Atlas of the Middle East / National Geographic.

Concentrates on the geographic Middle East, the nation's and political entities that occupy the blending of cultures between three continents. It is divided into three main sections: Nations, Regional Themes, and History. The Nations section devotes a full two-page spread to every nation-state and political unit. It focuses inunprecedented large scale on small political entities such as Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. The Regional Theme Section begins with a satellite composite image of the entire physical area, revealing the twisted mountain chains and desert expanses whose desolation has pushed populations into urban centers. The Black and Caspian Seas, the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea are the highways that marine commerce, from Phoenician galleys to Arab shows, followed to the market places of the near world. Uses variety of graphs, pie charts, and photographs which show different issue, like region's most critical resources:oil and freshwater reserves, blessings and limiting effects of climate, Population explosion, ethnic distribution, the stread of religion, the path and the extent of the aliyah, the in gathering, the Jewish migration to Israel, uncertain economic future outlining indicators as fertility, life expectancy, and poverty rates, economic factors such as imports, exports, and gross per capita domestic products. The History Section highlights the remains of ancient empires and civilizations.