The Arabah, Araba or Aravah (, hāʿĂrāḇā; , Wādī ʿAraba; lit. "dry area") is a loosely defined geographic area in the Negev Desert, south of the Dead Sea basin, which forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east.
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 watershed 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 and dry and virtually without rain.
Flora and fauna
There are numerous species of flora and fauna in the Aravah Valley.<ref>Henry Chichester Hart. 1891, Some account of the fauna and flora of Sinai, Petra, and Wâdy Arabah, 255 pages</ref> Notably the caracal (Caracal caracal'') is found on the valley's savanna areas.
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 sand partridges, garganeys, common cranes, black and white storks, Eurasian spoonbills and bitterns, black-winged stilts, desert tawny owls, lappet-faced vultures, Levant sparrowhawks, sooty falcons, Arabian warblers and babblers, Tristram's starlings, hooded wheatears 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, grey herons, great white pelicans, slender-billed curlews, marsh sandpipers, black-winged pratincoles, white-eyed gulls, white-winged terns, pallid scops owls, European honey buzzards, Egyptian vultures, eastern imperial eagles, lesser kestrels, lanner falcons, Arabian larks, Sinai rosefinches and cinereous buntings. On the eastern (Jordanian) side of the southern Arava Valley is the corresponding, , Wadi Araba IBA, about long by up to wide. An additional species recorded there is the vulnerable MacQueen's bustard, in very small numbers.
History
In Biblical times, the Arava was a center of copper production; King Solomon is believed to have had mines here based on copper mines dating to his reign. Copper mining at the Ashalim site even predates his reign. The Arabah, especially its eastern part, was part of the realm of the Edomites (called "Idumeans" during Roman times). Later the eastern Arabah became the domain of the Nabateans, the builders of the city of Petra.
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.