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Southwest Asia
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Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. The term Western Asia is sometimes used in the United Nations subregion geoscheme and in writings about the archeology and the late prehistory of the region. Unlike the Middle East, which is broadly defined to include several North African countries such as Egypt, Southwestern Asia is a purely geographical term reserved for the southwestern extremities of the Asian continent.
Southwest Asia is partly coterminous with the traditional European names the Middle East and the Near East, both of which describe geographical position in relation to Europe rather than location within Asia.
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Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. The term Western Asia is sometimes used in the United Nations subregion geoscheme and in writings about the archeology and the late prehistory of the region. Unlike the Middle East, which is broadly defined to include several North African countries such as Egypt, Southwestern Asia is a purely geographical term reserved for the southwestern extremities of the Asian continent.
Southwest Asia is partly coterminous with the traditional European names the Middle East and the Near East, both of which describe geographical position in relation to Europe rather than location within Asia. Because of this perceived Eurocentrism, international organizations such as the United Nations, have replaced Middle East and Near East with Western Asia.
The United Nations considers Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan to be in Western Asia. However, these countries lie in regions that straddle both Asia and Europe and have sociopolitical ties to both.
The Asian part of the Arab world (including Arabia proper) is called the Mashreq in Arabic.
- See continent and transcontinental country for further definitions
Geography
Climate
The Middle East is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought; nonetheless, there exists vast expanses of forests and fertile valleys. The region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in many parts of the Middle East, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water, while salinization and pollution threaten water supplies. Major rivers, including the Nile and the Euphrates, provide sources for irrigation water to support agriculture.
There are two wind phenomenons in the Middle East: the sharqi and the shamal. The sharqi (or sharki) is a wind that comes from the south and southeast. It is seasonal, lasting from April to early June, and comes again between late September and November. The winds are dry and dusty, with occasional gusts up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 miles per hour) and often kick up violent sand and dust storms that can carry sand a few thousand meters high, and can close down airports for short periods of time. These winds can last for a full day at the beginning and end of the season, and for several days during the middle of the season. The shamal is a summer northwesterly wind blowing over Iraq and the Persian Gulf states (including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), often strong during the day, but decreasing at night. This weather effect occurs anywhere from once to several times a year.
Topography
While Middle East mainly contains areas with low relief, Turkey Iran, and Yemen include mountainous terrain. The Anatolian Plateau is sandwiched between the Pontus Mountains and Taurus Mountains in Turkey. Mount Ararat in Turkey rises to 5,165 meters. The Zagros Mountains are located in Iran, in areas along its border with Iraq. The Central Plateau of Iran is divided into two drainage basins. The northern basin is Dasht-e Kavir (Great Salt Desert), and Dasht-e-Lut is the southern basin.
In Yemen, elevations exceed 3,700 meters in many areas, and highland areas extend north along the Red Sea coast and north into Lebanon. A fault-zone also exists along the Red Sea, with continental rifting creating trough-like topography with areas located well-below sea level. The Dead Sea, located on the border between the West Bank, Israel, and Jordan, is situated at 418 m (1371 ft) below sea level, making it the lowest point on the surface of the Earth.
A large lowland belt is located on the Arabian Peninsula, from central Iraq, through Saudi Arabia, and to Oman and the Arabian Sea. The Euphrates and Tigris rivers cut through the lowland belt in Iraq and flow into the Persian Gulf. Rub'al KhaLi, one of the world's largest sand deserts, spans the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula in Saudi Arabia, parts of Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Jebel al Akhdar is a small range of mountains located in northeastern Oman, bordering the Gulf of Oman.
Geology
Three major tectonic plates converge on the Middle East, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the tectonic plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea, and into Iran. The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate (Turkey) at the East Anatolian Fault, and the boundary between the Aegean and Anatolian plate in eastern Turkey is also seismically active.
Water resources
Several major aquifers provide water to large portions of the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea. Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia and Biyadh which contain amounts of both fresh water and saline water. The Nubian aquifer system underlies large areas of North Africa. The Great Manmade River project in Libya utilizes an extensive network of pipelines to transport water from the Nubian aquifer to its population centers. Groundwater recharge for these deep rock aquifers is on the order of thousands of years, thus the aquifers are essentially non-renewable resources. Flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across the Middle East for agriculture.
Countries in West Asia
Some of the countries classified as Southwest Asian are sometimes put in other geographical categories. Afghanistan, for example, can be considered Central Asian, South Asian, or West Asian.
UN Subregion of Western Asia:
UN Subregion of South Asia:
UN Subregion of North Africa:
Territory and region data
Use in ethnicity statistics
The Canadian government uses "West Asian" in its statistics; however people from the Arab countries are counted in a separate "Arab" category.
See also
Other subregions of Asia
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