Fertile Crescent

The Fertile Crescent is a historical region in the Middle East shaped like a crescent moon. It encompasses Mesopotamia and a section of the Levant, spanning parts of modern-day Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, and southwestern Iran.

Known for its rich soils deposited by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, it played a pivotal role in the development of agriculture and animal domestication. This led to the rise of some of the world’s earliest civilizations, like Sumer and Babylonia. Below is the ancient Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur in Dhi Qar, southern Iraq.