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NEGEV
- For the light machine gun see IMI Negev.
The Negev (Hebrew: נֶגֶב, Tiberian vocalization: Néḡeḇ; Arabic: النقب, an-Naqab) is the desert region of southern Israel. In Biblical Hebrew Negev means "south". The Negev covers the greater amount of Israel's official Southern District.
Geographically, the over 13,000km² Negev forms an inverted triangle whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, and whose eastern border is the Wadi Arabah.
Its largest city and regional administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. around 200,000), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Eilat and the resort town of Eilat. Other towns include Dimona, Arad, Mitzpe Ramon as well as a number of small Bedouin towns, including Rahat and Tel Sheva. There are also several kibbutz settlements, including Revivim and Sde Boker; the latter was founded by Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion and became his home after his retirement from politics.
The desert is also home to the Ben-Gurion University, whose faculties include the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus next to Sde Boker.
The Negev has a number of interesting cultural and geological features. Among the latter are three enormous, craterlike erosion cirques or machteshim, which are unique to the region: ha-Machtesh ha-Gadol and the Ramon Crater.
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