the Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia.

A peninsula is a piece of land extending out into a body of water that is still connected to mainland or a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland, for example, the upper and lower peninsulas of the state of Michigan, the peninsula of downtown Vancouver, or the Niagara peninsula.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula.

Asia is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres and sharing the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe.

The Sinai Peninsula by Ike Gomez

It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Africa.

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant.

A land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands.

Sinai Militarization and the Israel-Egypt Treaty (Dispatch) by Stratfor

Sinai has a land area of about 60,000 km2 and a population of approximately 1,400,000 people.

Administratively, the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two governorates: the South Sinai Governorate and the North Sinai Governorate.

Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north.

Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate.

Port Said is a city that lies in north east Egypt extending about 30 kilometres along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Suez Canal, with an approximate population of 603,787.

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez.

The Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt.

This comes in stark contrast to the region north of it, the Levant, which, due largely to its strategic geopolitical location and cultural convergences, has historically been the center of conflict between Egypt and various states of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.

Mesopotamia was a historical region situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders.

Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey.

The Levant is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the eastern Mediterranean.

In periods of foreign occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom.

The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, Ottoman Turkey, was an empire founded at the end of the thirteenth century in northwestern Anatolia in the vicinity of Bilecik and Söğüt by the Oghuz Turkish tribal leader Osman.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe.

Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956, and during the Six-Day War of 1967.

The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War, or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967 by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

The Suez Crisis, also named the Tripartite Aggression and the Kadesh Operation or Sinai War, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France.

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea.

On 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was unsuccessful.

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War, or October War, also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, was a war fought by the coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel from October 6 to 25, 1973.

In 1982, as a result of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel withdrew from all of the Sinai Peninsula except the contentious territory of Taba, which was returned after a ruling by a commission of arbitration in 1989.

The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., United States on 26 March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords.

Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its natural setting, rich coral reefs, and biblical history.

Coral reefs are diverse underwater ecosystems held together by calcium carbonate structures secreted by corals.

Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in the Abrahamic faiths.

The Abrahamic religions, also referred to collectively as Abrahamism, are a group of Semitic-originated religious communities of faith that claim descent from the Judaism of the ancient Israelites and the worship of the God of Abraham.

Mount Sinai, also known as Mount Horeb or Gabal Musa, is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai, which is considered a holy site by the Abrahamic religions.