South Africa Research Paper

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Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia are very influential regions in the world. This region has hot, dry plains all the way to snow covered mountains and some areas are well watered river valleys. Many empires have controlled this region and their influences great. The North African and Southwestern Asia region has different languages which relate to the area of people. Northern Africa has a number of large water basins that are shared among several countries. These include surface and groundwater bodies. The Nile basin is its most important water basin that passes through more than one country. Groundwater aquifers, such as the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer located in the eastern Sahara Desert, which are mostly non-renewable, play a large…show more content…
Then, the lands of the Southwestern Asia were under the rule of a number of competing empires. The major empires were the Byzantines centered in Constantinople and the Sassanids based in Persia. The Arabs of the Arabian interior appeared as a real challenge to the charging empires when they united as a result of their common devotion to Islam. Over the next hundred years, the Muslim Arabs' political reach extended from western Saudi Arabia throughout the Arabian Peninsula and as far north as Baghdad, Iraq and Damascus, Iran, and west along the North African coast. This series of Arab-Islamic empires controlled all of Southwestern Asia (except present-day Turkey), all of North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, India, and parts of Afghanistan. The Arab-Islamic empires were eventually replaced by a Turkic-Islamic group called the Ottomans. Founded in 1300 CE, the Ottomans continued the successful expansion of their empire throughout the 16th century, most notably with their capture of Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1453. The Ottoman Empire changed the name Constantinople to Istanbul. By the end of the 15th century, as well as its vast control over North Africa and Southwestern Asia, the Ottoman Empire occupied much of southern and eastern Europe. The occupation of these countries by the Ottomans was the high point of the Ottoman Empire's power. Over the next few centuries, the Ottoman Empire's…show more content…
Most Iranians speak a Persian language called Farsi. Most people in Turkey are Muslims but speak Turkish rather than Arabic. The Turks originally came from the land northwest of India. Lebanon includes a significant Christian minority. Lebanon once had a Christian majority, but Muslims now outnumber Christians because Muslims have tended to have more children. Until recently, most Arabs living in the United States have been Lebanese. Most people in Israel speak Hebrew and practice Judaism. After World War II, the United Nations created Israel as a homeland for Jews. There are about twenty-five million Kurds living in the mountains between Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds are Muslims, but they have their own language and culture. Many Kurds want to keep their traditional lifestyle and resist conforming the population of their host nations. A minority of the people of Morocco and Algeria speak Berber languages. Many of the nations of the Middle East and North Africa were once controlled by European nations; as a result, English, French and Italian are often spoken in the region. All these different religions and languages result in the constant turmoil in this region. I believe that they all have similarities but are different because of a few

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