Download The Negeb - Gustavus Adolphus College

The Negeb
Graziela Tanaka
and
Tim Sonbuchner
The Geography
 Part of the Great Rift extending from the Dead Sea to Elath on the Red Sea
coast.
 South - the Judean Mountains, the Dead Sea and the ‘Arabah.
 West - the boarder runs along the international boundaries between Egypt
and Israel.
 Area - It forms a large triangle area of 12,500 square kilometers.
 Regions – coastal plain in the NW, a central plateau, a mountainous area in
the South central part, and a Valley in the East.
 It comprises more than one half of Israel's land area.
• Major cities – Beersheba, Dimona, Arad, and Elat.
Israel
Climate
 Rainfall - varies from 300 to 100 mm of rainfall per year.
 Temperature - from 23* F (winter) to 100* F (summer)
 As moving from South east to north and west, the ground
becomes more even, the soil more fertile and the rainfall
increases.
Subsistance
 North in the Beersheba plain is fertile loess;
irrigation is necessary for agriculture.
 Agricultural goods - barley, wheat, and citrus fruit.
 Mineral extraction - phosphates, copper, clay,
bromine, and natural gas
 The Bedouins depend on herds of camels and
sheeps.
Population
 The Negev is a very sparsely populated area
 Most of the population is concentrated in the northern part and
mainly on the relatively fertile Beersheba plain, which because
of its ecological conditions is a center of turbulence.
 Continuo settlements occur along the great riverbeds in the
northern Negeb.
 On the other parts of the Negeb a great part of the populations
is of Bedouins.
Bedouins of the Desert
Historic Background
 pre-Christian - Semitic tribes.
 100BC – 100 AD – Nabatean period
 4th and 5th century AD Byzantine rule
 7th century AD – Arab conquest of the region
 After 7th century - occupied basically by the Bedouins, the
nomadic inhabitants of the desert
 20th century - development of the desert began with the
establishment of several kibbutzim in the mid-1940s and
accelerated after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948
Kibbutz