Mitzpe Ramon

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Mitzpe Ramon is a local council in the Negev desert of southern Israel. The town is situated on the northern ridge overlooking the enormous erosion cirque known as the Ramon Crater.

Founded in the 1950s when a busload of newly arrived Russian immigrants were unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the Negev with a few cargo containers to live in and told to found a new city, Mitzpe Ramon remains small and struggling, with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. One of the original opportunities for founding a town in this location was to take advantage of traffic on Route #40 travelling to and returning from Eilat in the south, a few nearby military bases and a smattering of ecotourism. Several large military bases (with over 10,000 soldiers altogether) surround the town, including the large Ramon AFB. The Wise Observatory is located 5 km to the east.

The growth of the town was severely halted when Route #90 was opened along the Arava to the east and virtually all traffic to and from Eilat bypasses Mitzpe Ramon entirely.

External links

from Wikitravel

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