Key Facts
- Israel has tremendously diverse geographical locations and ranges.
- Israel is very small and narrow in size – approximately 1/480th the size of Canada.
Israel is located in the Middle East, along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. It lies at the junction of three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.
Long and narrow in shape, Israel is about 470 km (290 miles) in length and 135 km (85 miles) at its widest point. At 20,700 square kilometres, it is approximately 2/3 the size of Vancouver Island. Near the mid-point of the country, in the densely populated coastal plain north of Tel Aviv, the distance between the West Bank and the Mediterranean is only 15 km – less than the drive across Canada’s largest cities.
Although small in size, Israel encompasses the varied topographical features of an entire continent, ranging from forested highlands and fertile green valleys to mountainous deserts, and from the coastal plain to the semitropical Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea (which is the lowest point on the planet). Approximately half of the country’s land area is semi-arid.
Further Reading
Videos
Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemTheMovie on Vimeo.
