More Than Just Deserts The landscape of the Middle East has a great deal of variety. Movies make it seem like it is all desert, but this isn't accurate. Rivers allowing for productive agriculture were the key factor in the first development of cities in ancient times. Mountain ranges provided natural barriers to invaders.

The fertile soil of the Middle East led to the development of early civilizations. The area that stretches from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers northwest to the Mediterranean coast and then down to the Nile River is often referred to as the Fertile Crescent. Here people farmed, domesticated plants and animals, built cities, and prospered. The lands between the Tigris and Euphrates was called Mesopotamia in ancient times. This was home to the Sumerians 6,000 years ago, the world's first city-based culture. The Egyptians, rivals of the Sumerians, lived along the Nile River and had rich harvests because the river's annual flooding fertilized the soil. They exported wheat and barley all over the region. Their cities were protected from invaders by vast deserts. Soon, the Hittite civilization in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the seagoing Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean (modern Israel, Lebanon, Palestine) were competing with the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians for trade and power.

Mountain ranges in the Middle East helped isolate various peoples from each other. The Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey separated Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor, from parts of Asia. This kept the Hittites and Mesopotamians apart, while the Zagros Mountains protected Mesopotamia from the invaders to the east.

Mountains have also provided refuge for oppressed minorities, such as the Alawites in Syria; the Christians in Lebanon; and the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq.