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Geography of the Mediterranean region
The sea of the thousand seas
According to F. Braudel, what we call Mediterraneum and looks like a homogeneous breack in the earth's crust is actually a very complicated region, divisible in no less than 4 subregions.
- The Black Sea area: a small patch of land, similar to a natural gate, at the Dardanelles isolates this part of the Mediterraneum from the major basin.
- The Adriatic area: the Straits of Otranto divides the Adriatic Sea from the major basin. The Straits is large only 70 km from Otranto (Italy) to Albania. The whole area was in past called also "Lake of Venice".
- The Aegean area: marked at south by the Isle of Crete, this portion of the Mediterranean divides Greece from Anatolia and it is a natural boundary between Europe and Asia.
- The Tyrrhenian area: delimited at south by Sicily, at west by Sardinia and Corsica and at East by Italy, this portion of the Mediterranean Sea is situated were the African and the European Plates meet, generating sismic phenomena.
According to F. Braudel, what is at East of the Straits of Otranto and at East of Sicily is in Eastern Europe, who is at West of them is also in Western Europe.
North and South Mediterraneum
Always according to F. Braudel, the Mediterranean Sea has been a crossroad of cultures because of its position, but the major differences remain between the northern coasts and the southern coasts, both culturally and geographically.
Geographically, the main characterist of the European side is its mountainous chains, very close to the sea, so close that sometimes it seems that they are falling in it: in Spain Pyrenees, in Italy the Alps, that especially on the Ligurian coast are just over to the sea, and the Appennines; in the Balkans the Balkan Mountains and the Dinaric Alps, in Greece the Pindus and Mount Olympus.
80% of Greece and 76% of Italy are covered by mounts and hills.
On the other hand, most of the Southern coast is flat, with exceptions in Morocco and Turkey, where are found the Atlas chain and the Taurus Mountains. But from Tunisia to Lebanon, the Southern coast is flat and the predominant colours are yellow and ochre of the desert, whereas it is very difficult to distinguish a trait of Greek coast from, for exemple, a trait of the Italian, Croatian or Spanish one.
Seen from the satellite, the two sides of the basin present very different looks:
The climate
The Mediterranean area is often thought to be the paradise of tourists, because also of its climate. Probably it is the main characterist of the Mediterraneum and it is pretty similar in all the areas that overlook on the sea.
In summer, a hot and dry stream from Sahara evelop the sea, creating the famous azure skies of the day and the stars are well visible and brighting during the night. The whole area becomes the paradise of water sports and attracts tourists from all over the world.
For other 6 months, instead, the oceanic pressure generates a cold season: storms and blizzards are common, the sea becomes grey and dim like the Baltic Sea and gusts hit the coasts. Rivers increase quickly their flows, floodings are frequent.
Life in the Mediterranean region is not easy and boucolic as it has often been depicted. All had to be built, and in this our ancestors and the old civilities of the Mediterraneum have been magisters. It needed a great discipline to make the soil productive and to conquest the progress.
Until some decades ago the major plague of the coasts were marshlands and malary. The oldest tries of drainage were made in Spain by Arabs; in Sicily, the wonderful Golden Valley (Conca D'Oro), a paradisiac garden of oranges and lemons, was possible only after the drainage of the XVI and XVII century.
Most vegetables that are cultivated around the basin today are not indigenous. Except wheat, olive tree, pine and vineyard, all the other products today celebrated by local cuisines have been imported: tomato from Chile, aubergines from India, mais from Mexico, citrus fruits, peaches and apricots from Persia, prickly pears from Mexico, beans from southern America.
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