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Comprising 58% of the national territory, it occupies an important part of the country and explains the low
percentage of cultivated areas. All lands receiving less than 150 mm. of rain per year are considered desert and
sub-desert areas. Strips at the edge of the desert with some rainfall are generally cultivated, but the poor condition
of their villages betray the very hazardous character of the crops: prosperous years are extremely rare.
The oasis at the foot of the Palmyrene mountains, this range which goes askew from the Anti-Lebanon at an altitude
nearing 1400m. lie beside very often sulphurous water springs. They are very mediocre, including that of Palmyra,
the most important, whose date-palm trees yield small quantities of fruits, although excellent. Oasis and meager
water points, more or less mephitic, are used as stops by the bedouins, nomadic shepherds who, between Syria, Iraq,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia breed camels and especially sheep. The time exists no longer when camel caravans constituted
Bedouin aristocracy: the two good tarmacked roads crossing the desert from East to West are used by numerous trucks.
The desert area is submitted to a strictly continental climate which the decreasing altitude towards the Middle-Euphrates
basin does not temperate. Summers are long and torrid and winters are short but severe.
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