Arabian Desert

Arabian Desert, great desert region of extreme southwestern Asia that occupies almost the entire Arabian Peninsula. It is the largest desert area on the continent—covering an area of about 900,000 square miles (2,300,000 square km)—and the second largest on Earth, surpassed in size only by the Sahara, in northern Africa.

The Arabian Desert is bordered to the north by the Syrian Desert, to the northeast and east by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, to the southeast and south by the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and to the west by the Red Sea. A large part of the Arabian Desert lies within the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Yemen, on the coast of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, borders the desert to the southwest. Oman, bulging out into the Gulf of Oman, lies at the eastern edge of the desert. The sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to the west stretch along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf at the desert’s northeastern limit. The emirate of Kuwait abuts the northern Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In the northwest the desert extends into Jordan.

Seen from the air, the Arabian Desert appears as a vast expanse of light sand-coloured terrain with an occasional indistinct line of escarpments or mountain ranges, black lava flows, or reddish systems of desert dunes stretching to the horizon. Camel trails crisscross the surface between watering places. On the ground, features become distinctly individual and the relief seems more prominent. Vegetation at first seems nonexistent, but the discerning eye can find sparse patches of growth on the surface, or bits of green where shrubs strive to survive. There is almost always a breeze, which changes seasonally to winds of gale force. Cold or hot, those air currents chill the body or roast it. The Sun and Moon are bright in clear skies, although dust and humidity may lower visibility.

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Physical features

Western Arabia formed part of the African landmass before a rift occurred in Earth’s crust, as a result of which the Red Sea was formed and Africa and the Arabian Peninsula finally became separated some five to six million years ago. Thus, the southern half of the peninsula has a greater affinity with the regions of Somalia and Ethiopia in Africa than with northern Arabia or the rest of Asia. The northern Arabian Desert merges imperceptibly into Arab Asia through the Syrian steppe (treeless plain). The bulge of Oman contains mountain ranges that formed when oceanic crust accumulated on the Arabian plate as it moved northeastward. The peninsula measures about 1,300 miles (2,100 km) in length, from northwest to southeast; its width, from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Oman or Persian Gulf, ranges from about 700 miles (1,100 km) across central Saudi Arabia to some 1,250 miles (2,000 km) in the south between Yemen and Oman.

Three corners have high elevations: the southwestern corner in Yemen, where Mount Al-Nabī Shuʿayb reaches the desert’s highest elevation, 12,030 feet (3,665 metres); the northwestern corner in Hejaz (Al-Ḥijāz; a part of Saudi Arabia), where Mount Al-Lawz rises to 8,464 feet (2,580 metres); and the southeastern corner in Oman, where Mount Al-Shām attains an elevation of 9,957 feet (3,035 metres). Much of the Yemen Plateau is at an elevation above 7,000 feet (2,100 metres). To the north and east elevations decrease. Steep cliffs and steep canyons descend from the highlands into adjacent seas to the south and west. The peninsula is bounded on its western margin by a great escarpment, stretching more than 600 miles (1,000 km) from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. It is the most striking feature of the Red Sea margin, rising abruptly from an elevation of roughly 600 feet (200 metres) to greater than 3,300 feet (1,000 metres). South of Al-Ṭāʾif, near Mecca, the escarpment is rugged and dissected into short, steep canyons and ridges. At the foot of the scarp, the Tihāmah plain slopes to the sea; at Mount Sawdāʾ, near Abhā in the Asir (ʿAsīr) region, the drop is about 9,000 feet (2,700 metres) in 6 miles (10 km). In Oman, northeastern slopes are short and steep, but on the southwest flanks the slopes grade gently to the Rubʿ al-Khali desert basin. The southern plateau is cut by great steep-walled canyons into rugged limestone masses that have kept the peoples of that region isolated for centuries.

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The rest of the peninsula displays a moderate relief characterized by broad plains. At least one-third is covered by sand. North of Al-Ṭāʾif the Hejaz and Najd plateaus seldom rise above 3,600 feet (1,100 metres), except where volcanic fields occur or where remnants of the crystalline rocks that underlie the region rise to the surface. The slope to the Persian Gulf averages 8 feet per mile (1.5 metres per km).