National Geographic Atlas of the Middle East; Just Released, Authoritative Reference to the World's Most Complex Region.

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WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 2003

With global attention focused on the Middle East and tensions continuing to rise in Iraq and surrounding territories, National Geographic, the world's leading cartographic authority, has created and published a timely new collection of maps on the Middle East that helps explain and provide context for many of the important issues in this critical region.

Lending valuable insight into the current situation -- and the past -- NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST (National Geographic Books, ISBN 0-7922-5066-4, March 2003, $19.95) is a concise yet comprehensive, easy-to-read volume of newly researched, compiled and updated maps that provide an in-depth look at the political and physical dynamics of the region as well as the driving forces that have led to the violence, religious passion and costly wars there.

In his preface, National Geographic President John Fahey writes, "No other area on Earth provokes such fury and fervor, or cradles so many human aspirations as the Middle East. No other has riveted our attention to its affairs almost daily for more than half a century...The task of this atlas is to help you make sense of this tumultuous region's past, the challenges of its present, and the possibilities of its future."

The atlas comprises three main sections: Nations, Regional Themes and History. The Nations section opens with an overall political map of the region, then devotes a two-page spread to each of the 16 countries and the occupied territories that are featured. From Bahrain to Yemen, each country map shows details such as oil fields, pipelines, airports, roads, settlements and dams, and also includes the flag, area (and area comparison with the United States), population, capital, religion, language, literacy rate, life expectancy, number of active troops, Gross Domestic Product per capita, crude oil reserves and a succinct description of the economy.

City maps of Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem and Tehran take readers into the streets for an insight into the heart of the urban landscape. The city maps feature a brief history of the city as well as details of elevation, latitude and longitude, average daily temperatures, average monthly rainfall and time zone.

The Regional Themes section begins with a remarkable satellite image in natural color of the entire region, showing the rich variation in terrain, from Mediterranean lushness to twisted mountain chains and desert expanses, whose desolation has pushed people into urban areas.

This satellite image map, which is to the same scale as the political map at the beginning of the atlas, is followed by colorful maps and charts on climate, population, religion, ethnic/linguistic groups, oil, water and development indicators. These contain a trove of information on climate types, population growth in the past 50 years (the region is the world's fastest-growing area), migrant and foreign-born populations, Christian, Jewish and Muslim sacred places, religious adherents by political area, main languages in order of number of speakers, oil reserves, global oil consumption, freshwater resources, main imports and exports, poverty rates and foreign-aid donors to the Middle East.

The History section features maps of World Heritage Sites located in the Middle East, ancient Egypt, the Middle East on the eve of World War l and post World War l, the rise of nationalism and regional conflicts from 1945 to 2002, plus a graph on defense spending. Finally, a four-page time line, with photographs, dramatically illustrates the dynamic, often terrifying, modern history of the Middle East, from 1900 through the present, with the current crises in Iraq and Israel.

"This indispensable atlas provides a much-needed and comprehensive profile of a critically important part of the world," said Peter Arnett, correspondent for National Geographic EXPLORER on MSNBC.

ATLAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST will be in bookstores from March 20 and is available immediately through nationalgeographic.com/store.

With this volume, National Geographic continues its tradition of providing the world with topical and timely maps, especially in periods of conflict. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill used National Geographic maps during World War ll, and, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Society gave 50,000 maps of the Middle East to the Pentagon to distribute to troops serving in Operation Desert Storm.

Founded in 1888, the National Geographic Society is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world. It reaches more than 250 million people worldwide each month through its five magazines, the National Geographic Channel, television documentaries, books, videos and DVDs, maps and interactive media. National Geographic has funded more than 7,000 scientific research projects and supports an education program combating geographic illiteracy.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

10 CRITICAL FACTS

The Middle East comprises 16 countries -- Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen -- and the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Between 1950 and 2000, the population in the Middle East grew by 380 percent -- more than any other world region.

The largest country is Saudi Arabia at 756,985 square miles (24.4 percent of the continental United States). The smallest is Bahrain at 257 square miles (0.0083 percent of the continental United States).

The Middle East holds 65 percent of world oil reserves. Saudi Arabia has the largest crude oil reserves in the region with 261,800,000,000 barrels; Iraq, less than a quarter the size of Saudi Arabia, has the Middle East's second largest oil reserves with 112,500,000,000 barrels. Saudi Arabia is the world's top crude oil producer with 8,404,000 barrels per day; Iraq produces 2,571,000 barrels per day.

The five largest cities in the Middle East are Cairo, Egypt (2001 population: 9,586,000), Istanbul, Turkey (8,953,000), Tehran, Iran (7,038,000), Baghdad, Iraq (4,958,000), and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (4,761,000).

Egypt is the most populous Middle East country with 71,200,000 residents; Qatar is the least populous with 600,000 people. Bahrain is the most densely populated country in the Middle East, with 2,515 people per square mile; Saudi Arabia is the region's least densely populated, with 29 people per square mile.

Iraq has the lowest life expectancy rate in the Middle East at 58 years; Israel has the highest at 78 years (world average is 67 years). Iraq and Yemen have the Middle East's highest infant mortality rates of 50 and over per 1,000 live births.

Iraq has the largest number of troops in the region: 424,000 active and 650,000 reserves. Turkey has the second largest number of troops in the Middle East: 515,000 active and 378,700 reserves.

Qatar has the Middle East's highest Gross Domestic Product per capita at $21,200, followed by United Arab Emirates at $21,100. Yemen has the lowest GDP per capita at $820, and Iraq the second lowest at $2,500.

The largest foreign-aid donor to the Middle East is the United States, which gives $2,099,300,000 a year, followed by Japan's $697,900,000. The largest recipient of foreign aid is Egypt, then Israel.

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