Mapping the Fertile Crescent!

Our unit about the Middle East begins with the geography of the region. When ancient
civilizations began 10,000 years ago, they used the land to help their community
prosper, or grow. The best place for them to do well was in the Fertile Crescent, a land
with plenty of water sources.

Let’s map where that is in the Middle East!

Directions:
1. Write “Fertile Crescent” at the top of the map – this is the title.
2. Label the three rivers in pencil:
Nile River
Euphrates River
Tigris River
3. Label the bodies of water in pencil:
Mediterranean Sea
Black Sea
Caspian Sea
Persian Gulf
Red Sea
4. Label the civilizations in all CAPITAL LETTERS in pencil
EGYPT
MESOPOTAMIA
PHOENICIA
5. Go over everything you wrote in pencil with a black sharpie.
6. Color the rivers and bodies of water blue.
Create/update your key
7. Color the fertile crescent green.
Update your key
Mapping the Fertile Crescent!

Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent is a part of the Middle East where some of the world’s first
civilizations began. In ancient times the land there was fertile, or good for growing crops.
On a map, the land forms the shape of a crescent moon. The Fertile Crescent extends
from the Persian Gulf to the Nile River valley. It includes the areas known as
Mesopotamia and Phoenicia.

The people of Mesopotamia (now Iraq) may have settled in villages as long ago as 8000
BCE. They farmed the land near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. By about 3500 BCE
they may have built cities. They also developed governments, laws, and writing.
Historians describe such a society as civilized.

Another early civilization arose in ancient Egypt. Soon after 5000 BCE people were
raising crops using water from the Nile.

Adapted from - "Fertile Crescent." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 5 Aug.

2019.school.eb.com/levels/elementary/article/Fertile-Crescent/346114. Accessed 15 Nov. 2019.

Go to Canvas and answer questions using your map and

the short reading above.