Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. After the Arab Islamic conquest of the mid-7th century AD the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira ( "the island"), also transliterated "Djazirah", "Djezirah", "Jazirah" & the Syriac (Aramaic) variant "Gāzartā" or "Gozarto" (). The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined together at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in eastern Turkey are
Agriculture in ancient Mesopotamia is very arid and has poor soil quality. But the man-made infrastructure took advantage of some of the potential of this space (large rivers and broad, flat plains) to counter these issues and make lower Mesopotamia one of the most productive agricultural areas in the ancient world. In the north, the uncertainties of production were greater, as a result of the fluctuation of the climate year by year. There were, as a result, many systems of agricultural land, reflecting the diversity of ancient Mesopotamian agriculture. The natural context of ancient Mesopotamia was little different from modern conditions in this region,