The Dead Sea is a salt lake between the West Bank/Palestine/Israel to the west and Jordan to the east. At 420 metres below sea level, its shores are the lowest point on Earth that are on dry land. With 30 percent salinity, it is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean. The Dead Sea (Hebrew: יָם הַמֶּלַח, Yām Ha-Melaḥ, "Sea of Salt"; Arabic: البَحْر المَيّت, al-Baḥr l-Mayyit, "Dead Sea";) is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east. It is 422 metres (1,385 ft) below sea level,[2] and its shores are the lowest point on the surface of Earth on dry land. The Dead Sea is 378 m (1,240 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, with 33.7% salinity. Only Lake Assal (Djibouti), Garabogazköl and some hypersaline lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica (such as Don Juan Pond and perhaps Lake Vanda) have a higher salinity. It is 8.6 times as salty as the ocean.[3] This salinity makes for a harsh environment where animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 67 kilometres (42 mi) long and 18 kilometres (11 mi) wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets. etween Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan. The Dead Sea is actually a big inland lake 76 KM long, up to 18 KM wide and it is 400 meters deep at the deepest point. It is the lowest point on dry land in the world (417 under sea level). Another record held by the Dead Sea is having the highest salt concentration of any of the world's seas, salt lakes or any stretch of water. The salt concentration in the dead sea is ten times higher than other seas (for example: the salt concentration in the Dead Sea is 34%, while the concentration in the Mediterranean sea is only 3.5%). This high salt concentration makes floating in its waters effortless.
The Dead Sea is drying quickly. 2,000-3,000 years ago, the level of the Dead Sea was 360 meters below sea level. However, diversion of sweet water from the Jordan river since 1950, by both Jordan and Israel, has reduced to less than the half the flow of water from the Jordan river into the Dead Sea. Today, water evaporation is faster than the water supply and the sea is gradually shrinking. Over the last 30 years, water levels have dropped 25 meters. This fall of the Dead Sea level has caused another strange and problematic phenomenon in the area. At points where rivers flow into the Dead Sea, (such as Nahal David and Nahal Arugot in the Ein Gedi area), the water is absorbed by the sandy ground and streams underground into the Sea. Because of the fall in the Dead Sea level, the underground rivers flow faster, and carry clay sediments: thus large underground caves have been formed, which sometimes collapse unexpectedly, and people have fallen down holes a few meters deep. This phenomenon causes great damages to tourism and local industries. Known in the Bible as the "Salt Sea" or the "Sea of the Arabah," this inland body of water is appropriately named because its high mineral content allows nothing to live in its waters. Other post-biblical names for the Dead Sea include the "Sea of Sodom," the "Sea of Lot," the "Sea of Asphalt" and the "Stinking Sea." In the Crusader period, it was sometimes called the "Devil's Sea." All of these names reflect something of the nature of this lake. Dead Sea salt lake, c.390 sq mi (1,010 sq km), extending c.45 mi (70 km) in the Jordan trough of the Great Rift Valley between the Ghor on the north and Wadi Arabah on the south, on the border between Israel and the West Bank (W) and Jordan (E). The shore of the Dead Sea, historically about 1,295 ft (395 m) below sea level but now some 50 ft (15 m) lower, is the lowest dry point on earth. Situated between steep, rocky cliffs, 2,500 to 4,000 ft (762-1,219 m) high, the sea is divided by the Al Lisan peninsula into two basins—a larger northern basin c.1,300 ft (400 m) deep, and a smaller, shallow southern basin, now separated from the northern basin and divided into salt ponds. The lake is fed by the Jordan River and a number of small streams; it has no outlet. Because it is located in a very hot and dry region, the Dead Sea loses much water through evaporation; its level
Dead Sea, salt lake in southwestern Asia. Bounded on the west by Israel and the West Bank and on the east by Jordan, the Dead Sea forms part of the Israeli-Jordanian border. The surface of the Dead Sea, 418 m (1,371 ft) below sea level as of 2006, is the lowest water surface on earth. The lake is 80 km (50 mi) long and has a maximum width of 18 km (11 mi); its area is 1,020 sq km (394 sq mi). The Dead Sea occupies a north portion of the Great Rift Valley. On the east the high plateau of Moab rises about 1,340 m (about 4,400 ft) above the sea; on the west the plateau of Judea rises to half that height. From the eastern shore a peninsula juts out into the lake. To the south of this peninsula the lake is shallow, less than 6 m (less than 20 ft) deep; to the north lies its greatest depth. The Dead Sea is fed mainly by the Jordan River, which enters the lake from the north. Several smaller streams also enter the sea, chiefly from the east. The lake has no outlet, and the heavy inflow of fresh water is carried off solely by evaporation, which is rapid in the hot desert climate. Due to large-scale projects by Israel and Jordan to divert water from the Jordan River for irrigation and other water needs, the surface of the Dead Sea has been dropping for at least the past 50 years. Nearly nine times as salty as the ocean, the Dead Sea contains at a depth of 305 m (1,000 ft) some 27 percent solid substances: sodium chloride (common salt), magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium bromide, and many other substances. Because of the density of solids in the water, the human body easily floats on the surface. The lake contains no life except for a few kinds of microbes; sea fish put into its waters soon die. The Dead Sea is economically important as a source of potash, bromine, gypsum, salt, and other chemical products, which are extracted inexpensively. The shores of the Dead Sea are of growing importance as a winter health resort. The lake is closely associated with biblical history; the sites of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to lie beneath the lake.
