Gaza Strip - Geography and Climate

Geography and Climate

The Gaza Strip is located in the Middle East (at 31°25′N 34°20′E / 31.417°N 34.333°E / 31.417; 34.333Coordinates: 31°25′N 34°20′E / 31.417°N 34.333°E / 31.417; 34.333). It has a 51 kilometres (32 mi) border with Israel, and an 11 km border with Egypt, near the city of Rafah. Khan Yunis is located 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) northeast of Rafah, and several towns around Deir el-Balah are located along the coast between it and Gaza City. Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun are located to the north and northeast of Gaza City, respectively. The Gush Katif bloc of Israeli localities used to exist on the sand dunes adjacent to Rafah and Khan Yunis, along the southwestern edge of the 40 kilometres (25 mi) Mediterranean coastline. Al Deira beach is a popular venue for surfers.

Gaza Strip has an arid climate, with mild winters, and dry, hot summers subject to drought. The terrain is flat or rolling, with dunes near the coast. The highest point is Abu 'Awdah (Joz Abu 'Auda), at 105 metres (344 ft) above sea level. Natural resources include arable land (about a third of the strip is irrigated), and recently discovered natural gas. Environmental problems include desertification; salination of fresh water; sewage treatment; water-borne disease; soil degradation; and depletion and contamination of underground water resources. The Gaza Strip is largely dependent on water from Wadi Gaza, which is also a resource for Israel.

Read more about this topic:  Gaza Strip

Famous quotes containing the words geography and, geography and/or climate:

    The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Ghosts, we hope, may be always with us—that is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditions—they enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ...
    Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)