The soil is a clayey or a sandy loam, and very fertile except in the Usar tracts, where there is a saline efflorescence.
Assur is there called A-usar(ki),2 in which combination the ending -ki ("land territory") proves that even at that early period there was a province of Assur more extensive than the city proper.
It is probable that this nonSemitic form A-usar means "well watered region," a most appropriate designation for the river settlements of Assyria.
The problem as to the meaning of the name Assur is rendered all the more confusing by the fact that the city and land are also called Assur (as well as A-usar),both by the Khammurabi records' and generally in the later Assyrian literature.
The uncultivable land consists chiefly of extensive usar plains, found in the southern and western districts, and covered by the deleterious saline efflorescence known as reh.