided into about 20 different ethnic groups. After a Soviet invasion, followed by civil war, the Taliban took control of the government, enforcing strict Islamic religious laws. In October 2001, the United States accused the Taliban of supporting terrorists and began bombing Taliban forces. By mid-November the Taliban government had collapsed and the United States began to work with local leaders to form a new government.

Women were brutally beaten, publicly flogged, and killed for violating Taliban decrees. Even after international condemnation, the Taliban made only slight changes. Some say it was progress when the Taliban allowed a few women doctors and nurses to work, even while hospitals still had segregated wards for women; that in Kabul and other cities, a few home schools for girls were allowed to operate, although only in secret. In addition, women who conducted home schools were risking their lives or a severe beating. But the overall reality of the tragic plight of Afghan women and girls remained virtually unchanged.