Home > Sinai Peninsula
right Sinai Peninsula, Gulf of Suez (west), Gulf of Aqaba (east) from Space Shuttle STS-40The Sinai Peninsula (in Arabic, Shibh Jazirat Sina) is a triangle-shaped peninsula lying between the Mediterranean Sea (to the north) and Red Sea (to the south). Its land borders are the Suez Canal to the west and the Israel– Egypt border to the north-east. It is now part of Egypt. The Sinai Peninsula is in Southwest Asia while the rest of Egypt is in North Africa.
The Sinai is almost entirely desert, but is settled along the Sabah coast at TabaA small Egyptian village near the northern tip of the Gulf of Eilat, Taba is the location of Egypt's busiest border crossing with neighboring Israel. Little more than a bus depot and a luxury hotel (complete with casino), Taba's primary function is to ser (near the Israeli town of EilatEilat or Elat Standard Hebrew Elat Tiberian Hebrew la , pop. 50,000, is Israel's southernmost city, in the Southern District of Israel. Adjacent to the Egyptian city of Taba and Jordanian (previously Saudi) port of Aqaba, Eilat is located at the northern), where there is a hotelHotel" is the letter H in the NATO phonetic alphabet See Hotel for the American television program that aired on ABC from 1983 until 1988. A hotel is an establishment that provides lodging on a short-term basis. Hotels often provide a number of additional and casinoTrump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey A casino is a building that accommodates gambling. Customers may gamble by playing slot machines or other games of chance (e. craps, roulette for more see casino games). Game rules usually have mathematically d. Moving southwards along the coast, there lie: Nuweiba , DahabDahab is a small village in the south-east of the Sinai peninsula. Formerly a Bedouin fishing village, the construction of hotels and other ancillary facilities has now made this a popular destination with tourists. The word Dahab in Arabic means gold and and Sharm el-SheikhSharm el-Sheikh is a city situated on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, on the coastal strip between the Red Sea and Mount Sinai. Sharm el-Sheikh's major industry is foreign tourism. The calm and clear waters of the Red Sea provide an idea. The Sinai is also settled on the north coast near the Gaza StripThe World Factbook. The Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land just northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. At the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War it was occupied by the Egyptians, under which it remained until it was claimed by Israel during the Six-Day War of at El-Arish.
Mount Sinai in the Sinai is biblically significant as it is allegedly the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments. A monastery situated at St. Catherine in the southern Sinai Peninsula claims to be at the site of Mount Sinai, though historians and archeologists generally reject this as the site.
The eastern boundary of the peninsula is a geological fault zone known as the Great Rift Valley, which can be seen from the upper Jordan River valley,extending southward through the Red Sea into Africa.
1 History
The Sinai was inhabited by the Monitu and was called Mafkat or Country of Turquoise. From the time of the First dynasty or before, the Egyptians mined turquoise in Sinai at two locations, Wadi Maghareh and Serabit el-Khadem. They were operated on and off on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable. These may be the first known mines.
