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The Great Rift Valley (Swahili: Bonde la ufa) is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6000 or 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. [ 1 ][ 2 ] While the name ...
The 1759 Near East earthquakes shook a large portion of the Levant in October and November of that year. This geographical crossroads in the Eastern Mediterranean were at the time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire (now includes portions of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel and Palestine). The ruins of Baalbek, a settlement in the Beqaa Valley ...
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Jordan River, river of southwestern Asia, in the Middle East region. It lies in a structural depression and has the lowest elevation of any river in the world.
The river rises on the slopes of Mount Hermon, on the border between Syria and Lebanon, and flows southward through northern Israel to the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberius). Exiting the sea, it continues south, dividing Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west from Jordan to the east before emptying into the Dead Sea. The surface of the Dead Sea, at an elevation of about 1,410 feet (430 metres) below sea level in the mid-2010s, is the lowest land point on Earth.
The Jordan River is more than 223 miles (360 km) in length, but, because its course is meandering, the actual distance between its source and the Dead Sea is less than 124 miles (200 km). After 1948 the river marked the frontier between Israel and Jordan from just south of the Sea of Galilee to the point where the Yābis River flows into it from the east (left) bank. Since 1967, however, when Israeli forces occupied the West Bank (i.e., the territory on the west bank of the river south of its confluence with the Yābis), the Jordan has served as the cease-fire line as far south as the Dead Sea.
The river was called the Aulon by ancient Greeks and is sometimes called Al-Sharīʿah (“Watering Place”) by Arabs. Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike revere the Jordan. It was in its waters that Jesus was baptized by St. John the Baptist. The river has remained a religious destination and a site for baptisms.
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The Jordan Valley constitutes a segment of the extensive East African Rift System, a rift valley running north and south that extends from southern Turkey southward via the Red Sea and into eastern Africa. The valley itself is a long and narrow trough, averaging about 6 miles (10 km) in width but becoming narrower in some places—e.g., at each end of the Sea of Galilee. Throughout its course the valley lies much lower than the surrounding landscape, especially in the south, where the surrounding land can rise some 3,000 feet (900 metres) or more above the river. The valley walls are steep, sheer, and bare, and they are broken only by the gorges of tributary wadis (seasonal watercourses).
The Jordan River has three principal sources, all of which rise at the foot of Mount Hermon. The longest of those is the Ḥāṣbānī, which rises in Lebanon, near Ḥāṣbayyā, at an elevation of 1,800 feet (550 metres). From the east, in Syria, flows the Bāniyās River. Between the two is the Dan River, the waters of which are particularly fresh.
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Just inside Israel, those three rivers join together in the Ḥula Valley. The plain of the Ḥula Valley was formerly occupied by a lake and marshes, but in the 1950s some 23 square miles (60 square km) were drained to form agricultural land. By the 1990s much of the valley’s soil had been degraded, and portions of the area had become flooded. It was decided to retain the lake and surrounding wetlands area as a protected nature reserve, and some of the plants and animals (notably migratory birds) returned to the region.
At the southern end of the valley, the Jordan has cut a gorge through a basaltic barrier. The river then drops sharply down to the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. That lake, which historically was measured at 686 feet (209 metres) below sea level, has for decades averaged some 6.5 to 13 feet (2 to 4 metres) lower annually than that value. The lake nonetheless helps govern the river’s rate of flow. Exiting from the southern shore of the lake, the Jordan receives its main tributary, the Yarmūk River, which marks part of the frontier between Syria and Jordan. It is then joined by two more tributaries, the Ḥarod on the right bank and the Yābis on the left. The Jordan River’s plain then spreads out to a width of about 15 miles (24 km) and becomes very regular. The flat arid terraces of that area, known as the Ghawr (Ghor), are cut here and there by wadis or rivers into rocky towers, pinnacles, and badlands, forming a maze of ravines and sharp crests that resemble a lunar landscape.
The Jordan River (Arabic: Nahr Al-Urdun; Hebrew: Ha-Yarden River) is a river in Southwest Asia flowing through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea. The Jordan River, with the lowest elevation of any river in the world, rises at the Syrian-Lebanese border where the Hasbani River of Lebanon, and Banias River of Syria meet.
The Jordan Rift Valley, also Jordan Valley (Hebrew: בִּקְעָת הַיַרְדֵּן Bīqʿāt haYardēn, Arabic: الغور Al-Ghor or Al-Ghawr), [citation needed] also called the Syro-African Depression, [dubious – discuss] is an elongated depression located in modern-day Israel, Jordan and the West Bank.
Jan 1, 2021 · The Jordan River Valley, itself, is an extension of the major earthquake fault line known as the Great African Rift Valley that runs through the Red Sea's eastern finger (the Gulf of Aqaba) and Arabah to the Dead Sea.
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Jan 30, 2023 · One of them, a man in his 20s, began his journey around 230,000 years ago after collapsing into marshland on the lush edge of a river delta feeding a vast lake in East Africa’s Rift Valley. He became the earth in which he lay as nutrients leached from his body and his bone mineralised into fossil.
