Geography
Liwa Oasis is about 100 km south of the Persian Gulf coast and 150 km SSW of the city of Abu Dhabi in the Al Gharbia (Western) Region, on the northern edge of Rub' al Khali desert. It is centered around 23°08′N 53°46′E / 23.133°N 53.767°E / 23.133; 53.767 and stretches about 100 km east-west, along an arch curved to the north. It consists of some 50 villages. The geographic and economic center of the oasis is Muzayri`, where the highway from Abu Dhabi enters the oasis and then divides to the east (65 km to the easternmost village, Mahdar Bin `Usayyan) and west (45 km to the westernmost village, `Aradah).
According to the census of population of 2005, the population was 20,196. Earlier estimates judging from satellite images which gauged the population at 50,000 to 150,000, were too high.
The villages of Liwa Oasis are the southernmost settlements of Abu Dhabi and of the United Arab Emirates. The southern border of Abu Dhabi with Saudi Arabia, which runs at a distance between 16 and 35 km to the Oasis, is a straight line in the Rub al Khali desert, which is largely uninhabited. Mahdar Bin `Usayyan is the southermost village of the Emirates, and also the easternmost of the oasis. 10 km south of the border, and 40 km south of the eastern part of the oasis is the Saudi oil facility Shaybah. However, there is no road linking Liwa Oasis and Shaybah, and no border crossing.
A modern, multilane highway connects the oasis area to the capital, Abu Dhabi.
Read more about this topic: Liwa Oasis
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)