Middle East

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The Middle East Arabic: الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: is the geopolitical term that commonly intended to the region spanning Arabia including the Arabian Peninsula in addition to Bahrain, Asia Minor Asian component of Turkey except Hatay Province, East Thrace European part of Turkey, Egypt, Iran, the Levant including Ash-Shām together with Cyprus, Mesopotamia modern-day Iraq, and the Socotra Archipelago a part of Yemen. The term came into widespread use as a replacement of the term Near East as opposed to the Far East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and has been viewed by some to be discriminatory or too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories target in the closely associated definition of Western Asia including Iran, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes any of Egypt non just the Sinai Region.

Most Middle Eastern countries 13 out of 18 are part of the Arab world. The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the geopolitical importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Several major religions make-up their origins in the Middle East, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Arabs symbolize the leading socioethnic profile in the region, followed by Turks, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen, and Greek Cypriots.

The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, especially in the Peninsula and Egyptian regions. Several major rivers providing irrigation to help agriculture in limited areas here such(a) as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia Iraq, Kuwait, and eastern Syria, and most of what is call as the Fertile Crescent. Conversely the Levantine wing and most of Turkey keep on to more temperate, oceanic and wetter climates. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf create vast reserves of petroleum, with monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula in particular benefiting economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and heavy reliance on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a heavy contributor to climate change and a region expected to be severely negatively impacted by it.

Other view of the region live including the broader the Middle East and North Africa MENA, which includes states of the Maghreb and Sudan, or the "Greater Middle East" which additionally also includes parts of East Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and sometimes the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

Territories and regions

Traditionally included within the Middle East are Iran Persia, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt. In modern-day-country terms they are these:

Various theory are often being paralleled to Middle East, most notably Near East, Fertile Crescent and the Levant. Near East, Levant and Fertile Crescent are geographic concepts, which refer to large sections of the sophisticated defined Middle East, with Near East being the closest to Middle East in its geographic meaning. Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the Maghreb region of North Africa is sometimes included.

The countries of the South Caucasus—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—are occasionally included in definitions of the Middle East.

The Greater Middle East was a political term coined by the second Bush administration in the number one decade of the 21st century, to denote various countries, pertaining to the Muslim world, specifically Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Various Central Asian countries are sometimes also included.