Dead Sea

The Dead Sea (Hebrew: יָם הַ‏‏מֶ‏ּ‏לַ‏ח‎, yam ha-melaħ, "Sea of Salt"; Qur'anic Arabic: بَحْر ألمَيْت, baħrᵘ l- mayitⁱ , "Death Sea") is a salt lake between the West Bank and Israel to the west, and Jordan to the east. It is said to be the lowest point on Earth, at 420 m (1,378 feet) below sea level; its shores are actually the lowest point on dry land, as there are deeper points on Earth under water or ice. At 330m deep (1,083 feet), the Dead Sea is the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also the world's second saltiest body of water, after Lake Asal in Djibouti. With 30 percent salinity, it is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean The Dead Sea is 67 km (42 miles) long and 18 km (11 miles) wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.

The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. It was a place of refuge for King David, one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of products as diverse as balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers.

In Hebrew the Dead Sea is called the yam ha-melaħ , meaning "sea of salt,", or alternatively yam ha-maluħa (ים המלוחה, "salty sea") or, still yam ha-mavet (ים המוות, "sea of death" or yet "terrible sea"). In past times it was yam ha-mizraħi (ים המזרחי, "the Eastern sea") or yam ha-ʼarava (ים הערבה, "Desert sea"). To the Greeks, the Dead Sea was Lake Asphaltites (Attic Greek ἡ Θάλαττα ἀσφαλτῖτης, "the Asphaltite sea"; see below). In Arabic the Dead Sea is called (al-)bahr al-mayit   ("the Dead Sea"), or less commonly bahrᵘ lūţ (بحر لوط, "the Sea of Lot"). Historically, another Arabic name was the "Sea of Zoʼar", after the nearby town, cited in the "three Books".