Map of Iraq

History

It was climbed in November 2004 by English explorer Ginge Fullen, who recorded a GPS reading of 3,628 meters at the coordinates in the adjacent table. The location is consistent with SRTM and Russian topographic mapping, although these sources are more consistent with the CIA height.

The first reported winter ascent was by Jonathan Beswick and Matthew DuPuy on March 18, 2011. The expedition GPS confirmed 3,611 m (11,847 ft). There is a danger of land mines in the area on approach between Hamilton Road and the village of Gundah Zhur. Some fields are marked by red, triangular signs with skull and crossbones. It is possible to find Kurdish military escorts through this area in the town of Choman.

History

In 1956, the southern part of the Tharthar depression was turned into an artificial reservoir to collect floodwaters of the Tigris River. The water flows via an artificial inlet canal, named Tharthar Canal. The canal diverts the excess water, by means of a regulator, the Samarra Barrage. It merges with the lake in its southeastern bank.

The lake has an artificial outlet called Taksim Tharthar Canal, which drains to the Euphrates River directly. The canal, after 28 km (17.4 mi) from its outlet, bifurcates to another canal called "Dhira'a Dijla" (Arm of Tigris) that returns water back to the Tigris River.

Lake Tharthar was the site of a joint American-Iraqi raid in 2005 against an insurgent training base in the region.

Description

The Tharthar depression was formed during the Holocene age, mainly by karstification, due to dissolving of gypsum rocks of the Fatha Formation nearby. Tharthar covers roughly 2,050 km2 (790 sq mi) and flows from the central and eastern parts of the Sinjar Mountains and adjacent hills, with a floor of –3m above sea level. The maximum length and width of the depression are 120 and 48 km, respectively. The eastern rim of the depression is higher than the western one; the heights of both rims are 90 metres (300 ft) and 75 metres (246 ft), respectively.

The main purpose of the Tharthar Lake is to collect excess water of the Tigris River during flood seasons and to recharge water to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers during dry seasons, when there is shortage of water in both rivers.

Geography

The lake, also termed the Karbala Gap, covers an area of 156,234 hectares (386,060 acres) enclosed by deserts with a few low hills on the shoreline. The lake and its surrounding area lie in an elevation range of 28 to 56 metres (92 to 184 ft). It is a deep closed lake in a sand and silt basin. The western part of the valley surrounding the lake has thick forest cover, as well as orchards. In the eastern and southern surroundings, the terrain is flat desert and semi-desert. Mud flats are a common feature in the lake.

The geological formations in and around the lake consist of marl, siltstone, gypsum and anhydrite, and limestone bands, but mostly silt.

The lake is 95 kilometres (59 mi) south-west of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of Karbala in Karbala Governorate.

Hydrology and purpose

Lake Habbaniyah was constructed as a flood-control reservoir to protect Baghdad and the lower Euphrates valley from catastrophic spring flooding. The lake is situated in a natural depression that was sealed by an earth embankment and a regulator (the Habbaniyah Dam) completed in the 1950s.

During flood season, excess water from the Euphrates is diverted into Lake Habbaniyah. If the lake reaches its maximum capacity, the water is subsequently drained into the adjacent Lake Milh (also known as the Razazah Lake), which is a highly saline endorheic basin. Because of its artificial control mechanisms, Lake Habbaniyah's water levels and surface area can fluctuate significantly depending on the season and rainfall.

Geography

The 700–900-metre high (2,300–3,000 ft) region in the middle of the desert is the Hamad Plateau, a rather flat, stony semi-desert consisting of limestone bedrock covered with chert gravel. What little rain arrives on the plateau flows into local salt flats. The highest peaks of the plateau are those of the 1,000 m (3,300 ft)+ Khawr um Wual in Saudi Arabia, and the 960-metre high (3,150 ft) Jebel Aneiza, at the border tripoint of Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Together with the other deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Hamad Desert has been described as one of the most arid deserts of the world.

History

The desert was historically inhabited by nomadic Arabs (Bedouins) and nomadic Aramean tribes, and many tribes still remain in the region, their members living mainly in towns and settlements built near oases. Some Bedouin still maintain their traditional way of life in the desert. Safaitic inscriptions, proto-Arabic texts written by literate Bedouin, are found throughout the Syrian Desert. These date roughly from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

Location and name

The desert is bounded by the Orontes Valley and the volcanic field of Harrat al-Shamah to the west, and by the Euphrates to the east. In the north, the desert gives way to the more fertile areas and to the south it runs into the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula.

Parts of the Syrian Desert have been referred to otherwise, such as Homs Desert, Palmyrene Desert for the part around Palmyra, and, from an Iraqi point of view, Western Desert for the part of the eastern section of the Syrian Desert that lies entirely within the borders of Iraq. The name Shamiyah has also been used for the Syrian Desert, the name having been translated in the past as Badiyat al-Sham or Badiyat ash-Sham.

Economy and agriculture

With low rainfall and poor-quality soils, today the region is principally used as rangeland for livestock. Bedouin herdsmen, many of whom are still nomadic, graze about twelve million sheep and goats here, as well as a smaller number of camels.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development aims to alleviate rural poverty, and in 1995, in cooperation with the Syrian government, it started a project to rehabilitate over a million hectares of degraded land in the Syrian Badia. In some areas, when grazing was restricted, there was a spontaneous return of many of the native plants. In other areas which were more heavily degraded, grazing restrictions were supplemented by reseeding and the planting of fodder species.

Geography

Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the neighboring Armenian highlands. Both rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000-square-kilometre (5,800 sq mi) region of marshes, lagoons, mudflats, and reed banks in the south. In the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf.

History

The prehistory of the Ancient Near East begins in the Lower Paleolithic period. Therein, writing emerged with a pictographic script, Proto-cuneiform, in the Uruk IV period (c. late 4th millennium BC). The documented record of actual historical events—and the ancient history of lower Mesopotamia—commenced in the early-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings. This entire history ends with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the late 6th century BC or with the Muslim conquest and the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, from which point the region came to be known as Iraq. In the long span of this period, Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient highly developed, and socially complex states.

Economy

Sumerian temples functioned as banks and developed the first large-scale system of loans and credit. The Babylonians developed the earliest system of commercial banking. It was comparable in some ways to modern post-Keynesian economics, but with a more "anything goes" approach.

Irrigated agriculture spread southwards from the Zagros foothills with the Samara and Hadji Muhammed culture, from about 5,000 BC.

In the early period down to Ur III temples owned up to one third of the available land, declining over time as royal and other private holdings increased in frequency. The word Ensi was used to describe the official who organized the work of all facets of temple agriculture.