Although the oil discoveries of the 1960s have brought it immense petroleum wealth, at the time of its independence it was an extremely poor desert state whose only important physical asset appeared to be its strategic location at the midpoint of Africa's northern rim.

Consequently, an immense social gap developed between the cities, cosmopolitan and peopled largely by foreigners, and the desert hinterland, where tribal chieftains ruled in isolation and where social change was minimal.

All along the coast, but mostly in the northernmost part of it, interaction between the water-laden air coming from the sea via southerly winds, some of the strongest of any coastal desert, and the dry air of the desert causes immense fogs and strong currents.

Governments on both sides of politics, well aware of the immense stretches of uninhabitable desert that separated the small productive regions of Australia, regarded air transport as a matter of national importance ( as did the governments of other geographically large nations, such as the Soviet Union and the United States ).

In Jorge Luis Borges ' Book of Imaginary Beings, Bahamut is " altered and magnified " from Behemoth, and described as so immense that a human cannot bear its sight ; " the seas of the world, placed in one of the fish's nostrils, would be like a mustard seed laid in the desert.

Amidst the immense surrounding desert, Yazd retains elements of its old religion, traditions, and architecture, which is recognized by UNESCO for its architectural heritage.

Initially, British and Russian observers considered the implantation of railroads as the ultimate solution to the immense transportation problems Iran faced due to sparsely settled population, the lack of rivers, high mountains, and inhospitable desert regions of the country.

The Juruá River ( Portuguese Rio Juruá ; Spanish Río Yurúa ) is a southern affluent river of the Amazon River west of the Purus River, sharing with this the bottom of the immense inland Amazon depression, and having all the characteristics of the Purus as regards curvature, sluggishness and general features of the low, half-flooded forest country it traverses.

The prairies ’ rivers and lakes which extend to the height of land of the Mississippi, and the immense plains which feed innumerable herds of bison to the westward and from which the Chippewa and half breeds of this region obtain their subsistence, contains within their limits a country about 400 miles from north to south and more than five hundred miles from east to west.

Due to the immense forestry industry on the west coast, there were many mills that were used to produce paper and pulp.

To the west, the lava plains slope toward a system of immense northwest-oriented valleys that are up to 200 km wide.

Subsequently, after a journey of immense hardship and privation, the party arrived at an area west of Pyongyang adjacent to P. W.

doorway on the west end, surmounted by an immense

It is 86 square kilometres in area, making it one of the smaller districts in the greater urban part of Beijing ( the immense Mentougou District to the west of it dwarfs Shijingshan District ), and is home to 489, 439 inhabitants ( 2000 Census ).

They base their argument on statements by Herodotus that the Massagetae lived " beyond the Araxes " ( 1. 201 ) and that " after crossing the Araxes, Cyrus was sleeping on the territory of the Massagetae " ( 1. 209 ), while rejecting as a mistake a third statement by Herodotus that " on the west the Caspian is bounded by the Caucasus ; eastwards lies an immense tract of flat country ... the greater part of this region is occupied by the Massagetae " ( 1. 204 ).

The immense Caucasus region, traversed by its eponymous mountains, is bounded by the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east.

Uluru, an immense monolith, and Kata Tjuta, the rock domes located west of Uluru, form part of the traditional belief system of one of the oldest human societies in the world.

Farther north, the Kluane Icecap — which feeds the immense Malaspina and Hubbard Glaciers as well as the Bagley Icefield — sits upon the British Columbia-Yukon Territory-Alaska border and surrounds most of the Saint Elias Mountains as well as both Mount Saint Elias and Mount Logan ; it extends as far west as the Copper River.

Dunglass, just to the west of the town, was the home of the geologist Sir James Hall who, in the Spring of 1788, joined John Playfair and James Hutton in a boat trip from Dunglass Burn east along the coast looking for evidence to support Hutton's theory that rock formations were laid down in an unending cycle over immense periods of time.

The battlefield of Ramillies is very similar to that of Blenheim, for here too there is an immense area of arable land unimpeded by woods or hedges.

This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.

The Guaraní, the Cario, Tapé, Itatine, Guarajo, Tupí, and related subgroups, were generous people who inhabited an immense area stretching from the Guyana Highlands in Brazil to the Río Uruguay.

Oil had been discovered there by Standard Oil Company in the 1920s, and people wondered whether an immense pool of oil was lying beneath the entire area.

Although northern Iredell County has retained much of its rural character, the southern half of the county is experiencing rapid suburbanization and population growth, largely due to the immense popularity of the Lake Norman area for residents of nearby Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city.

Set in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, neighbouring institutions include the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, the V & A is located in what is termed London's " Albertopolis ", an area of immense cultural, scientific and educational importance.

During the Battle of Meridian in 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman led troops into the city, destroying the railroads in every direction, an arsenal, immense storehouses, and burning much of the area to the ground, Sherman is reported to have said afterwards, " Meridian, with its depots, store-houses, arsenal, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments no longer exists.

One of the stores that stayed in business the longest was A. Hirsch & Co., which did an immense mercantile business and owned valuable land in the area.

The Mission covered an immense area which, expanded over much of the boundaries of the present day tri-city incorporations of Newark, Fremont, and Union City.

The cause of the Newry quake was likely a slippage of the Brevard Fault and other faults in the area aided by the immense weight of the man-made Lake Keowee, created by the Keowee Dam.

In 1670, the King approved the charter for " The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay " that would form the Hudson's Bay Company, which was granted a trading monopoly in the whole Hudson Bay watershed area, an immense territory named Rupert's Land, with Rupert appointed the first Governor.

Chester Wilmot agreed with this, claiming that the salient was of immense tactical value for the purpose of driving the Germans from the area south of the Maas and removing the threat of an immediate counterattack against Antwerp.

This tree once covered an area so immense, that it was known

The highest peak in the Siachen glacier region, Saltoro Kangri, could be viewed as strategically important for India because of its immense altitude which could enable the Indian forces to monitor some Pakistani or Chinese movements in the immediate area.

Native to North America, the Blue-headed Vireo enjoys a large breeding range that expands over an immense area of Canada and northern United States.

There was a considerable concentration of U. S. citizens in the area due to the immense investment of American firms in the local oil industry.

The area is filled with a mix of food stores selling an immense variety of meats, fish and produce.

Little was known of it, except that despite lying scarcely 100 leagues north of the Shire, it was an area of immense cold.

Its immense size also necessitated the creation of a shuttle system circling the academic sector and surrounding areas including the administrative complex, located nearly a quarter mile from the central academic area.

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, is the only institution with immense contribution towards popularising area studies in India.

Shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often feature parking lots of immense area.

There, two times in each period of a day and a night, the ocean with a fast tide submerges an immense plain, thereby the hiding the secular fight of the Nature whether the area is sea or land.

However, his department never had more than 30, 000 men stationed over an immense area and he was not able to concentrate forces adequately to challenge Grant nor the Union Navy on the river.

As the morning progressed, the focus of the left flank of the landing became Baby 700 which was of immense importance as it commanded the junction of the two ridges and hence access from the landing area to the first significant peak of the main range at Chunuk Bair.