The rich oasis of Tyin contains many villages embosomed in palm groves and surrounded with orchards and fields.
Beyond the mountains which flank the cultivated valleys of Semail and Tyin, to the west, there stretches the great Ruba el Khali, or Dahna, the central desert of southern Arabia, which reaches across the continent to the borders of Yemen, isolating the province on the landward side just as the rugged mountain barriers shut it off from the sea.
Fifty miles to the north-west of Muscat this interior region may again be reached by the transverse valley of Semail, leading into the wadi Munsab, and from thence to Tyin.