Environmental and Historical Context
Economic Transformations
Social Geographies
Urban Trends
Geopolitics and Subregions
100
The process by which water is transferred from land to the atmosphere by evaporation from soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants.
What is Evapotranspiration?
100
A nomadic people living in the desert regions of the Middle East and North Africa.
Who are the Bedouin?
100
A belief and adherence to the idea that Jewish people should be allowed to establish and maintain their own state in Israel.
What is Zionism?
100
A country in which the city and the state are essentially one and the same.
What are city-states?
100
The cultural development in fourteenth-century Europe, centered in Italy, that drew upon classical learning.
What is the Renaissance?
200
A grassy plain that contains few trees.
What is the Savannah?
200
A crop that is easy to bring to market and is also considered a primary good, such as wheat.
What are cash crops?
200
The Christian Church in Egypt, one of the oldest in the world.
What is Coptic Christian?
200
The period in Europe from roughly 500 to 1100 associated with limited urban growth, economic development, or knowledge production.
What were the Dark Ages?
200
A political party that ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003.
What is Baathist?
300
A series of protests in countries in the Middle East and North Africa that began in 2010 and called for the removal of authoritarian regimes.
What is the Arab Spring?
300
The war resulting from the attack in 1973 of Israel by Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.
What is the Yom Kippur War?
300
The pilgrimage to Mecca required of all devout Muslims at least once in their lives.
What is hajj?
300
The name given to big-name, well-known architects who participate in construction to market or brand a city.
Who are starchitects?
300
The re-creation of a transnational authority guided by Islamic principles; it is a long-held belief of many Sunni fundamentalists.
What is Caliphate?
400
A high-density area found in the city center in the Muslim world.
What is Medina?
400
A trade cartel of oil-producing states, mostly Middle Eastern, which uses its power to influence global oil markets.
What is OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Countries)?
400
A rapid increase in the number of people between the ages of 15 and 24 years.
What is the youth bulge?
400
A tall tower in a mosque initially used to call worshippers to prayer.
What is a minaret?
400
A communal settlement in Israel.
What is a kibbutz?
500
Originally refers to a manuscript in which the original script was overlain by subsequent scripts but some still remain visible.
What is a Palimpsest?
500
An economic development strategy marked by protectionist policies in order to bolster local growth.
What is import substitution?
500
A more formalized written standard form of Arabic that is commonly used across the Arab-speaking world, in contrast to the multiple forms of spoken Arabic.
What is Modern Standard Arabic?
500
A veil typically worn by Muslim women.
What is a hijab?
500
An austere form of Sunni fundamentalism in the Islam religion that is heavily promoted by Saudi Arabia.
What is Wahhabism?