MESOPOTAMIA UNIT 2 MESOPOTAMIAN GEOGRAPHY FIRST THINGS FIRST

MESOPOTAMIA UNIT 2

MESOPOTAMIAN GEOGRAPHY

FIRST THINGS FIRST • On notebook paper draw me a compass with both cardinal and ordinal directions in the top right corner of your paper.

FERTILE CRESCENT • Mesopotamia was located in the eastern part of the fertile crescent • Curving strip of good farm land • Extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf

Photo by No machine-readable author provided. Kmusser assumed (based on copyright claims). / CC BY-SA 2. 5 RIVERS • Tigris & Euphrates Rivers • Mesopotamia was also called “land between two rivers” • Rivers run parallel to each other for 1, 000 miles • Run Southeast from the mountains of East Asia

TIGRIS RIVER • 1, 180 miles long • Although shorter, the Tigris River carries the most water • Swifter than the Euphrates & had larger floods • Cuts more deeply into land making it difficult to access the water

EUPHRATES RIVER • 2, 235 miles long • Longest of the two rivers • Located above the plain for easy access to the water

MOUNTAINS • Zagros Mountains located in the east of the fertile crescent • Modern Day Iran closer to the Persian Gulf • Caucuses Mountains in between the Black Sea & the Caspian Sea

OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES • Black Sea Northwest corner of the Ancient Map of Mesopotamia • Caspian Sea Southeast corner of Ancient Map • Dead Sea west side of the Fertile Crescent • Sea of Galilee is North of the Dead Sea