الفصل السابع في ربوع الجزيرة السورية ، الخصائص الجغرافية العامة للجزيرة السورية ١_a

Chapter VII

across the Syrian Peninsula

. The Syrian Jazeera is currently represented by the area between the Euphrates River in the southwest and the Tigris River in the northeast. Only the north is Turkish territory, while its eastern border is Iraqi territory. It is generally part of the region between the two rivers or the region of Mesopotamia, which currently extends in the lands of Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

General geographical characteristics of the Syrian island:

The area of ​​the al-Jazeera region, whose characteristics we are about to reveal, is 45 thousand square kilometers, and this is approximately equal to a quarter of the area of ​​Syria. general towards

The island region is divided into two distinct geographical units: the upper island and the lower island - fig. This region includes the lands of the entire province of Al-Hasakah, which occupies the northeastern part of it, and part of the lands of the provinces of Deir Ezzor, Al-Raqqa and Aleppo - where it enters from the lands of Aleppo province the northern region of Ain Al-Arab.

- And if we exclude the mountainous model of Sinjar. Abd al-Aziz - throughout the mantle, which, as is well known, does not represent a continuous cross, but rather is interrupted by openings, which stand out clearly in the wide opening between Sinjar and Abd al-Aziz, which is about 25 km wide, and through which the Khabour River passes. The territory of the region is a vast flat plain with a slight slope to the south of about 1-2 degrees. The actual part

To the north of about in the region of that cross, which is represented by the upper island, which has an area of ​​about 18,000 km2, is a plain that gradually rises north with a slight slope to the fronts of the Taurus Mountains. Above its northeastern part, the massif of Mount Qara Shok rises, with a maximum height of 769 meters above sea level, and above its western part, Ayn al-Arab, several mountain masses of limited height, the highest of which is Mount Burgul (691 m), located southwest of the city of Ain al-Arab. In addition to hundreds of individual small hills and mountains, some of which are human (the hills) and others are natural, including what is volcanic, as in Jabal Kawkab (534 m) northeast of Hasakah. The lands of the upper island are divided by a network of river valleys, some of which form tributaries of the Khabur River, while others end in the Balikh Valley. The network of valleys is denser in the eastern part of the upper island than in the western part as a result of the rain being more abundant and the mountains directly adjacent to it from the north.

As for the Lower Al-Dunya Island), its land is less sloping than the Upper Island and less varied in terrain, which is: a semi-desert plain in its parts close to the Euphrates Valley, slowly descending towards the Euphrates Valley, and is bisected by the Khabour River Valley in its east, and the Balikh in its west, as it is paved on Along its eastern edge, in the lands of Al-Zour Governorate, the series of closed depressions occupied by several sabkhas and floods, including Sabkhat Shamlan, Sabkhat al-Barghouta, Sabkhat Muqat, and Sabkhat al-Bawara, which is considered one of the important salts in Syria, as it annually supplies the country with tens of thousands of tons of excellent table salt. To the northwest of Sabkhat al-Bawara, there is the large Sabkhat al-Rawdha, and to the north of it about 12 km is Faydat al-Barqa. The level of this sabkha basin drops to less than 200 meters above sea level. It also rises above the plain of the lower island some

The hills, some of which take the character of mountains, as in the two volcanic mountains of Munkher al-Gharbi (404 m) and Munkher al-Sharqi (357 m), located northwest of Deir Ezzor, as well as Jabal al-Zarab (308 m) and the northern mountains of Hajifat (334 m) and the southern (336 m).

As for the main mountain range in this region, it is composed of three mountain masses that extend transversely: The western part of Mount Sinjar, which bears the name of Jabal Jariba, and its end is known in Syria as Jabal Chambah, which reaches a maximum height of 646 m, and which extends westward into the Syrian territory within 20 km. To the west of the Khabour River valley, the Mount Abdul Aziz massif rises between the lines of longitude 39,5540.35, with a length of approximately 50 km and a breadth of no more than 15 km, with an average height of about 700 m, and the highest peak in it is the summit of Al-Ghurra (920 m). To the west of Mount Abdul Aziz, a series of heights extends throughout Al-Aba, which are like hills, the highest height of which does not exceed 483 m, and reaches in its extension westward to Wadi Al-Balikh.

The Jazira region is considered one of the hottest regions in the summer, as the average temperature of July exceeds 31 C, with a rise in the absolute maximum temperature to reach about 548. Also, winter in general is not very cold, as the average temperature of January is not less than its parts, although In some years, the absolute minimum temperature was below 10°C. Thus, we find that the annual absolute temperature range is large, exceeding 40 m. This reflects the great degree of continentalism that dominates the region due to its distance from the sea, its low altitude, and the highly variable rainfall between parts of this region. It decreases in its southern parts adjacent to the Euphrates Valley and in the eastern sabkhat area to less than 150 mm annually, to reach about 250 mm in the marginal area of ​​6 m in any part of the valley.