Which half of the peninsula is the largest in the world?
The Arabian Peninsula is Jazirat Al-Arab in Arabic. The word "Arab" means "desert". The Arabian Peninsula is located between Asia and Africa. It extends southeast from the Middle East into the Indian Ocean. It is the largest peninsula in the world. To the west it borders Africa with the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. To the south it extends into the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. To the east it faces Iran across the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, Jordan, and part of the territory of Iraq are located on the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia is the largest of them.
Introduction to the Arabian Peninsula
The peninsula is bordered by the Arabian Sea in the south and the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the east. The North Face is bounded by the mouth of the Arabian River and the top of the Gulf of Aqaba. It is connected to the main part of the Asian continent and is located on the Indian Ocean plate. The peninsula is about 2,240 kilometers long from north to south and about 1200-1900 kilometers wide from east to west, with a total area of 3.22 million square kilometers. It is the largest peninsula in the world.
The largest is Saudi Arabia, with Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain in order of size. The population is about 32,138,000 (1990). Saudi Arabia's territory accounts for three-quarters of the peninsula. The Arabian Peninsula is controlled by the sub-high and trade winds all year round. It is very dry. Almost the entire peninsula is a tropical desert climate zone and has a large no-flow area. There are seven no-flow countries in this area. Only groundwater can be used for farming. The hot and dry climate forms a large desert area, which accounts for about one-third of the total area. The Rubhari Desert in the southern part of the peninsula reaches 650,000 square kilometers.
There are very few agricultural products on the peninsula, and the people mainly make a living by animal husbandry, and most of them raise camels. The Arabian horses and Arabian camels produced locally are very famous in the world. There is a large amount of oil and natural gas in the Arabian Peninsula and the nearby Gulf, and many countries on the island use it as the economic pillar. Saudi Arabia is the country that produces the most oil in the world, and the output value of the oil industry accounts for more than 80% of the national GDP. It is called the "oil kingdom".
The Arabian Peninsula is the revival of Islam. The reviver of Islam, Muhammad, was born and lived here. Mecca on the peninsula is the holy place of Islam. The Arab empire centered on the Arabian Peninsula once spanned Europe, Asia and Africa. Today, all countries on the peninsula have Islam as the state religion. Every year, many Muslims from all over the world make pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina in western Saudi Arabia.
The physical geography of the Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is located in southwest Asia, bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Gulf of Oman in the east, the Red Sea in the west, the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the south, the Syrian Desert in the northwest, and the Mesopotamian Plain in the north. It covers an area of more than 3.2 million square kilometers and is the largest peninsula in the world. The Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Peninsula and the Indochina Peninsula are collectively known as the three major peninsulas in Asia. It is bordered by the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman in the east, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea in the south, and the Red Sea in the west. It faces the African continent. The boundary between the north and the Asian continent is roughly from the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast of the Red Sea in the west to the mouth of the Arabian River in the Persian Gulf in the east. It is 2240 kilometers long from north to south, 1200 Except for the Yemeni highlands at the southwest end, which are 2700-3200 meters above sea level, there are only a small part of mountainous areas in the southwest and southeast. Among them, the Hijaz Mountains in the southern section of the West Bank are 1500 meters high, and the peaks are mostly extinct volcanic cones. The highest peak is Hadur Shuaib Peak, which is 3760 meters above sea level. The central part is a vast desert, covering an area of about 1.20 million square kilometers, accounting for about 40% of the area of the peninsula. The larger deserts are the Greater Nefd Desert, the Dahna Desert and the Rub Khali Desert from north to south. Among them, the Rub Khali Desert is the largest, The Arabian Peninsula is a vast plateau with steep mountain ranges cut by deep gullies on three sides, gradually descending from the Red Sea to the northeast until it reaches the eastern lowlands along the Persian Gulf coast. Its highest peak, An-Nabi Shuayb, is 3,760 meters (12,336 feet) high, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Sanaa, Yemen.
The western part of the Arabian Peninsula is relatively high, and the terrain slopes from west to east in a stepped shape. The western part is the Hijaz (Hanzhi) -Asir Plateau; the southern part of the Hijaz Mountains is about 3000 meters above sea level; the central part is the Najd (Nezhi) Plateau; the eastern part is the plain. The southwest corner of the peninsula is fertile and suitable for cultivation. Yemen has a pleasant climate, rich products and developed agriculture, and is known as the "Arab paradise". The plains and parts of the plateau in the peninsula are covered with sand and gravel, and the desert accounts for about one-third of the total area. During the rainy season and flash floods, the valleys are flooded into rivers, and the weather is dry and dry. The peninsula is located in the tropics and subtropics. The western plateau has a subtropical Mediterranean climate, and some highlands in the southeast coastal areas belong to the savannah climate (tropical sparse forest grassland climate) Other vast areas for the tropical desert climate, generally hot and dry, four seasons climate and day and night temperature difference is significant, summer daytime maximum temperature of about 6013, scorching sun, heat waves rolling, heat unbearable. Less precipitation, the western coastal areas and mountainous areas, the average annual precipitation of 500-1000 mm, the northwest average precipitation of 25-400 mm, the Arabian Plateau average annual precipitation below 100 mm, the coastal areas precipitation between October and May of the following year. Most areas of winter dry hot winds. The source of wind from southern West Asia and North Africa tropical air mass, often make the temperature rise in a few hours more than 20 degrees, causing serious harm to crop growth and residents' lives. Farmland irrigation and residential drinking water mainly rely on groundwater.
The Arabian Peninsula is close to Asia and Africa, and its strategic location is very important. Yemen in the southwest of the peninsula was once the hub of maritime trade between the East and the West. The Red Sea and Gulf on both sides of the peninsula connect Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, forming an important natural corridor for east-west transportation.
The geological features of the Arabian Peninsula
About ten million years ago, the continents between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean were joined together. Then there was a major change in the earth's crust, forming the East African Rift Valley, and the land fell into the Red Sea. The Red Sea completely separated Asia and Africa. A piece of land east of the Red Sea became a slightly rectangular peninsula - the Arabian Peninsula.
The Arabian Peninsula is mainly composed of two major geomorphological areas, the Arabian Shield in the west and the sedimentary area to the east of the Shield. The sedimentary area sinks northeast, east, and southeast from the Shield into the Great Basin, which includes southern Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and the eastern Rubal-Khali Desert. The eastern edge of the Shield curves eastward from the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, which protrudes northward from the Red Sea, to the southwest and due south at the halfway point across the peninsula, to the Yemeni highlands.
The sedimentary zone formed later than the shield, formed by the siltation of the ancient sea, mainly composed of limestone and a large amount of sandstone and shale, the earliest sediments formed in the early Paleozoic (395 million to 570 million years ago), in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, sediments are deep nearly 10 kilometers (6 miles) below the surface. Gas and oil are present in Jurassic and Cretaceous limestone (aged 6, 5 million to 190 million) 3 kilometers (2 miles) or shallower from the surface.
The Yemeni highlands are geographically very different from the shield. They are not mountains, but the edge of the Arabian plateau cut by deep valleys. The Oman highlands are geologically more closely related to the Zagros mountain range in western Iran than to other mountains in the Arabian Peninsula (the Strait of Hormuz is only about 80 kilometers [50 miles] wide).
The climate of the Arabian Peninsula
The Tropic of Cancer passes just south of Medina and divides the Arabian Peninsula into two almost equal parts. Summer is full of hot summers, with temperatures as high as 54 ° C (129 ° F) in some places. Most of the interior is dry, but the coastal areas and certain highlands and deserts in the south are very humid in summer. In the humid areas there is fog and dew, which often replaces rain. In the dry regions the sun is hot throughout the summer; except at high altitudes and in the northern regions, the climate is pleasant in spring and autumn, and the winter is rarely cold and snowy.
Rain is rare in all areas of the Indian Ocean beyond the reach of the monsoon, with an average annual rainfall of only 77-102 mm (3-4 inches). Occasional downpours in the desert cause flooding in the dry river valleys, and heavy rain sometimes turns to hail. Droughts lasting for years are commonplace. In the southwest and south, monsoons can increase rainfall by at least threefold. In mid-winter and early summer, the Persian Gulf monsoon, like the Egyptian khamsin, generates dust. This wind is called a "shamal" in the Arabian Peninsula, but the actual wind direction is mainly north-northwest; the opposite of the "northerly" direction is the less frequent "southeast wind" (qaws). The wind direction in Nezhi and the Rubkhali Desert is more complex, especially in spring, the wind direction can blow from any direction of 360 °, and the wind can range from a breeze to a strong wind.
The peninsula is located at 13 ° to 20 ° north latitude, and the Tropic of Cancer runs through it. It has a tropical desert climate, with a dry and hot climate and strong continental nature. The annual average temperature is above 20 ° C, and the absolute maximum temperature can reach 50-55 ° C. It is one of the hottest regions in the world. The average temperature in the coldest month is mostly between 15 and 24 ° C. The average annual precipitation in most regions is less than 100 mm. In the northern region, due to the influence of the Mediterranean climate in winter, the annual precipitation can reach about 200 mm. In the highlands of Yemen and the piedmont plains along the southern coast, the annual precipitation can reach 500-1000 mm in summer due to the influence of the Indian Ocean airflow and topography. Therefore, the desert in the central part of the peninsula is widespread, and the tropical stepp Only in the coastal plain in front of the mountain and in the low-lying and high groundwater level in the interior, there are narrow or sporadic oases, irrigated agriculture and animal husbandry are relatively developed, and the population is relatively concentrated. Larger oases include the narrow plains along the coast of the Yemen highlands, the Ahsa oasis centered on Hufuf, and the Haierji oasis centered on Riyadh. The oases are rich in dates. The southern coastal plain is rich in tropical crops such as coffee, rubber, mangoes, etc. Animal husbandry is mainly based on camel breeding.
The Arabian Peninsula is located in the tropics, with strong solar radiation, which is controlled by tropical continental air masses all year round. The plateau peninsula is mostly surrounded by high mountainous plateaus and hot areas, which are rarely affected by marine humid air masses. Therefore, the tropical dry climate here is highly continental, with extreme heat, dryness and little rain.
Here is one of the hottest regions in the world. The annual average temperature of the entire peninsula is above 20 ° C. The average temperature in July, the hottest month, exceeds 30 ° C. The average temperature in January, the coldest month, is also higher than 10 ° C, mostly between 15 and 24 ° C. The southern region is even hotter, such as Aden at the southern tip of the peninsula. The annual average temperature is 28.9 ° C. In July, it is 32.5 ° C. In January, it is 25.4 ° C. There are four or five months when the monthly average temperature exceeds 30 ° C. The absolute maximum temperature on the peninsula is often 50 to 55 ° C. The temperature on the peninsula varies greatly from year to year, generally above 15 ° C, and in some places it can reach about 20 ° C.
The Arabian Peninsula is dry and rains little. The peninsula has very little precipitation, with annual precipitation below 100 mm in most areas, such as Aden with 41 mm, Riyadh with 97 mm, Manama with 84 mm, and Jeddah with 64 mm. The main reason for the lack of rain is that in winter, it is controlled by the subtropical high pressure belt, which blows dry northeast trade winds. Although the air pressure is low in summer (there is an Indian low pressure in the east), the southwest wind comes from the arid land of North Africa. Water vapor is exhausted and there is little rainfall. For example, Riyadh and Manama in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula have basically no precipitation from June to September. The precipitation in winter and spring is only below 20 mm in each month, mainly due to the influence of the westerly airflow. The relative humidity is very low. The average annual relative humidity in many areas within the peninsula is below 40%. For example, the average annual relative humidity in Riyadh is only 32%, and it is still less than 30% from June to September. The northern part of the peninsula can be affected by Mediterranean cyclones in winter, and the precipitation increases slightly, and the annual precipitation can reach 200 mm. The Yemeni highlands, which are 2700-3200 meters above sea level, can be affected by the Indian Ocean airflow and topographic rain, and the precipitation is more, even up to 1000 mm. It is called "happy Arabia". The concentration of precipitation is another obvious sign of the strong continental climate of the Arabian Peninsula. For example, the average annual precipitation in Jeddah is only 64 mm, but the number of precipitation days is only 5 days. In the peninsula with sparse rain, it can sometimes cause floods due to sudden heavy rains.
