Natural wonders of the Middle East

Every wonder in the atlas that sits in the Middle East, across 7 countries. This region grows as the atlas expands.

Al Wahbah Crater

Harrat Kishb, Makkah Province, western Saudi Arabia

A two-kilometre hole in the Arabian desert with a floor of white salt crystals — long assumed to be a meteorite crater, and in fact the scar of a steam explosion from below.

Volcano Middle East

Badab-e Surt

Mazandaran Province, northern Iran

A hillside staircase of terraced mineral pools in northern Iran, stained deep orange and red by iron-rich spring water and built up over thousands of years into stepped basins of travertine.

Hot spring Middle East

Cappadocia

Central Anatolia, Turkey

A dreamlike landscape of 'fairy chimneys' — tapering cones and pinnacles of soft volcanic rock carved by erosion, honeycombed with ancient cave homes and churches, and famous for its dawn balloon flights.

Rock formation Middle East

Dana Biosphere Reserve

Tafilah Governorate, along the Great Rift Valley, Jordan

Jordan's largest nature reserve — a sweep of mountain ridges and sandstone canyons tumbling from a 1,500-metre plateau down to the desert of Wadi Araba, spanning several bioclimatic zones in a single dramatic descent.

Canyon Middle East

Hormuz Island

Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, southern Iran

A small 'rainbow island' in the Strait of Hormuz where salt-dome geology paints the hills and beaches in red, ochre, and a spectrum of mineral colours — including sand you can taste.

Island Middle East

Jebel Shams

Al Hajar Mountains, northern Oman

Oman's highest mountain, whose sheer rim plunges into the vast Wadi Ghul — the 'Grand Canyon of Arabia' — a mile-deep gorge of banded rock and vertiginous cliffs.

Mountain Middle East

Lut Desert

Kerman & Sistan provinces, southeastern Iran

One of the hottest and most surreal deserts on Earth — a sea of wind-carved ridges called kaluts that stretch to the horizon, where satellites have recorded record land-surface temperatures.

Desert & dunes Middle East

Ma'in Hot Springs

Between Madaba and the Dead Sea, Madaba Governorate, Jordan

A cluster of geothermal waterfalls tumbling down a desert canyon near the Dead Sea — hot, mineral-rich water heated deep underground and prized for its healing warmth since Roman times.

Hot spring Middle East

Mount Ararat

Iğdır Province, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey

Turkey's highest peak — a snow-capped dormant volcano of two joined cones rising in near-perfect isolation above the plains of the Armenian highlands, its ice cap visible a hundred kilometres away.

Volcano Middle East

Mount Damavand

Alborz range, Mazandaran Province, northern Iran

The highest peak in Iran and in the whole Middle East — a near-symmetrical stratovolcano above the Alborz range, with sulphur fumaroles still venting at the summit crater and hot springs on its flanks.

Volcano Middle East

Ölüdeniz

Fethiye, Muğla Province, southwest Turkey

A sheltered turquoise lagoon sealed off from the open Aegean by a slender sand spit, backed by the pine-clad wall of Babadağ — one of the world's premier paragliding launches — and the cliff-ringed cove of Butterfly Valley nearby.

Beach & coast Middle East

Pamukkale

Denizli Province, southwestern Turkey

The 'Cotton Castle' — a dazzling white hillside of terraced travertine pools formed by mineral-rich hot springs, where warm turquoise water spills over blindingly white stone terraces.

Hot spring Middle East

Rub' al Khali

Southern Arabian Peninsula

The Empty Quarter — the largest continuous sand desert on Earth, a sea of dunes up to 250 metres tall rolling across an area larger than France.

Desert & dunes Middle East

Saklıkent Gorge

Muğla Province, near Fethiye, southwest Turkey

A hidden slot canyon of the Taurus Mountains — a chasm up to 300 m deep and around 18 km long, so narrow in places you can touch both walls, cut by the icy Esen River behind the beaches of the Turquoise Coast.

Canyon Middle East

Socotra

Socotra Archipelago, Arabian Sea, Yemen

An isolated Indian Ocean island of such strange, ancient life that it's been called the 'Galápagos of the Indian Ocean' — home to umbrella-shaped dragon's blood trees and hundreds of plants found nowhere else on Earth.

Island Middle East

The Asir Mountains

Asir Province, southwestern Saudi Arabia

A green, misty mountain range in Saudi Arabia's southwest — terraced highlands and juniper forests, cooled by monsoon cloud, that overturn every expectation of the desert kingdom.

Mountain Middle East

The Dead Sea

Jordan Rift Valley, Jordan / Israel / West Bank

The lowest point on the surface of the Earth — a hypersaline lake so dense with salt and minerals that swimmers float effortlessly, cradled in the desert far below sea level.

Lake Middle East

The Edge of the World

Jebel Fihrayn, near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

A dramatic cliff-edge of the Tuwaiq escarpment near Riyadh, where an ancient seabed drops away hundreds of metres to a vast plain that stretches unbroken to the horizon.

Rock formation Middle East

The Farasan Islands

Red Sea, off Jazan, southwestern Saudi Arabia

A low, coral-fringed archipelago in the southern Red Sea — turquoise shallows, mangroves, and reefs that shelter dugongs, nesting seabirds, and a gazelle found nowhere else.

Island Middle East

The Wahiba Sands

Ash Sharqiyah, eastern Oman

A sea of red-gold dunes rolling for well over a hundred kilometres across eastern Oman — classic Arabian desert, home to the Bedouin and their camels.

Desert & dunes Middle East

Wadi Al-Hitan

Faiyum Governorate, Western Desert, Egypt

A stretch of Egyptian desert holding the best fossil record anywhere of whales learning to leave the land — hundreds of skeletons of archaic whales, some still with hind legs, lying where a shallow sea left them.

Desert & dunes Middle East

Wadi Mujib

Mujib Biosphere Reserve, east of the Dead Sea, Jordan

A sandstone river canyon plunging into the Dead Sea — the lowest nature reserve on Earth — where a warm perennial stream lets visitors wade, swim and scramble up a slot gorge between towering red walls.

Canyon Middle East

Wadi Rum

Southern Jordan

The 'Valley of the Moon' — a vast desert of red and gold sand studded with towering sandstone and granite mountains, sculpted by wind into arches, canyons, and sheer cliffs beneath enormous skies.

Desert & dunes Middle East

Wadi Shab

Ash Sharqiyah coast, northeastern Oman

A palm-fringed canyon on Oman's coast where a hike between sheer cliffs leads to a chain of turquoise pools — and a hidden waterfall tucked inside a cave chamber.

Canyon Middle East