The Negev (of the Hebrew : נֶגֶב ; in Arab: النقب - year-Naqab ) is a desert area of the south of Israel. In Hebrew biblical, Negev means " sud". Negev covers the greatest part of the southern District of Israel.

Geography

Geographically, of a surface of 13.000km ², this desert forms a reversed triangle whose west coast is contiguous with the desert of the peninsula of the the Sinai and whose limit East is the Wadi Arabah.

Population

The principal city is Beer-Sheva (200 000 inhabitants approximately) in north. The southern limit is the gulf of Eilat and Aqaba and the Israeli balneal city of Eilat. Among the other cities, one finds Dimona and Mitzpe Ramon and of the cities Bedouins of which Rahat and Such Sheva.

Negev constitutes 60% of the surface of the State of Israel but shelters only 8% of its population, including one strong community of Bedouin (25% of the regional population).

Geology

One finds there several curiosities geological and cultural, in particular three large circuses or machteshim , single in the area: ha-Machtesh ha-Gadol (" Large the cratère"), ha-Machtesh ha-Katan (" Small the cratère") and the Crater Ramon. This last is vastest of the three. They are not craters of impact.

History

On the historical level, it was also the theater of the activities of the civilization of the Nabatéens which founded there the city of Avdat, the ancient Oboda, on the route of their caravans connecting Petra in particular.

Development

Today, this area is at the center of the Israeli diary of development of the country by many programmes of reafforestation of the desert, of establishment of new immigrants and economic development in order to unchoke the coastal littoral. In this respect, a new rail link was inaugurated in 2005 between Tel Aviv and Beer-Sheva, the “capital of the desert ”, in order to facilitate the decompartmentalization of this portion of the territory. Negev is also known on the international plan because it shelters the installations of the Nuclear plant of Dimona, the heart of the military nuclear program of Israel.

In 2006, a new ministry directed by the former Prime Minister Shimon Peres was created exclusively for the mission of refleurir the Negev desert from here the year 2015 (and also to make thrive the northern area of the Galileo.