you are clear for launch and with that shut down your advisor O2 on and prepare for ignition 202 PPP copy that and [Music] um hey Mr Roff here all right so in this lesson we're going to the Middle East and North Africa and we're going to be focusing in on their physical characteristics now the Middle East and North Africa are often combined as one region as they not only have shared cultural characteristics but as we're going to see they have similar physical characteristics as well well what is this area that we're talking about well the Middle East also known as Southwest Asia is a region that is found to the east of the Mediterranean Sea and extends Eastward to the border between Iran and the two countries of Afghanistan Pakistan from north and south of Middle East includes the Anatolian Peninsula which makes up most of the country of Turkey and stretches down to the South to include the countries of the Arabian Peninsula now as we move back to the Mediterranean Coast we find a sub region which is known as the V this region includes the countries such as Syria Lebanon Jordan Israel and Palestine now this region can also be used to describe turkey as well as Iraq although Iraq does not border the Mediterranean as well as the island of Cyprus which is an island in the sea then there is North Africa and as you might have guessed that stretches across the northern portion of Africa now how far North Africa extends Southward really depends upon who's actually defining the region now for this lesson we're going to Define North Africa stretching from the Mediteranean sea down to the just the south of the Sahara Desert now in between the Middle East and North Africa is the Sinai Peninsula and this is actually the only portion of Egypt that is actually part of Asia so before we start talking about the land forms of the region let's look at the water that surrounds the Middle East and North Africa first of all we've already discussed that the Mediterranean Sea lies off the North coast of Africa and off the east coast of the Levant in the Middle East at the Western end of the Mediterranean Sea we find the straight of galter which connects to Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean this choke point is only 7 Mi wide but is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world now 20% of the world shipping passes through the straight each year as a major ship moves through the straight every 5 minutes now separating the Middle East and Africa is the Red Sea and there are several theories to explain the name of the sea one Theory suggests that in ancient languages that colors black red green and white refer to the directions of North Southeast and West so the Red Sea is essentially the sea to the South another theory suggests that it could be named for the algae that occasionally grows near the surface that can give parts of the Red Sea kind of a reddish brownish color now the Red Sea is connected to the Mediterranean Sea by the sus Canal completed in 1869 the 120 mile Canal cuts off about 5,500 miles of the journey from London all the way to the Arabian Peninsula this makes the sus Canal extremely important for trade has anywhere between 9 and 13% of the World's Trade passes through this canal it is also a strategic choke point as political or military conflicts could easily stop shifts moving through the canal this occurred in both World War I World War II and the Suz crisis that happened in 1956 but it is within Egypt's best interest to keep the Canal open as it earns over $4 billion a year levying fees against the ships that actually move the the canal now to the south of the Red Sea is another choke point the Bob elmb this straight the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aiden the Bob Al medb's name actually means the Gate of Tears in Arabic because of the dangers that early Sailors face when crafing through the straight now like the sus Canal about 1/8 of the World's Trade moves through the Bal medb including over 6 million barrels of oil each day this trade opens to the Gulf of Aiden and in the late 2000s Pirates became a major concern no no no not Pirates like well actually pretty much exactly like Pirates like Jack spar attacks by Somali pirates became problematic in 2007 and at its height in 2010 200 ships were being attacked and 50 were actually being seized and hijacked every year this caused navies from around the world to include the United States and NATO to begin escorting ships through the Gulf of Aiden in order to keep the trade route open and while most of the pirate activity has been reduced since 2013 there still are events of piracy in the area today now the Gulf of Aiden opens up into the Arabian Sea which is a sea in the Indian Ocean now as we move to the Eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula we enter the Gulf of Oman and once again we get ready to go through another choke point this one is the straight of Horus this choke point is arguably the most important waterway in the world as onethird of the world's natural gas and a quarter of its oil must actually pass through the straight now considering that it is only 21 mil wide and lies in the middle of one of the world's most volti regions this tra has been blocked several times in recent history even as as recently as 2019 Iran was attacking selected ships that were passing through the straight now once through the straight of Horus we find ourselves in the Persian Gulf although several Arab governments will call this the Arabian Gulf or just the gulf and it is the count surrounding the Persian Gulf at over 25% of the world's oil comes from in fact nearly two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves are found in this region making this a very important region to the world's economy unfortunately has also been the scene of many of the world's most recent conflict to include the 1991 Gulf War and the war in Iraq that started in 2003 now there is one other sea that we'll have to look at which is the Dead Sea that is found in between Jordan and Israel the Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world now let's put this in perspective the salt in the world's oceans are about 3 and a half% of its weight the Dead Sea however has over nine times as much salt at about 33.7% of its weight the fact that nothing except for bacteria can survive in such salty water is the reason for the Sea's name the Dead Sea now before we talk about the Region's landforms let's take a look at its climate we could probably best describe the Region's climate in Just Two Words hot and dry now from personal experience my first time in Iraq in 2003 my personal thermometer read 132° now that was probably incorrect but the temperatures in Iraq and other areas in the Middle East routinely go over 120° in 2016 Kuwait and Southern Iraq had official highs of 129° now as this climate map shows despite the mountainous areas of Iran and turkey and the coastal region surrounding the Mediterranean Sea which has a Mediterranean climate the dominant climate in Middle East and North Africa is a dry Aid climate this means deserts the largest desert in the world is the Sahara Desert which measures over 3.5 million square miles and stretches across Northern Africa the Arabian Peninsula is also nearly fully covered by deserts the Arabian Desert is the third largest desert in the world after the Sahara and the Australian deserts the southern third of the Arabian Desert is known as the rubac KH or the empty quarter the rubac KH is also the largest area of sand in the world now let me put this in perspective the rubac has half the amount of sand that the entire Sahara Desert has despite the fact that the Sahara Desert is actually 16 times larger than the rubac KH now north of the Arabian Desert we have the Syrian desert and if we go to down to the southern portion of the country of Israel we find the ngv deserts now there are rivers that flow through these deserts now more than just providing scarce water to the region these rivers are also have been the home of the world's earliest cities and Empires for example flowing through Egypt we have the Nile which is the world's longest river now flowing from the south to the north it is along the Nile's banks that the ancient Egyptian civilization and their pyramids are found the Nile begins down in the south in Uganda where Lake Victoria feeds the white White Nile and in Ethiopia where the water's flowing out of the Ethiopian Highlands feeds into the Blue Nile now the blue and white Nile tributaries continue flowing northward until they merge in carcum Sudan and become the Nile River now in the Middle East the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers begin in turkey and flows South through Syria and Iraq before entering into the Persian Gulf it is in between these rivers that we find the home of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of the Assyrians and the Babylonians see the name Mesopotamia actually means land between the rivers in ancient Greek then there are the mountains and the Northwest portion of Northern Africa are the Atlas Mountains which are also known as the backbone of the mcreb the mcreb is the western region of the Arab world that includes the countries of Morocco Algeria and Tunisia the mountains are pretty decent sized mountains rising up to about 13,000 ft and through the rain shadow effect it actually helps blocking the precipitation from the Atlantic Ocean from coming to the Sahara Desert now the two of the mountain ranges we'll talk about are both in Iran now in between Iran and Iraq and stretching up to Turkey we find the zagas mountains which stretches up to 14,000 ft and it was within the zagas mountains that the ancient Sumerian civilization made their home the second mountain range that IR ran is the obr mountains which lies to the south of the Caspian Sea and Northern Iran and a climb to over 18,000 ft now it is these Zagros and elur mountains that gives Iran an overall cooler climate than what we find in the rest of the Middle East now we have already discuss the importance of oil in the Middle East and North Africa despite only having 6% of the world's population this region has 59% of The Proven oil reserves in the world and 45% of The Proven natural gas reserves so in a world that still runs on fossil fuels this makes the region extremely important to the world's economies moreover for the oil producing countries in the Middle East oil is the major driver of their economy they are also fortunate that not only do they have lots of oil unlike other places in the world their oils is actually much easier thus it is much cheaper to be able to get to and drill see it only cost Saudi Arabia $9 to be able to pump one barrel of oil however in the United States that actually costs as much as $21 this means that Saudi Arabia easily profits $10 more a barrel than in the United States or other places in the world now while oil is so important to the region because of how much oil there is the other most important resource in the region is important because how little there is and that is water now remember the people of the region are only 6% of the world's population but it only has about 1% of the world's renewable freshwat now because most of the surface of the Middle East and North Africa are deserts most people have to rely upon aquifers or lakes of underwater water for their drinking water however the water in the aquafers is quickly being used up this is causing many problems in the Middle East in Jordan the price of water has risen by 30% just in the last 10 years Yemen is already suffering crop failures as water's not available for farming and even the super wealthy country of the United Arab Emirates is estimated to run out of water in the next 50 years now one solution that Arabs are turning to is desalination plants in fact 70% of the world's desalination plants are actually found in the Middle East what these plants do is they take water from the surrounding seas and they separate the salt from the water providing fresh water today 50% of the drinking water in Saudi Arabia comes from these desalination plants however these plants take a lot of energy to run so much that 25% of Saudi Arabia's oil and gas products actually are used to run these plants and by 2030 some estimate that 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil will be used to create drinkable water for its people and Farms water is literally becoming as valuable as oil in the Middle East all right that is the physical geography of the Middle East North Africa in our next lessons we'll start looking at the culture and the people of the region until then keep on learning oh