Geography of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent
People began to settle in Mesopotamia (land between the Tigris and Euphrates) about 8,000 years ago. Mesopotamia possessed some of the best farmland in the ancient world. The valuable farmland of Mesopotamia allowed ancient hunter-gatherers to settle in Mesopotamia and eventually develop cities.
Mesopotamia means ‘land between the rivers’. Mesopotamia is located between the Tigris River and Euphrates River in the eastern Mediterranean as well as (farther away) between the Zagros Mountains and the Arabian Plateau. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flow from modern-day Turkey through modern-day Iraq to the Persian Gulf.
Mesopotamia was part of the ‘Fertile Crescent’ which means the area possessed fertile soil and farmable land. The fertile soil and farmable land allowed people to farm (and herd animals) and therefore settle in one place (rather than live as hunter-gatherers) and eventually develop cities.
Floods of the Tigris and Euphrates
Mesopotamia is surrounded by desert and does not get enough rain (under 10 inches a year) to grow many crops. Therefore, Mesopotamia depended on the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates for farming. The floods of the Tigris and Euphrates would leave behind silt deposits. Silt is good soil for farming. The Tigris and Euphrates also provided a source of water and irrigation canals moved water to farmland to help grow crops.
While the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates made farming possible (and prevented starvation), the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates were destructive and unpredictable. Floods could destroy farmland (by washing away topsoil) and villages. Sometimes Mesopotamia would face long periods of time without flooding or rain. Droughts (long periods of little or no rain) brought famine (starvation) and caused empires to crumble (such as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia).
Mesopotamians dug irrigation canals to bring the water to the fields or to storage, as well as to divert flood water away from fields and villages (to limit the damage from floods).