1. NORTH AFRICA & SOUTHWEST ASIA
Map Test 2
Geography Conference
North Africa/Southwest Asia

3. Andean
countries

4. WDCAG – March 11-13, 2005
The Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers.
Annual conference is in Lethbridge.
For details see the Geography website (
Reduced rates for students ($30).
Includes:
Conference registration, Banquet, Field trips (nominal fee), Curling Funspiel, Free entrance to Friday night social.

5. Friday Night Social. Held at the Zoo.
Live Band (Southern Flyer playing from 8 pm-midnight).
Pizza by the slice.
Lots of Geographers from Western Canada (Manitoba to BC).
Come and meet other students and professors.
You don’t have to register for the conference to come and join us ($5/cover).

6. NORTH AFRICA & SOUTHWEST ASIA
Defining the realm
Naming the realm
Orient and Orientalism
Culture Hearths
Early civilizations
Holy Land: Judaism, Christianity, Islam
Water and aridity
An Arab Realm??
An Islamic Realm??
Oil and wealth

7. Defining the Realm

8. Naming the Realm Traditional (ethnocentric) Regionalization
Near East
Balkan Peninsula, Turkey to Egypt
(Old Ottoman Empire)
Middle East
Persia (Iran) to Burma
Far East
China, Indo-China, Japan
Levant=Holy Land
Modern “Middle East”
All of realm except Turkestan
Not really eastern or in the middle!

9. Orient … and Orientalism

10. Orientalism Edward Said and Orientalism
A Western (Occidental) ethnocentric invention
Exotic, mysterious, haunting, uncivilized, backward
Yet it defines the west!
Do these understandings persist?
Israeli occupation of Palestine/West Bank
Critical of Orientalist bias in colonial discourses

11. REGIONS OF THE REALM

12. Two Early Culture Hearths

13. The Dry World ? Arid climate prevails Exceptions: Coastal Turkey
Northwestern Iran
Great river valleys
Oases

14. ANNUAL PRECIPITATION

15. E.J. PALKA
NEGEV DESERT

16. E.J. PALKA
NEGEV DESERT

17. Water - A Renewable Or Finite Resource?
Water is contested resource.
Imminent water-shortages in many regions (the most concentrated region of scarcity in the world).
Rates of natural increase > 2.0% in North Africa increase stress on water sources.

18. E.J. PALKA
ISRAEL-SYRIA BORDER

19. POPULATION DISTRIBUTION
Water sources determine population distribution.
- The Nile
- Mediterranean Sea
- Euphrates and Tigris Basin (Hydraulic Civilizations)
- Lower slopes of Zagros Mountains, south of the Caspian

21. AN ARAB REALM ?
Relates to language as a cultural feature of this realm
Arabic is the dominant language in 16 States of the realm.
Non-Arab States:
Turkey – Turkish
Iran – Farsi
Israel – Hebrew
Niger - French

22. ISLAMIC REALM? Muhammed (571- 632 CE) Five Pillars Of Islam
Hejira 622 CE = 0
Five Pillars Of Islam
Recitation of creed
like Christianity
Daily Prayer
(like Christianity)
Month Of Daylight Fasting during Ramadan
(like RC Lent (40 days) until World War II)
Alms-giving
(like every religion!)
Pilgrimage to Mecca
(like RC, Judaism, Shintoism)
Abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, gambling
like LDS (polygamy OK until 1890)
Dietary rules prohibit Pork, require ritual slaughter
like Judaism
Sabbath day (Friday - 7 day week)
like Judaism and Christianity)
Sunni (85%) and Shi’ite (15%) sects