Negev Desert
The Negev Desert is the dry southern half of Israel. It covers more than 60% of the country but is home to only approx. 8% of the population. The Negev contains some of the oldest known cities on Earth, the famous Dead Sea on its eastern edge, and the dramatic Ramon Crater (one of the world's largest natural craters). Israel has spent decades trying to bring agriculture to the Negev through advanced irrigation, with mixed success.
- Areaapprox. 13,000 km²Around 60% of all of Israel
- CountryIsraelIn the southern half of the country
- TypeSubtropical desertHot summers, mild winters
- Rainfall25 to 250 mm/yearIncreases sharply moving north
- Famous featureMakhtesh RamonOne of the world's largest erosion craters
- Famous trade routeThe Incense RouteAncient road from Arabia to the Mediterranean
The Negev compared to other Middle Eastern deserts
The Negev is small compared to its neighbours but punches above its weight in history and culture.
What is the Negev?
The Negev is a roughly triangular desert covering the southern half of Israel, from the south of the Dead Sea down to the Red Sea port of Eilat. The desert grades from semi-desert in the north (just dry enough that natural rainfall cannot support farming without irrigation) to true desert in the south. The terrain includes flat plains, eroded hills, dry river canyons (wadis) and the dramatic Ramon Crater.
The Ramon Crater
Makhtesh Ramon is the largest of three "makhtesim" in the Negev. A makhtesh is a unique kind of landform sometimes called an erosion crater, found only in this region. It looks like a giant impact crater, but it actually formed by water erosion working on a particular kind of geological structure (a soft layer surrounded by harder rock). Over millions of years the water cut down through the soft rock and washed it out through a single narrow exit, leaving a bowl 40 km long, 10 km wide and 500 metres deep. Ramon is now an Israeli national park.
The Nabataean cities
From around 300 BC to 100 AD, the Negev was crossed by a vital trade route called the Incense Route, carrying frankincense, myrrh and other valuable goods from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean ports of Gaza and Petra. The route was controlled by the Nabataean Kingdom (the same culture that built the famous rock-cut city of Petra in Jordan). The Nabataeans built four cities along the desert section of the route: Avdat, Mamshit, Haluza and Shivta. They developed brilliant water-management techniques to support agriculture and large populations in this dry land. The cities are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the routes are well preserved across the desert.
Modern desert farming
Modern Israel has invested huge amounts in trying to bring agriculture to the Negev. Israeli scientists invented drip irrigation in the 1960s, originally to grow crops in the Negev with minimum water waste. Today the technology is used worldwide. Israeli desert farms in the Negev grow vegetables, fruit, fish (in tanks) and even shrimp, using small amounts of brackish (slightly salty) groundwater. The Negev now produces a significant fraction of Israel's agricultural output.
Deeper dive: makhtesh geology, Nabataean water harvesting and the Bedouin issue
The Negev contains three of the world's only known makhteshim: Makhtesh Ramon (the largest, 40 by 10 km), Makhtesh Hagadol (the "Big Crater", 14 by 6 km) and Makhtesh Hakatan (the "Small Crater", 7 by 5 km). Makhteshim form where a layer of soft limestone or chalk sits surrounded by a ring of harder sandstone, with the whole structure tilted gently and uplifted. Water gradually cuts through the soft inner rock and washes it out through a single narrow river valley, leaving a giant flat-floored bowl with steep walls. Unlike impact craters or volcanic craters, makhteshim are erosion features. The only other known examples in the world are in the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli geographers have given makhtesh international standing as a distinct landform.
The Nabataean water-harvesting systems that supported their desert cities are still studied and partially reproduced today. The Nabataeans built elaborate networks of channels, terraces, dams and cisterns to collect water from rare desert rains across entire watersheds and concentrate it into specific farm plots. Their system could turn 200 mm of annual rain (barely enough to sustain plants normally) into reliable agricultural production. Modern Israeli ecologist Michael Evenari restored an ancient Nabataean farm at Avdat in the 1950s and showed that it could produce wheat and other crops without any modern irrigation, simply by using the ancient techniques. The work has inspired modern arid-zone agriculture from China to sub-Saharan Africa.
The Negev is also the home of the Bedouin communities of southern Israel. Around 200,000 Bedouin Arabs live in the desert, mostly descendants of nomadic tribes that have inhabited the region for centuries. Israeli policy has tried to settle the Bedouin in planned towns since the 1960s, with mixed results. Many Bedouin still live in unrecognised villages that lack basic services (water, electricity, sewage). Land disputes between the Israeli government and Bedouin communities have been ongoing for decades. The situation reflects the wider tensions between modern statehood and traditional nomadic culture.
The country is Israel. The neighbouring deserts are the Syrian Desert and the Arabian Desert.