Middle East (region)

The Middle East is a region located in the south-central portion of the Eurasian continent. The region includes the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The Palestinian Territory, which includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is also in this region but is not an autonomous nation. Middle East is the traditional designation for this region among European and North American writers. Modern geographers prefer to use the term Southwest Asia.

The Middle East as defined here is bordered on the north (from west to east) by the Balkan Peninsula of Europe, the Black Sea, Russia, the Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan. It is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, the gateways to South Asia. The southern borders of the region are washed by the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and Red Sea. Its western edges are touched (from south to north) by Egypt and the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. The region occupies about 2.5 million square miles, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Yemen making up more than 80 percent of the total. The smallest country is Bahrain, at 225 square miles. The population of the Middle East in 2015 was about 335 million people, nearly half of whom live in Iran and Turkey.

The peoples of the Middle East have made many significant contributions to world culture. The region was the first area to practice settled agriculture, some 14,000 to 16,500 years ago. Mesopotamia—a region of what is now Iraq—was one of the birthplaces of human civilization in the fourth millennium BCE, and the Sumerian civilization that arose there had great influence on other peoples. The Persian Empire based in modern Iran was an important empire of the ancient world. The birth of Islam in the seventh century CE resulted not only in the spread of that religion from Southeast Asia to southwestern Europe but the creation of several important empires. Islam continues to be a vital force today, but conflicts there helped promote the rise of the Islamic State, a militant Islamic movement that vows to establish a pure Islamic state everywhere it can and that carried out or endorsed terrorist attacks in the region and in other parts of the world.

The region is the original home of three great world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and the location of the most sacred sites of all three. It has countless important archaeological sites that are the source of many significant finds that yield information about the origins of the human species, early civilizations, and those religions. Located at the nexus of the massive Eurasian continent and Africa, the Middle East has served for centuries as a region where cultural influences from many areas have met, mingled, and diffused to other regions. In addition, the region holds a large proportion of the world’s crude oil and natural gas reserves, making it very important to the world economy.

Historical Perspective

The world’s first civilization, Sumer, arose in Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE. This civilization developed humankind’s first system of writing and made other advances. For the next three millennia, various empires controlled different portions of the region, and cultural influences came to the area from India, Greece, and Rome. During this time, Judaism and Christianity arose.

After the Roman Empire split into two halves, the Byzantine Empire based in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) ruled much of the region for another thousand years. In the seventh-century, though, Islam began in the Arabian Peninsula and prompted a wave of conquest that made Arabia, then modern Iraq, and then what are now Iran and Turkey the centers of different Muslim empires.

The modern history of the region began after World War I, and it was marked initially by a struggle between nationalists and European colonial rulers, which resulted in the establishment of several nationalist states. These states tended to be secular while still acknowledging an Islamic identity. The discovery of large reserves of crude oil brought wealth and influence to regional states.

The creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 introduced a stubborn conflict to the region that has resisted resolution and created a population of Palestinian Muslim refugees. Conflict has affected other states in the region, including an Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, a bloody civil war in Lebanon in the 1980s, a long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the overthrow of Iraq’s dictator in 2003, and a civil war in Syria starting in 2011.

Geography and Climate

The Middle East includes two great peninsulas. On the northwest edge is the Anatolian Peninsula, home to Turkey. On the southwest edge is the Arabian Peninsula, dominated by Saudi Arabia but also shared by Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen.

Mountains are found in much of Anatolia, the Caucasus region, and western Iran. Eastern Iran and most of the Arabian Peninsula are covered by low plateaus. Coastal Anatolia, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and a long stretch from Mesopotamia and along the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula are coastal lowlands.

Much of the area has arid, semiarid, or dry climates. The Arabian Desert covers about 900,000 square miles, more than a third of the region’s area. Vast areas of Iran are dry as well. Even areas that are not dry receive relatively small amounts of rainfall. Nevertheless, these rains can result in flooding in some areas: control of the spring floodwaters along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern Iraq contributed to the rise of Sumer. Throughout the region, water management is vitally important to growing food.

The Middle East sits on the junctions of several of Earth’s tectonic plates. As a result, earthquakes strike the region with some frequency and devastating power. If they hit densely populated settlements, they can cause great damage and large loss of life. A 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, resulted in an estimated 26,000 deaths. A 1988 quake in Armenia probably killed an equal number, and another in Izmit, Turkey, in 1999 may have killed 17,000.

Economy

Energy resources are the dominant economic factor in the region, which is home to nations with five of the seven largest proven oil reserves (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, in order). Other oil-rich countries in the region include Azerbaijan, Oman, and Qatar. Iran and Qatar—and to a lesser extent Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia—also have large reserves of natural gas, but this resource has been less developed than oil. The oil industry has contributed to high incomes in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The region controls three great waterways. Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, sits on either side of the Bosporus, the strait connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea that provides a water outlet for trade with Russia and Ukraine. The Red Sea, along the southern shores of the Arabian Peninsula, connects the Suez Canal—and thus the Mediterranean Sea—to the Indian Ocean. The Persian Gulf, found along the northern edge of Arabia, carries oil production from several states to the Indian Ocean and thus to the world.

In the countries that are not reliant on oil, Israel has the most diversified economy and the highest average per-capita income. It produces high-end manufactured goods and pharmaceuticals. Turkey has for years tried to gain entry into the European Union and was named a candidate member in 1999, but its acceptance remains a hotly debated issue. The Palestinian Territory, Syria, and Yemen all have very low incomes and major economic problems, in part because of political upheaval.

Demographics

The Middle East has many ethnic groups. The two most populous nations—Turkey and Iran—are dominated by Turks and Persians. About three-quarters of the population of Israel is Jewish. The rest of the region is predominantly Arab, but migrants, from outside the region, make up large portions of the workforce in the oil-rich Gulf states.

Islam is by far the dominant religion in the region, and most people in most countries are Sunni Muslims, the majority sect. Shiites are a majority in Iran and Iraq, however. There are also pockets of worshipper of other faiths. Israel is predominantly Jewish, and Armenia and Georgia are chiefly Christian. Christians make up 40 percent of Lebanon’s people and about 10 percent of Syria’s.

A significant factor in the region is the presence of antagonistic ethnic and religious minorities in several countries. Sunni and Shiite disagreements have plagued Iraq since a new democratic government was formed in the early 2000s. Ethnic conflict has marred Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Cyprus has been divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots since the 1970s. Kurds, who may number as many as 25 million people, are a significant minority in several nations, particularly Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Many Kurds hope to establish a separate Kurdish state one day, and they are viewed with suspicion and alarm by the governments of those nations.

The populations of the region are very young. Almost a third of the population in the region is under 15 years old, on average, compared to 16 percent in the developed countries. The high percentage of youths poses a difficult question for the future—will the economies be able to generate enough jobs for these young people? Indeed, the joblessness of many youths is thought to contribute to the political volatility found in several nations in the region.

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