The Arab Republic of Egypt

The Arab Republic of Egypt occupies the north-eastern corner of the African con­tinent, with an extension across the Gulf of Suez into the Sinai region. The Suez Canal is of immense importance for the country. The area of Egypt is approximately 386,200 sq. miles (1,000,000 sq. km); but of this only four per cent can be said to be permanently settled, the remainder being desert or marsh. The country lies between Lat. 22° and 32° N; and the greatest distance from north to south is about 674 miles (1024 km), and from east to west 770 miles (1240 km), giving the country a roughly square shape, with the Mediterranean and Red Seas for­ming respectively the northern and eastern boundaries. The Arab Republic of Egypt has frontiers in the east with Israel, in the south with the Su­dan, and in the west with Libya.

The country consists essentially of a narrow, trough like val­ley, cut by the River Nile in the plateau of north-east Africa. The fertile strip of the Nile Valley is isolated in the south by the ca­taracts and by the deserts and swamps of the Sudan; in the North by the Mediterranean Sea; and to east and west by desert plateaus.

West of the Nile stretch the vast expanses known as the We­stern Desert. Though by no means unified in height, the land surface is much lower than that east of the Nile, and rarely ex­ceeds 1,000 ft above sea-level. Parts are covered by extensive masses of light shifting sand that often form dunes; but in addi­tion there is a number of large depressions, some with the lowest parts actually below sea-level. These depressions seem to have been hollowed out by wind action, breaking up rock strata that were weakened by the pressure of underground water, and most hollows still contain supplies of artesian water.

The main feature of the climate is the almost uniform aridity. Alexandria, the wettest part, receives only 8 inches of rain annu­ally, and most of the south has 3 inches or less. In many districts rain may fall in quantity only once in two or three years, and it is fit to recall that throughout most of the country, and even in Cairo itself, the majority of the people live in houses of unba­ked, sundried brick. During the summer temperatures are extre­mely high, reaching 100—110° F at times, and even 120° in the southern and western deserts, owing to the large extent of de­sert, hot dry sand-winds are fairly frequent, particularly in spring, and much damage can be caused to crops.

Active vocabulary

Area, arid, aridity, bay, border, alluvial, altitude, annual, archipelago, climate (continental, humid, mariti­me, moderate, markedly continen­tal, tropical, temperate, sub-tropical), coast, coastal, coast-line, crop, delta, deposit, depression, desert, semi-desert, drainage, drought, droughty, equator, equatorial, evaporation, extreme, extremity, fauna, flora, flood, foot-hill, forest (deciduous, broadleaf, coniferous, mixed, swampy), freezing point, frontier, glacier, gulf, habitat, harvest, highland, humid, irrigation, jungle, latitude, lowland, meadow, mineral, monsoon, mountain (-range, -belt, -mass), navigation, navigable, oasis (pl. oases), ocean, oceanic, ore (copper-, iron-, uranium-; of ferrous and of non-ferrous metals), peak, peninsula, plain, plateau, precipitation (heavy, scarce), predominate, predominant, prevail, prevalence, projection, rainfall, rapids, region, river-basin, rock, savanna(h), sea (seaboard, sea-level), slope, soil (black-, chestnut-, red-, barren, fertile), steppe-land, tableland, thicket, tributary, vegetation, volcano (active, extinct, dormant), waterfall.

Active vocabulary

Area, arid, aridity, bay, border (n), border on, alluvial, altitude, annual, archipelago, climate (continental, humid, mariti­me, moderate, markedly continen­tal, tropical, sub-tropical), coast, coastal, coast-line, crop, delta, deposit, depression, desert, semi-desert, drainage, drought, droughty, equator, equatorial, evaporation, extreme, extremity, fauna, flood, foot-hill, forest (coniferous, mixed, swampy), freezing point, frontier, glacier, gulf, habitat, harvest, highland, humid, irrigation, jungle, latitude, lowland, meadow, mineral, monsoon, mountain (-range, -belt, -mass), navigation, navigable, oasis, -es, ocean, oceanic, ore (copper-, iron-, uranium-; of ferrous

and of non-ferrous metals), peak, peninsula, plain, plateau, precipitation (heavy, scarce), predominate, predominant, prevail, prevalence, projection, rainfall, rapids, region, river-basin rock, savanna(h), sea (seaboard, sea-level), slope, soil, (black-, chestnut-, red-, barren-, fertile) steppeland, tableland, thicket, tributary, vegetation, volcano (active, extinct), waterfall.

PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES

The Plateau of Iran

The Plateau of Arabia

The Pamirs

The Tibet

Main plateaus mountain ranges and peaks of Asia

The Deccan Plateau

The Taurus

The Elburz

The Caucasus

The Tien Shan

The Kunlun

The Himalayas

The Karakoram

Chomolungma Mount (Mount Everest)

Main plateaus, mountain ranges and peaks of Africa

The South African Plateau

The East African Plateau

The Drakensberg Mountains

The Cape Mountains

The Abyssinian Highlands

The Atlas Mountains

Mount Cameroon

Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kenya

Main deserts of Asia

The Kara Kum

The Gobi Desert

The Thar Desert

Main deserts of Africa

The Sahara

The Kalahari

The Libyan Desert

The Arabian Desert

Main rivers of Asia

(The Pacific and the Indian Ocean drainage)

The Yangtze

The Hwang Ho

The Mekong

The Amur

The Indus

The Brahmaputra

The Euphrates

The Ganges

The Salween

The Tarim

The Irrawady

The Tigris

Main rivers of Africa

The Nile

The Congo

The Niger

The Zambezi

The Orange

The Kubango

The Limpopo

The Senegal