The Middle East is a region of critical and growing importance in world affairs, both politically and economically. In this comprehensive study, Professor Fisher examines all the principal elements - physical and human - that influence environment, development and ways of life in this region. An analysis of the physical basis of the region is followed by detailed treatment of the complex human and social aspects; a concluding section brings together, on a regional basis, the elements discussed in the first two parts. The author has had first-hand experience within the Middle East, extending over thirty years, and much of the writing is based on surveys and investigations he has personally carried out. For this seventh edition the author has collaborated with Richard Lawless (present Acting Director of the Durham Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies) to revise completely and up-date both the text and maps. Professor Fisher has examined new approaches and views on geomorphology, climate, soils and race and he has included up-to-date statistical material and recent technical surveys and reports. Special attention is given to economic aspects, which have greatly altered in many areas over the last twenty years. There is a completely revised bibliography. Anyone interested in Middle Eastern affairs - from a geographical, historical, sociological or political point of view - will find this book of great value in giving a greater understanding of this key world region.
W. B. Fisher is Professor and Head of the Department of Geography and Principal of the Graduate College in the University of Durham.
Contents
List of maps and diagrams / vii Preface / xiii
1 Introductory / i
Part I Physical geography of the Middle East 2 Structure and land forms / 11 3 Climate / 4° 4 Soils and vegetation / 76
Part II Social geography of the Middle East 5 Peoples / 101 6 Human society in the Middle East / 128 7 Aspects of the historical geography of the Middle East / 154 1 Early political units in their geographical setting / 154 2 The political background a.d. 1800 to the present day / 170 8 General economic life / 204 9 Oil resources of the Middle East / 244 10 Demographic trends / 269
Part III Regional geography of the Middle East 11 Iran / 283 12 Asia Minor / 323 13 The Tigris-Euphrates lowlands / 363 14 The Eastern Mediterranean coastlands / 398 15 Cyprus / 449 16 The Arabian peninsula / 461 17 Egypt / 502 18 Libya / 539 19 The Sudan 565
Glossary of geographical terms / 595 Bibliography / 597 Index / 608
Maps and diagrams
1.1 The Middle East: countries and capital cities / 2 1.2 Middle East: annual rainfall / 4 1.3 The ‘Interface’ function of the Middle East / 6 2.1 Areas of tectonic activity / 12 2.2 Formation and evolution of tectonic plates / 13 2.3 Development of the Tethys embayment in Triassic-Jurassic Times / 14 2.4 Formation and movement of the tectonic plates comprising the Middle East area / 15 2.5 Subduction of the Arabian plate against the Iranian plates, with formation of the Zagros-Makran ranges / 16 2.6 Structural elements of the Middle East / 18 2.7 Marine erosion surfaces at Beirut / 24 2.8 Middle East: generalized geology / 27 2.9 Middle East: drainage patterns / 3° 2.10 Thalweg of the river Zerqa (Jordan) / 31 2.11 One season’s flow in the river Zerqa 1960-1 / 32 2.12 A qanat or foggara / 36 3.1 Total insolation received at the surface, in g cal-cm2-annum / 41 3.2 Average wind maxima at 500 mbar level; velocities in km-h / 42 3.3 Average wind speeds at 200 mbar level (km/h) during February 1956, showing jet development over the Mediterranean / 44 3.4 Atmospheric circulation (easterlies and westerlies) over India (km-h) during July 1955 / 44 3.5 Pressure conditions in summer / 46 3.6 Tracks of depressions and areas of cyclo- and frontogenesis over the Mediterranean / 49 3.7 Pressure conditions in winter / 53 3.8 Typical khamsin conditions at Alexandria, Egypt 1974 / 54 3.9 Variation in air mass, with characteristic alignment of fronts and mass boundaries, during period 24-26 March 1945 / 58 3.10 Temperature range (annual) / 61 3.11 Water demand (actual and potential), Kuwait / 68 3.12 A rainfall phase at Jerusalem, 1850-1960, showing a tendency to aridity / 74 4.1 Soil types in an area of the UAE / 79 4.2 Soil types in an area of Jordan near Irbid / 83 4.3 Sketch of soil type distributions / 87 4.4 Former and Latter Rains (average year in the Levant) / 88 4.5 The Middle East: natural vegetation / 90 4.6 Cedars in the Lebanon / 96 5.1 Nomadism and lines of movement in the Middle East / 104 5.2 The Middle East: distribution of the B blood group gene / 106 5.3 The Middle East: language distribution / 110 5.4 Specimens of scripts in current use in the Middle East / 111 6.1 Tribal map of Arabia / 130 6.2 Classical grid remnants in ground plan of old Damascus / 141 6.3 Central Damascus, showing juxtaposition of traditional and modern city / 143 6.4 Tabriz: bazaar / 146 7.1 The Persian Empire c. 500 b.c. / 157 7.2 The Empire of Alexander the Great, and its division between Ptolemy and Seleucus / 159 7.3 The expansion of Islam / 161 7.4 Crusader states in the Levant / 164 7-5 The Ottoman Empire / 167 7.6 The Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916 / 176 7-7 Russian expansion in Iran, and the Curzon Line / 184 7-8 Kurdish and Armenian territorial claims / 195 8.1 The Middle East: land use / 208 8.2 Subdivision of land holding in an Arab village of Palestine 1945 / 214 8-3 Locusts in the Middle East / 227 9-1 Types of oil-bearing structures / 246 9-2 Oilfields of the Gulf area / 249 9-3 Oilfields of the north and centre / 257 9-4 Oilfields in cibya / 258 9-5 Aramco concession changes: 1939-69 / 259 9.6 Concession pattern in Libya, 1969 / 261 9-7 The increase in average selling price of oil, and the proportion received by Middle Eastern governments / 266 10.1 Sketch of population density, 1976 / 279 11.1 Iran: structure / 284 11.2 Iran: geographical units / 287 11.3 Variation in level of the Caspian Sea / 293 11.4 Iran: drainage pattern / 295 ii-5 Iran: summer and winter temperatures / 297 11.6 Crops and irrigation development (1976) / 307 11.7 Iran: major existing irrigation / 308 11.8 Mineral distribution in Iran / 310 11-9 Population distribution in Iran / 3i7 11.10 Communications in Iran / 319 12.1 Asia Minor: structure / 324 12.2 Turkey: geographical units / 325 12.3 Western Asia Minor / 329 12.4 Land use in Turkey / 341 12.5 Crop distribution in Turkey / 346 12.6 Turkey: minerals / 353 12.7 Turkey: railways / 357 12.8 Turkey: population (1970 estimates) / 358 12.9 Istanbul / 359 13.1 Geographical units / 364 13.2 The regimes of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers / 367 13.3 The lower valleys of the Euphrates-Tigris / 371 13.4 The upper valleys of the Euphrates-Tigris / 372 13.5 Iraq: land use / 377 13.6 Irrigation in Iraq / 384 13.7 Iraq: population density 1976 / 393 14.1 The northern Levant / 401 14.2 Geological sections in the Levant / 402 14.3 The southern Levant / 405 14.4 Percolation crests in Judaea, showing eastward diversion of underground percolation / 409 14.5 The Levant: annual rainfall / 417 14.6 Syria: land use / 422 14.7 The Tabqa barrage scheme / 424 14.8 Altitude and land use in the Lebanon / and Anti-Lebanon / 426 14.9 Israel: land use / 430 14.10 Water supply in Israel / 433 14.11 The Damascus region / 443 14.12 Greater Beirut / 444 14.13 Haifa / 447 14.14 Tel Aviv-Jaffa / 447 15.1 Cyprus: (a) topography; (b) geology; (c) minerals; (d) villages and nationality / 450 15.2 Cyprus: land use / 459 16.1 Generalized section east-west across / Arabia / 463 16.2 The geographical units of Arabia / 465 16.3 Foreign pilgrims to Mecca / 468 16.4 The Arabian peninsula: population densities (1970 estimates) per km2 / 470 16.5 The Yemen / 473 16.6 Altitude and land use in the Yemen / 475 16.7 Southern Yemen: land use / 477 16.8 The Abyan Irrigation Scheme / 478 16.9 Oman / 484 16.10 The eastern Emirates / 487 16.11 Abu Dhabi and Qatar / 489 16.12 Kuwait / 494 17.1 Egypt: geographical units / 503 17.2 Contributions to main Nile floods / 508 17.3 Irrigation works on the Nile / 512 17.4 The New Valley scheme; and planned New Towns / 515 17.5 Irrigation developments / 516 17.6 Egypt: major crops / 519 17.7 Egypt: land capability / 520 17.8 Egypt: land use and population growth / 523 17.9 Egypt: industry and minerals / 530 17.10 Egypt: population density 1976 / 532 17.11 Egypt: population change by governorate to 1965 / 534 17.12 Alexandria / 536 17.13 The Suez Canal / 537 18.1 Libya: physiography / 540 18.2 Libya: sketch of structural elements / 541 18.3 The Jefara of Tripolitania / 543 18.4 Northern Cyrenaica / 545 18.5 Water-tables in Libya / 548 18.6 Tripolitania: land use / 551 18.7 North Cyrenaica: land use / 552 18.8 Tauorga irrigation project: (a) water canals; (b) settlement lay-out / 555 18.9 Location of industry in Tripoli / 557 18.10 Location of industry in Benghazi / 560 19.1 The Sudan (including railways) / 568 19.2 The Sudan: (a) geographical regions; (b) soil types; (c) rain-fall and drainage patterns; (d) degeneration of land / 570 19.3 Irrigation schemes in the Sudan / 580 19.4 The Sudan: population distribution (1970 estimate) / 585 19.5 Nomadism in the Sudan / 587
PREFACE
The aim of this book, retained in a new edition, is to offer a statement of the basic geographical facts relating to the region, together with discussion of the issues, theories and problems involved. There is at the same time an attempt to demonstrate the link between environmental conditions and the uniquely long historical tradition of the area. A large section of this volume is thus straightforward regional exposition: an approach which of recent years has been exposed generally to some criticism of professional geographers. But however one may employ the pitch-forks by specialist and systematic analysis, nature will return: there is now re-assertion of the validity of small territorial units, as human communities begin to stress local variation and the need for deeper understanding of the small-scale. Regionalism is a growing preoccupation among environmentalists, economists, politicians and field scientists; and geographers would do well to maintain the art for which they were - and still probably are - best known. Moreover there is growing appreciation that a region, far from being a commonplace and elementary system, is in fact a highly complex pattern, as yet intractable and beyond, rather than below, the capabilities of present-day modelling and analytical procedures.
In the third of a century that has elapsed since the ideas for this book were first sketched, changes have occurred within the Middle East on a scale unimaginable at the time. These changes have now brought certain parts of the Middle East to unparalleled wealth and influence; they have produced recurrent threats and actual outbreaks of war; they have fundamentally altered material ways of life, thought and culture for some groups; but they have not diminished the intense interest in Middle Eastern affairs by outside powers, and the determination of these latter to maintain or develop influence there. One difference, however, is that the process is now two-way, with more Middle Easterners involved in the economic and cultural life of the rest of the world - as participants in commercial activities, as temporary migrant workers (e.g. in Europe and the Americas), and as students. Moreover, the enormous expansion of air traffic and the limitation to flying over Communist territory, has meant that more than ever the Middle East with its expanses of open terrain, generally excellent flying weather has made the region a major centre of air routes, with increasing use of Great Circle trajectories: ‘Concorde’ flew first of all commercially to Bahrain. All this re-inforces the concept of ‘Middle’ in an expanding world.
Continued interest in this book from many parts of the world has allowed the appearance of a revised and improved, though slightly shortened, text, in which I have had the great benefits of assistance from numerous well-wishers. In particular, the Durham Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies with its Documentation Centre, second to none in Europe, has provided much valuable material. I wish also to acknowledge most gratefully support from British Petroleum Ltd, London, and Petroleum Development Oman, that has allowed field investigation in the Middle East.
I am greatly indebted to academic colleagues, diplomats, and other friends who have made available their specialist knowledge and expertise, particularly those in the Middle East. I wish especially to thank: Dr B. Booth of Imperial College London, and Dr D. P. McKenzie of Cambridge University and M.I.T., who have kindly allowed me to quote from their own research on plate tectonics, and to reproduce diagrams and material from their published work; Dr A. A. Ali of Cairo University who has made available from his own research on khamsin winds the material shown as fig. 3.8; Dr W. A. Abd el Aal for the information shown in fig. 17.11; and the secretarial and technical staff of my own Department for their considerable contributions.
Most of all, however, I wish to record with very grateful thanks the participation of Dr R. I. Lawless, acting-Director of the Durham Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, who has undertaken revision of certain chapters, and who has throughout provided overall comment and advice, as an indispensable collaborator.
W. B. Fisher Durham 1977
I Introductory
After many years of debate, acrid at times, and although the area itself has risen to a position of major world significance, the term 'Middle East ’ still cannot command universal acceptance in a single strict sense -even counting in ‘Mideast’ as a mere abridgement. Perhaps the most that a geographer can say. taking refuge in semantics, is that it can be regarded as a ‘conventional’ regional term of general convenience, like Central Europe or the American Middle West, with many definitions in more detail feasible and logically possible.1 Use of ‘Middle East’ first arose in the early years of the present century particularly with reference to the area around the Persian Gulf: it was then a logical intermediate definition between the Mediterranean ‘Near East', and a ‘Far Eastalthough the position of the Indian subcontinent remained anomalous - and after 1918 it was taken up by the British Forces as a convenient label. During the Second World War, bases and organizations previously located mainly around the Persian Gulf were expanded greatly; and rather than erect an indeterminate, and divisive, second unit, the term ‘Middle East' was gradually extended westwards with the tides of war. A military province stretching from Iran to Tripolitania was created and named ‘Middle East’. Establishment in this region of large military supply bases brought the necessity to reorganize both the political and economic life of the countries concerned, in order …
1 C. S. Coon’s definition that includes Morocco and Pakistan, P. Loraine’s restriction of the term to Iran, Iraq, Arabia, Afghanistan; or the titles The Nearer East (D. G. Hogarth), The Hither East (A. Kohn), and Swasia (G. B. Cressey).
W. B. Fisher
The Middle East Methuen & Co Ltd
Methuen & Co Ltd The Middle East A Physical, Social and Regional Geography Seventh Edition W. B. Fisher
ISBN 0 416 71510 9 (hardback) ISBN 0 416 71520 6 (paperback)
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