The countries that are believed to be part of the Middle East on most maps are Yemen, Bahrain, the United Arab … In German the term Naher Osten (Near East) is still in common use (nowadays the term Mittlerer Osten is more and more common in press texts translated from English sources, albeit having a distinct meaning) and in Russian Ближний Восток or Blizhniy Vostok, Bulgarian Близкия Изток, Polish Bliski Wschód or Croatian Bliski istok (meaning Near East in all the four Slavic languages) remains as the only appropriate term for the region. Georgian is spoken by the Georgian diaspora. Another Turkic language, Azerbaijani, is spoken by Azerbaijanis in Iran. With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" largely fell out of common use in English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. "[14] After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term. [50][51], Recognised by the United Nations, The World Bank and the World Health Organisation as one of the greatest global challenges in the 21st century, climate change is currently having an unprecedented effect upon the Earth's natural systems. The earliest civilizations like Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia originated from the Nile Valley and the Fertile Crescent regions. [43] When it comes to per capita (PPP)-based income, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($86,008), Kuwait ($39,915), the UAE ($38,894), Bahrain ($34,662) and Cyprus ($29,853). According to President Carter, what was the purpose of SALT, or strategic arms limitations talks? Parts of Africa (primarily Egypt and Sudan) are sometimes considered part of the Middle East as well. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also well represented. The designation, Mashriq, also from the Arabic root for East, also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the Maghreb, the western part). The Middle East is widely and most famously known as the Cradle of civilization. Among other migrant populations are Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Pashtuns, Romani, and Afro-Arabs. However, the usage "Near East" was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term Middle East, which is not used by these disciplines (see Ancient Near East). [25], The Greater Middle East was a political term coined by the second Bush administration in the first decade of the 21st century,[26] to denote various countries, pertaining to the Muslim world, specifically Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan is an extremely diverse country. The volcanic peak of Caucasus Mountains exceeds 15,000 ft with its highest point being about 18,481ft high. The 4 caliphates that dominated the Middle East for more than 600 years were the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid caliphate and the Fatimid caliphate. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. [57][58][59], region that encompasses Western Asia and Egypt, This video over Central Africa and the Middle East was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the, Territories and regions usually considered within the Middle East. Arabs constitute the majority ethnic group in the region,[5] followed by Turks, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen, and Greek Cypriots. Egypt in Africa also borders the Mediterranean and is sometimes considered as part of the Middle East, while Turkey and Cyprus literall… It's not a political or economic alliance like the European Union. About 20 minority languages are also spoken in the Middle East. Prior to the formation of civilizations, advanced cultures formed all over the Middle East during the Stone age. [41] Regarding nominal GDP per capita, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($93,204), the UAE ($55,028), Kuwait ($45,920) and Cyprus ($32,745). The western border of the Middle East is defined by the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel, Lebanon, and Syria rest opposite from Greece and Italy in Europe. The broader concept of the "Greater Middle East" (aka the Middle East and North Africa or the MENAP) also includes the Maghreb, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, the Comoros, Afghanistan, Paki… It extends for about 1,000 miles from the Iran Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and 2,000 miles from the Arabian Sea to the Black Sea. [12] Mahan first used the term in his article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. Declaring the Middle East to "continent" status would neither help or hurt international relationships or internal relations. According to the World Bank's World Development Indicators database published on July 1, 2009, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in 2008 were Turkey ($794,228), Saudi Arabia ($467,601) and Iran ($385,143) in terms of Nominal GDP. (Primary Reflections)", "Redrawing American Cartographies of Asia", "Report for Selected Countries and Subjects", "Concocting a 'Greater Middle East' brew", The Greater Middle East Initiative: Off to a False Start, "IOM Intra regional labour mobility in Arab region Facts and Figures (English)", "Europe :: Akrotiri — The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency", "Europe :: Dhekelia — The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency", "Reports of about 300,000 Jews that left the country after WW2". Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...][31] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. [note 2][39][40]. The economy of the Middle East is very diverse, with national economies ranging from hydrocarbon-exporting rentiers to centralized socialist economies and free-market economies. It typically refers to southwest Asia, particularly Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, … The estimated oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and Iran is the highest on earth. Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world. 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