Arabian Peninsula
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- "Arabia" redirects here. For other uses, see Arabia (disambiguation)
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The Arabian Peninsula is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia.
The coastal limits of the peninsula are: on the southwest the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba; on the southeast the Arabian Sea; and on the northeast the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Politically, the Arabian peninsula is divided into the following countries:
Geologically, this region is more appropriately called the Arabian subcontinent because it has a tectonic plate of its own, the Arabian Plate.
The peninsula is thought to have been the place where the Proto-semitic peoples, ancestors of all the Semites of the Middle East, originated.
The country of Saudi Arabia covers most of Arabia. The majority of the population of the peninsula lives in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. The peninsula contains large amounts of oil and is home to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, both of which are in Saudi Arabia. The UAE and Qatar are home to major Arabic language television stations such as Al-Jazeera.
Geographically, the peninsula consists of:
- a central plateau with pastures for cattle, and fertile valleys;
- a ring of deserts, the Nefud in the north, stony, the Great Arabian, a perfect Sahara, in the south, sandy, said sometimes to be 600 ft. deep, and the Dahna between; and
- stretches of coast land, generally fertile on the west and south.
Arabia has no lakes or rivers, only wadies, oftenest dry; the climate being hot and arid, has no forests, and therefore few wild animals.
The term the Middle East is sometimes applied to the peninsula alone, but usually refers to a much larger region; the term Arabia, however, is often used to refer only to Saudi Arabia. At other times the term Arabia can stand for the whole Arab World, stretching from Morocco in the west to Oman in the east.
- See also : Arab World, Araby, Rub' al Khali(desert), Arabian Desert and East Sahero-Arabian xeric shrublands
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