The
Dead Sea (
Hebrew: יָם הַמֶּלַח,
Yām HaMélaḥ, "Sea of Salt", also
Hebrew: יָם הַמָּוֶת,
Yām HaMā́weṯ, "The Sea of Death",
[5] and
Arabic: البحر الميت
al-Baḥr al-Mayyit (
help·
info),), also called the
Salt Sea, is a
salt lake bordered by
Jordan to the east, and
Israel to the west. Its surface and shores are 429 metres (1,407 ft) below
sea level,
[4][6] Earth's
lowest elevation on land. The Dead Sea is 304 m (997 ft) deep, the deepest
hypersaline lake in the world. With 34.2%
salinity (in 2011), it is also one of the
world's saltiest bodies of water, though
Lake Vanda in
Antarctica (35%),
Lake Assal in
Djibouti (34.8%), Lagoon
Garabogazköl in the
Caspian Sea(up to 35%) and some hypersaline ponds and lakes of the
McMurdo Dry Valleys in
Antarctica (such as
Don Juan Pond (44%)) have reported higher salinities. It is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean.
[7] This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 50 kilometres (31 mi) long and 15 kilometres (9 mi) wide at its widest point.
[2] 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. In the Bible, it is a place of refuge for
King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for
Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for
Egyptian mummification to
potash for
fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create
cosmetics and herbal
sachets.