ARAI3GIR', or ARABRIR (anc. Anabrace), a t. of Asiatic Turkey. in the vilayet of Sivas. in a mountainous and rocky district, not far from the Euphrates, and 150 m. s.s.w. from Trebizond. It contains a pop. of about 30,000, nearly one fourth being Armenians, the other three fourths Turks. It is to the enterprise and industry of the Armenians that the t. owes its prosperity. It is specially noted for the manufacture of goods from English cotton yarn. The neighboring country is inhabited by Turcomans.
by the inhabitants, Jezirat-al-Arah (the peninsula of A.); by the Turks and Persians, Arabistiln—is the great south-western peninsula of Asia, and is situated 12° 40' to 34° n. lat., and 32° 30' to 60° e. long. Its length from n. to a. is about 1500 m. ; its breadth, about 800; its area, 1,230,000 sq. m.; and its pop. is roughly estimated at 4,000,000. It is bounded on the n. by Asiatic Turkey; on the e., by the Persian gulf and the gulf of Oman; on the s., by the gulf of Oman and the Indian ocean; and on the w., by the Red sea. It is connected with Africa on the n.w. by the isthmus of Suez. Through the center of the land, between Mecca and Medina, runs the tropic of Cancer. The name A. has been derived by some froin Araba (which means a level waste), a dis trict in the province of Tehama; by otUrs, from Eber, a word signifying a nomad (" wanderer"), as the primitive Arabs were such. This would connect it with the word Hebrew, which has a similar origin. Others, again, are inclined to derive it from the Hebrew verb Arab, to go down—that is, the region in which the suu appeared to set to the Semitic dwellers on the Euphrates. There is also a Hebrew word, Arab* which means " barren place," and which is Occasionally employed in Scripture to denote the border-land between Syria and Arabia. Ptolemy is supposed to be the author of the famous threefold division into Arabia Petraa, Arabia helix, and Deserta—the first of which included the whole of the n.w. portion; the second, the w. and S.W. coasts; and the third, the whole of the dimly known interior. This division, however, is not recognized by the natives themselves, neither is it very accurate as at present understood, for Petraa was not intended to mean rocky or stony. Ptolemy formed the adjective from the flour ishing city of Petra (the capital of the kingdom of the Nabathmans), whose proper name was Thamud—that is, the rock with a single stream. The word Felix, also, arose from an incorrect translation of Yemen, which does not signify "happy," but the land lying to the right of Mecca—as Al-Shan (Syria) means the land lying to the left of the same.
The divisions of the Arab geographers are as follows-1. thr-el-Tour Sinai (Desert of Mount Sinai); 2. The Heetiaz (Land of Pilgrimage); 3. Tehama and Yemen, along the lied sea; 4. Hadramaut, the region along the southern coast; 3. Oman, the kingdom of Muscat; 6. Bahrein, on the Persian gulf; 7. Nedjed, the central highlands of Arabia.
Our knowledge of the interior of A. is still very imperfect in detail, but its general characteristics are decidedly African. The largest portion of it lies in that great desert zone which stretches from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the northern Pacific. The interior, so far as it has yet been explored by Europeans, seem to be a great plateau, in some places reaching a height of 8000 feet. The western border crest of this plateau may be regarded as part of a mountain-chain, beginning in the n. with Lebanon, and stretching s. to the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. From Bab-el-Mandeb another chain runs n.e., parallel to the coast, to Oman. From the mountain-range on the w7the plateau slopes to the n.e., and forms, in general, a vast tract of shifting sands, interspersed here and there about the center with various ranges of hills, which, like the shores of the peninsula, are generally barren and uninteresting.
A. has, on the whole, an African climate. Though surrounded on three sides by the sea, its chains of hills exclude in a great measure the modifying influence of currents of air from the ocean. In several parts of A. hardly a refreshing shower falls in the course of the year, and vegetation is almost unknown: in other sultry districts, the date-palm is almost the only proof of vegetable life. Over large sterile tracts hangs a sky of almost eternal gerenity. The short rainy season which occurs on the w. coast, during our sum mer months, fills periodically the teadis (hollow places) with water, while slight frosts mark the winters in the center and north-east. During the hot season, the simoom (q.v.) blows, but only in the northern part of the land. The terraced districts .re more favor able to culture, and produce wheat, barley, millet, palms, tobacco, indi - a, cotton, sugar, tamarinds, excellent coffee, and many aromatic and spice-plants, as be am, aloe, myrrh, frankincense, etc. A. is destitute of forests, but has vast stretches of desert grass fra grant with aromatic herbs, and furnishing admirable pasturage for the splendid breed of horses. Coffee, one of the most important exports, is an indigenous product both of A. and Africa.