The boundaries of the Middle East

This article presents a complicated process of shaping national borders in the Middle East. The author demonstrates the fact that present political boundaries were established mainly by the European countries, with the United Kingdom leading the way. National desires, colonial aspirations, imperial needs, all led to the unrealistic picture of the boundaries in the Middle East. The author analyzes the boundaries fallen into the following categories: those in which natural features influenced their location, boundaries which run along old Ottoman Empire administrative boundaries in the form of straight lines, the lines which follow man-made features, and ethnic lines. The aim of this paper is to focus on one of the neglected factors which determine the exact location of international boundaries in the Middle East, namely village boundaries. The examples of Israel-Palestine boundaries as well as the Syrian-Jordan boundary will be used to examine this phenomenon. Key words: Middle East, international boundaries. 1