---
title: "25 Interesting Facts About Middle Eastern Countries – Part 5 of 5"
url: https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-interesting-facts-about-middle-eastern-countries-part-5-of-5/
date: 2015-11-06
modified: 2017-01-18
lang: en
author: "Admin"
description: "Here is the part 5 of the 5 part series on facts about Middle Eastern Countries. For part 4, click here. 1-5 Middle East Facts 1. Saudi Arabia has used..."
categories:
  - "Asian"
  - "Countries"
  - "Fact List"
tags:
  - "Countries"
image: https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Turkey.jpg
word_count: 901
---

# 25 Interesting Facts About Middle Eastern Countries – Part 5 of 5

Here is the part 5 of the 5 part series on facts about Middle Eastern Countries. For part 4, [click here](https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-interesting-facts-about-middle-eastern-countries-part-4-of-5/).

## 1-5 Middle East Facts

[![February 2002, As-Sulayyil, Saudi Arabia --- Circle pivot irrigation, fed by wells pumping fossil water from aquifer. --- Image by © George Steinmetz/Corbis](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SaudiWaterCrisis_thumb.jpg)](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SaudiWaterCrisis.jpg)

1. Saudi Arabia has used up all its groundwater after three decades of irrational farming practices in desert and will soon need to import all its food in the near future. - [Source](https://www.revealnews.org/article/what-california-can-learn-from-saudi-arabias-water-mystery/)

2. In 2002, a fire at a girls’ school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia killed fifteen girls. It has been strongly suggested that their deaths occurred due to the involvement of the “religious police,” who prevented them from leaving the building because the girls were not wearing correct Islamic dress. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Mecca_girls)

3. 350 million years ago, there existed a 20 foot tall mushroom in Saudi Arabia. It was likely the largest living thing on dry land at that time. - [Source](http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/24/us-fossil-fungus-odd-idUSKUA44543520070424)

4. Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any rivers. - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_without_rivers)

5. Saudi Arabia promotes practice of marriage between close relatives which has resulted in high level of several genetic disorder including thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, spinal muscular atrophy, deafness and muteness. – [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia#Inbreeding)

## 6-10 Middle East Facts

[![Saudi Arabia Camels](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SaudiArabiaCamels_thumb.jpg)](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SaudiArabiaCamels.jpg)

6. Saudi Arabia imports sand and camels from Australia. - [Source](http://adrian-learnsomethingneweveryday.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/24-feb-2012-saudi-arabia-imports-sand.html)

7. Movie theaters have been banned in Saudi Arabia since the 1980s. - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Saudi_Arabia#Restrictions_on_cinema)

8. There is a surviving fantasy novel written in the 2nd century A.D. in Roman Syria that features explorers flying to the moon, a first encounter with aliens, interplanetary war between imperialistic celestial kingdoms, and the discovery of a continent across the ocean. - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_History)

9. In 1930 a zoologist went to Syria and brought back 11 newly discovered hamsters. Only 2 of them bred and their offspring were sent to laboratories around the world. Today, the hamsters you see in pet stores are most likely descendants of those two hamsters. - [Source](http://wap.npr.org/news/Science/135268583)

10. In June 1974, while President Nixon was on his way to a scheduled stop in Syria, Syrian fighter jets intercepted Air Force One to act as escorts. However, the Air Force One crew was not informed in advance and, as a result, took evasive action including a dive. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_One#Boeing_747s)

## 11-15 Middle East Facts

[![Assassin order](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Assassinorder_thumb.jpg)](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Assassinorder.jpg)

11. The assassin order in the Assassin’s Creed video game series was actually based on a real order of assassins that existed in Persia and Syria from the 11th-13th century. - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins)

12. When Turkey objected to the inclusion of Mount Ararat located on Turkish territory on Armenian’s soviet coat of arms, Nikita Khrushchev replied “Why do you have a moon depicted on your flag? After all, the moon doesn't belong to Turkey.” - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Soviet_Socialist_Republic#Culture_and_life)

13. In 1963, a man knocked down a wall of his home. Behind it, he discovered a mysterious room and soon discovered an intricate tunnel system with additional cave-like rooms. What he had discovered was the ancient Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey. - [Source](http://sometimes-interesting.com/2014/05/09/derinkuyu-the-underground-cities-of-cappadocia/)

14. An artist attempted to hitchhike from Milan to the Middle East in a wedding dress to promote world peace. She was gang raped and murdered in Turkey. A Turkish newspaper said “Let’s face it, if Pippa were a Turk, some people would feel freer to say that a hitchhiking woman deserves to be raped.” - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_Bacca)

15. The term “genocide” was coined to describe the mass killing of the Armenians in modern day Turkey in 1915. An estimated 1-2 million people were killed, wiping out much of the Armenian people’s heritage and history. - [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide)

## 16-20 Middle East Facts

[![Turkey megaliths](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Turkeymegaliths_thumb.jpg)](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Turkeymegaliths.jpg)

16. A nomadic tribe lived over 12,000 years ago in Turkey and built massive megaliths in over 25-acre area. At that time mankind only knew how to make fire and had not discovered the wheel yet. Excavations are still going on today. - [Source](http://archive.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html)

17. A few hundred years back, women in Turkey could legally divorce their husbands if he didn’t provide them with enough coffee. - [Source](http://www.themadtraveleronline.com/articles/turkish-coffee-its-past-and-your-future/)

18. Sheep commit mass suicide. The largest recorded instance was in 2005, in Turkey where 1,500 sheep followed each other over the edge of a cliff resulting in 450 deaths and approximately $100,000 in losses to the families who owned them. - [Source](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/4665511.stm)

19. In 1876, the Sultan of Turkey gave marijuana to the United States as a gift. By 1880, Turkish smoking parlors were opened all over the northeastern U.S. - [Source](http://brainz.org/420-milestones-history-marijuana/)

20. Despite being a major oil exporter, the UAE asks for a renewal of the Kyoto protocol and is a major investor in solar power. - [Source](http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/sustainable-earth/pictures-ten-countries-with-the-biggest-footprints/)

## 21-25 Middle East Facts

[![Burj Khalifa](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BurjKhalifa_thumb.jpg)](https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BurjKhalifa.jpg)

21. The Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure in the world, is named after a living person-- the President of the United Arab Emirates Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalifa_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan)

22. In 1997, 3 men from Yemen tried to sue NASA for invading Mars, claiming they had inherited it from their ancestors 3,000 years ago. - [Source](http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9707/24/yemen.mars)

23. Due to its isolation, a third of the plant life on the island of Socotra (Yemen) is found nowhere else on the planet. It has been described as “most alien-looking place on Earth.” - [Source](http://www.binscorner.com/pages/s/strange-plants-of-socotra-island.html?z=10)

24. Chewing of the drug Khat is so popular in Yemen that its cultivation accounts for 40% of the desert nation’s water use. - [Source](http://news.sky.com/story/752130/yemen-legal-high-is-fueling-extremism)

25. The coffee term “mocha” derives its name from the city of Mocha, Yemen. - [Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_mocha#Origin)