The Arabah/ Araba () or Aravah/ Arava (
The old meaning, which was in use up to around the early 20th century, covered almost the entire length of what today is called the Jordan Rift Valley, running in a north–south orientation between the southern end of the Sea of Galilee and the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea at Aqaba–Eilat. This included the Jordan River Valley between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, the Dead Sea itself, and what today is commonly called the Arava Valley. The contemporary use of the term is restricted to this southern section alone.
Geography
The Arabah is in length, from the Gulf of Aqaba to the southern shore of the Dead Sea.
Topographically, the region is divided into three sections. From the Gulf of Aqaba northward, the land gradually rises over a distance of , and reaches a height of above sea level, which represents the water divide between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. From this crest, the land slopes gently northward over the next to a point south of the Dead Sea. In the last section, the Arabah drops steeply to the Dead Sea, which is below sea level.
The Arabah is scenic with colorful cliffs and sharp-topped mountains. The southern Arabah is hot, dry and virtually without rain.
Flora and fauna
There are numerous species of flora and fauna in the Aravah Valley.
[Henry Chichester Hart. 1891, Some account of the fauna and flora of Sinai, Petra, and Wâdy Arabah, 255 pages] Notably the
caracal (Caracal caracal'') is found on the valley's
savanna areas.
[
C. Michael Hogan. 2009. Caracal: Caracal caracal, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg
] Acacia (genus
Vachellia) support several species of large herbivores, including
Nubian ibex (
Capra nubiana),
Arabian oryx (
Oryx leucoryx),
Onager (
Equus hemionus),
Dorcas gazelle (
Gazella dorcas), and a relict population of
Arabian gazelle (
Gazella arabica), locally known as acacia gazelles.
[Ross, S., Elalqamy, H., Al Said, T. & Saltz, D. 2020. Capra nubiana. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
]
Accessed on 17 March 2025. They are predated and scavenged upon by carnivores including
Arabian wolf (
Canis lupus arabs),
Striped hyena (
Hyaena hyaena), and
Golden jackal (
Canis aureus).
Important Bird Areas
A tract of the northern Arava Valley, from the Ne'ot Hakikar Nature Reserve in the north to the Hazeva and Shezaf Nature Reserve in the south, has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of both resident and migrating bird species, including
,
,
,
black stork and
, Eurasian spoonbills and
Eurasian bittern, black-winged stilts, desert tawny owls, lappet-faced vultures, Levant sparrowhawks,
,
and
Arabian babbler, Tristram's starlings,
and Dead Sea sparrows.
Furthermore, a tract of the southern Arava Valley, from Yotvata in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south, including the western (Israeli) half of the valley floor and the ridge of the Eilat Mountains, has also been recognised as an IBA, with additional significant species being Lichtenstein's sandgrouse, , great white pelicans, slender-billed curlews, , black-winged pratincoles, , white-winged terns, pallid scops owls, European honey buzzards, , eastern imperial eagles, , , Arabian larks, and cinereous buntings.
History
Bronze and Iron Ages; Nabatean period
In the
Bronze Age and
Iron Age, the Arava was a center of
copper production.
King Solomon is reported in the
Hebrew Bible to have had mines in this area. Copper mining at the Ashalim site predates his reign in the 10th century BCE.
The Arabah, especially its eastern part, was part of the realm of the
(called "Idumeans" during Hellenistic and Roman times). Later the eastern Arabah became the domain of the
Nabateans, the builders of the city of
Petra.
Archaeology: Kingdom of Edom
The existence of the biblical Kingdom of
Edom was proved by archaeologists led by
Erez Ben-Yosef and Tom Levy, using a methodology called the punctuated equilibrium model in 2019. Archaeologists mainly took copper samples from the
Timna Valley and
Wadi Feynan in Jordan's Arava valley dated to 1300–800 BCE. According to the results of the analyses, the researchers thought that Pharaoh
Shoshenq I of Egypt (the Biblical "
Shishak"), who attacked
Jerusalem in the 10th century BC, encouraged trade and production of copper instead of destroying the region. Tel Aviv University professor Ben-Yosef reported, "Our new findings contradict the view of many archaeologists that the Arava was populated by a loose alliance of tribes, and they're consistent with the biblical story that there was an Edomite kingdom here".
Israel and Jordan, 20th-21st c.
The Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty was signed in the Arava on October 26, 1994. The governments of Jordan and Israel are promoting development of the region. There is a plan to bring sea water from the
Red Sea to the
Dead Sea through a canal (Red–Dead Seas Canal), which follows along the Arabah. This (long envisioned) project was once an issue of dispute between Jordan and Israel, but it was recently agreed that the project shall be constructed on and by the Jordanian side.
Population and localities
Israel
Demography
The Israeli population of the region is 52,000, of whom 47,500 live in
Eilat (52,753 in 2021), and just over 5,000 live in 20 small towns north of Eilat, the largest of which is
Yotvata, with a population (as of 2019) of 717 (735 in 2021). Eilat is a city, while all other towns are communal settlements of the
kibbutz,
moshav and community settlement type.
Localities
Below is a list of Israeli localities in the Arava, from north to south. They belong to one city council, Eilat, and three regional councils: Tamar (a), Central Arava (b), and Hevel Eilot (c), all part of the Southern District.
Jordan
Demography
The total Jordanian population in the region is 103,000, of whom 96,000 live in
Aqaba (95,048 as of 2021).
In 2004, the Jordanian administrative district of Wadi Araba had a population of 6,775.[Jordan Department of Statistics. 2004]
Five major Bedouin tribes comprise eight settlements on the Jordanian side: Al-S'eediyeen (السعيديين), Al-Ihewat (الإحيوات), Al-Ammareen/Amareen (العمارين; see also Palestinian Bedouin), Al-Rashaideh/Rashaydeh (الرشايدة; see also Palestinian Bedouin), and Al-Azazmeh (العزازمة), as well as smaller tribes of the Al-Oseifat (العصيفات), Al-Rawajfeh (الرواجفة), Al-Manaja'h (المناجعة), and Al-Marzaqa (المرزقة), among others. The main economic activities for these Arabah residents revolve around herding sheep, agriculture, handicrafts, and serving in the Jordanian Army.
Localities
Below is a list of Jordanian population clusters in Wadi Araba:
Landmarks
Timna Valley Park is notable for its prehistoric rock carvings, some of the oldest copper mines in the world, and a convoluted cliff called King Solomon's pillars. On the Jordanian side is
Wadi Rum, famous among rock climbers, hikers, campers, and lovers of the outdoors. There is the Jordanian copper mining area of
Wadi Feynan, including the site of
Khirbat en-Nahas, corresponding to the one from Timna Valley in the west.
Feynan Ecolodge was opened in Wadi Feynan by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in 2005.
See also
-
Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, academic program in Israel
-
Nahal HaArava, a wadi in the northern part of the Arava
-
Negev
-
Sands of Samar, an expanse of sand dunes in the southern Arava
-
Southern District (Israel)
-
Wadi Araba Crossing, southernmost border crossing between Jordan and Israel
External links
