Israel

Israel occupies the exact point where Europe, Asia and Africa meet, and through its narrow territory passes one of the busiest migratory corridors on the planet: the Rift Valley, crossed by hundreds of millions of birds every spring and autumn because they cannot cross the Mediterranean or the desert by soaring. Within a few kilometres you pass from the Mediterranean woodland of Carmel and Galilee to steppe, and from there to the Negev desert and the Dead Sea depression, the lowest point on the Earth's surface. The Arava and the erosion craters of the Negev hold Nubian ibex, hyraxes, striped hyenas and Arabian wolves. At the far south, the Gulf of Aqaba contributes coral reefs at the northern limit of their world distribution.