Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Overview
Physical geography
Aridity; a prevalent character.
Oil; the worlds most valuable resource.
Cultural geography
Culture Hearths (cradle of civilization; Mesopotamia, Egypt,
Persia).
World Religions.
Religious conflicts.
Population geography
Discontinuous clusters around infrequent water sources.
Fast growth rate (young population).
Overview
Political geography
Fragmented due to colonial experience.
Oil and Non-oil states (haves versus have-nots).
Resource wars
Conflicts over water:
Regional / national issue.
Dry World.
Arab World.
Islamic World.
Middle East.
Dry world
Exceptions:
Saha
ra
Population distribution
Around water resources:
The Nile.
Mediterranean Sea.
Euphrates and Tigris Basin (Hydraulic Civilization).
Lower mountain slopes of Iran, south of the Caspian Sea.
Turkey Turkish.
Iran Farsi.
Israel Hebrew.
Niger French.
Turks
Azerbijianis
Persians
Kurds
Arabs
Shiite:
Muhammads genuine successors descended from his son-in-law Ali.
Diffusion of Islam
Modernization
High incomes.
Industrialization.
Regional and national disparities (oil wealth distribution).
Migration
Brought populations from outside the realm.
Foreign incursions
OPEC Countries
Iraq
Algeria Libya
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Venezuela
Nigeria
Indonesia
Kuwait
Qatar
United Arab Emirates
Barrels (2003)
Less than 5 billion
5 to 25 billions
25 to 50 billions
50 to 150 billions
2002-2003 figures
3.0 Bosporus
Med
iterr
ane
an
Turkey
Iran
Iraq
Suez 3.8
PG
Hormuz
15.5
Egypt
Saudi Arabia
d
Re
Sea
Sudan
Oman
Yemen
3.3
Bab el-Mandab
cea
O
n
India
French Colonialism.
Oil-Rich Libya.
Israel
Zionism
Political movement.
Founded by Theodor Herzl (1897).
Objective: secure a homeland for the Jewish people.
Israel
UN partition plan for Palestine
Division into Jewish and Arab areas.
British evacuate Palestine in 1948.
Proclamation of Israel as a state (14 may 1948).
Armistice (1949)
900,000 Palestinian refugees.
Israel
Arab Israeli conflicts
1956: Suez war.
1967: Six-Day War Israel gained control of:
Gaza strip.
Sinai peninsula; bordering the Suez Canal (closure of the canal until
1975).
West bank of the river Jordan
East sector of Jerusalem
Golan heights in Syria
Israel
Issues
Israel
Jerusalem
Holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims
Judaism:
Capital of Jewish kingdom 3000 years BC.
Faith took form in the first temple; destroyed by Babylonians in 586 BC.
Rebuilt as second temple; destroyed by Romans in 70 AD.
Islam:
Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven 7th century AD.
Christianity:
Based on the teachings of Jesus Christ; crucifixion & ascent.
Israel
After 1970:
Oil revenues.
Begun to invest heavily in their own development.
Creation of several jobs in government, services and industry.
High profile jobs occupied by nationals (qualified or not).
Lack a skilled labor force.
Turkey
Turkish ottoman empire
Nomadic peoples from the steppes and forests of Siberia.
6th century- established an empire stretching from Mongolia to
the black sea.
Spread the Turkic language far and wide.
Decline in the early 20th century.
Turkey
Westernization
Kurdish population
14 million- 1/5 of turkeys 70 million.
Southeast turkey (Iraq) - 3,000 BC; recently-Istanbul.
Islamic fundamentalism.