The demographics of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region show a highly populated, culturally diverse region spanning three continents. As of 2022, the population was around 493 million.[1] The class, cultural, ethnic, governmental, linguistic and religious make-up of the region is highly variable.
Debates on which countries should be included in the Middle East are wide-ranging.[2] The Greater Middle East and North Africa region can include the Caucasus, Cyprus, Afghanistan, and several sub-Saharan African states due to various social, religious and historic ties. The most commonly accepted countries in the MENA region are included on this page.
Population by country
Population pyramid of North Africa in 2023
The most populous country in the MENA region is Egypt with nearly 100 million people, accounting for approximately 17% of the total. The least populous country is Djibouti with a population of almost 0.9 million, accounting for about 0.15% of the total. The largest country in land area is Algeria at 2,381,740 km2. The smallest country in land area is the Gaza Strip at 360 km2. The average population density for the MENA region is about 39 people per square kilometer. The highest population density is in the Gaza Strip, with about 5,102 people per square kilometer. The lowest population density is in Mauritania, with 3.73 people per square kilometer.[3]
The MENA region's population is growing at an average rate of 1.56%.[Over what period?] This is well above the global rate of 1.1% population growth.[4] High rates of migration, high birth rates, higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates contribute to higher populations.[3]
Migration rates to, from and between the MENA region are high. On average there are 1.5 migrants per 1000 in the population. This accounts for net immigration and emigration rates. The highest net immigration is in Bahrain with 11.6 immigrants[Is this per year, or what?] per 1000 of the population. The highest net emigration is in Lebanon with 40.3 emigrants per 1000 of the population. In other words, more people are leaving Lebanon than are coming in.[3] Migration in the Middle East has been shaped by various events and phenomena including, but not limited to, the following:
Most MENA migrants go to Europe (See Immigration to Europe) or to other MENA states. There are also large populations from sub-Saharan Africa in North Africa and from South and Southeast Asia in Persian Gulf region.
Youth
The MENA region is characterized with a young average population age. The median age across the MENA region is 26.8 years old. The younger generation is growing, creating an age bulge and high rates of youth unemployment. This has also led to a brain drain, involving young and educated people leaving their home country for better job prospects in other countries.[10]
Most populous areas
The Middle East and North Africa have an average annual growth rate of 1.56% and has one of the world's most rapidly expanding populations. Urban areas have been at the center of this growth, as the urban share of the total population in the region grew from 48% in the 1980s and 60% in 2000. In 2015 it was expected to exceed 70% whereas the average growth of developing countries in 2015 was 54%. The only region which exceeds MENA's average annual growth of 4% in sub-Saharan Africa which is not as urbanized as MENA. The regions average growth per capita was 0,9% between 1980 and 2000. The growth in the region did become better after 2000 mainly because of the rise in oil prices. The growth in the MENA region did not happen under ideal circumstances, but instead it occurred during economic decline and struggle. Poverty and vulnerability are also affecting the growing urban population and in the 1990s, 20 million people were living with an income under US$2/day. This happened during a period of rapid growth but did not see any reduction in the regions poverty levels.[11]
Economy
Middle Eastern and North African economy are highly dependent and centralized around natural resources within the country. Countries in the region face different challenges depending on the commodity they have. The categorization cannot explain all the different challenges the countries face but is highly useful to categorize countries based on similar challenges.
The three categories are: Firstly, countries with a high population and low natural resources (RPLA countries), secondly, countries with a high population and high oil wealth (RRLA countries) and thirdly, countries with a high indigenous population and high oil deposits (RRLP countries). This categorization cannot be used to explain every social and political challenge faced in the region, instead, these similar challenges and constraints are used to classified the countries. Furthermore, this categorization can be used to understand development within the region. A more detailed classification of each country, their GDP, GDP per capita and oil rent can be found in the GDP table.[12]
As can be seen on the world map the Middle East and North Africa have large reserves of gas and other natural resources.
Education
The Middle East and North Africa have strongly developed their education in terms of the average level of schooling, which has quadrupled since the 1960s. They have also halved the illiteracy rate in the region since the 1980s and achieved complete gender parity in primary school. Literacy in the region for adults has improved from 59% in the 1990s to 78% in 2010.
The access and enrollment in the school system have also increased in the region and all boys and girls have had access to primary education in most of the countries in the region. Enrollment in schools has increased from 86% to 94% between 2000 and 2010. It is interesting to note that the region, differently from the rest of the world, has had a reversed gender gap meaning that girls are outperforming boys in 4th-grade math and this is systematic up until the 8th grade.
Even though the region and the countries are highly invested in developing the school system and education by investing 5,3% of the GDP in the education the quality is still low and lacking and needs to be improved (can be seen on the table).[13] There is also a difference in education and a large gap between the rich and the poor. Furthermore, the political instability in the region and the conflicts are forcing children to drop out of school. Still, school dropouts have significantly decreased in the region.[14]
Languages
The five major languages in the Middle East and North Africa are: Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish and Kurdish.[15] There are approximately 571 million speakers of the five languages including individuals speaking the language outside of the Middle East and North Africa.[3]
Arabic is spoken in the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Gaza, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Yemen.
Kurdish is spoken in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.[3]
Religion
The MENA region is home to the three main monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Diversity in a single religion and sectarian splits have contributed to various group identities and minorities. Approximately 325 million Muslims live in the MENA region, which constitutes 20% of the global Muslim population.[16] However, it also has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. By 2010 it was estimated that 93% of the populations in the Middle East and North Africa were Muslim,[3] although this information can vary from the availability of the sources each country provides. Even with a majority Muslim population, diverse states in the region do not proclaim Islam as the official religion. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, are the only countries that include religion in their formal titles.
The main division within Islam is between the Sunni and Shia sects. 80% of Muslims in the MENA region are Sunnis, being the majority group, however, their practices and interpretations of religious mandates can differ from country to country.[17] Between 36 million and 44 million Shi’as live in the Arab region.[16] Of the Shi'a sects, the most prominent group is the Twelvers. Minority groups are the Ismailis, Zaidis, Alevis and Alawites. Iran is home of 70 million Shi'as, which constitutes 40% of the world's total Shi’a population. Iraq counts with 12% of Shi’a worldwide population; other countries with 1 million or more of the Shi’a population are Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.[16] Groups such as the Druze and Kharijites are difficult to classify as strictly Sunni or Shi’a. Another main commonality in both Sunni and Shi’i groups is Sufism. Sufi practices have reached other African and Asian countries.
Israel is home of 5.8 million Jews. However, the Jewish population has decreased significantly in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria.[17] In Turkey and Iran, Jewish communities reach around twenty thousand each, but without significant influence. Christians groups such as the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestants are spread throughout the region. In Egypt, Copts are the major Christian group, represent approximately 10% of the national population and are the largest Christian group in the region.[18] Syria has a similar percentage of Christians. In Lebanon, the Maronite Christian make up 21% of the population.[17] In Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Oman, and Yemen, other minority religious groups that can be found are Hindus and Buddhists.
From 2010 to 2050, the Muslim population in the MENA countries is expected to grow 74%, from 317 million to 552 million.[19] Muslims will remain the majority group in the region, while Christians and Jews will remain as the second and third largest groups respectively. Buddhists and Hindus are expected to double their size by 2050.
Fertility rates in the MENA region are always high. This differs among religious groups. Between 2010 and 2015 the fertility rate of Muslim women was 3 children per woman, followed by Jewish women with a rate of 2.8.[19] In the case of the Christian women, their rate is lower than Muslims however there is no conclusive and specific data across the region. Overall, youth constitutes the largest population of the countries in the region. In 2010, the most prominent age range found was between 15 and 59 for the three main religious groups. For Muslims the median age is 23 years old, representing the youngest religious groups. By contrast, the median age for the Jewish population is 32, being the oldest religious group. Based on these projections,[19] equal access to quality education and an increase in the number of job seekers are part of the challenges the governments currently face. The wealthy Gulf Cooperation Countries ( GCC): Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, tend to have higher access to literacy rates than lower-income countries, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Morocco. Concerning labor migration flows, the Gulf Cooperation Countries are expected to increase the number of foreign workers from India, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Due to these flows, by 2050 is expected the population of Hindus and Buddhist will be doubled. Christians are also expected to increase, while Muslims and Jewish populations are expected to remain without significant changes.
The following map shows the percentage of the population in each area which is Islamic.
The MENA region is highly diverse and is home to many different ethnic and identity groups. Five of the largest ethnic groups in the region; Arabs, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Persians and Turks.[20]
The Human Development Index is a statistical indicator to obtain the average of human development in each country created by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Three main dimensions are measured: Health, education, and standard of living. These dimensions are valued based on life expectancy at birth, schooling years and gross national income per capita. The 2018 Human Development Index of the Middle East and North Africa region countries range from Low to Very High category. The MENA region includes the richest oil countries in the world and the poorest such as Yemen and Djibouti. The last places of HDI in the MENA region are Sudan, Djibouti, and Yemen. Data about Palestine is not included in the HDI ranking. The table below shows the MENA countries according to their Human Development Index scores in 2018:[22]
Israel and the Persian Gulf countries are the highest countries ranked in the region, classified as Very High Human Development. The three main countries with a notorious sudden decline in the HDI ranking were Syria, Libya, and Yemen. The ongoing conflicts and violence had caused them to fall an average of 24 places in the worldwide ranking. Lebanon, not involved directly in a violent conflict, has been affected by the increasing waves of refugees coming from Syria. Compared to other regions, the Middle East has a higher income per capita than Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, but it does not exceed East Asia or South Asia. Concerning the literacy rates, the Middle East is far behind Latin America and East Asia, and it is positioned ahead of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.[12] Other features not included in the HDI report to take into account for measuring development in the MENA region are the political regimes, national and international economic policies, accountability and the consequences of internal and regional conflicts.
The Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.
Saudi Arabia is the fourth largest state in the Arab world, with a reported population of 36,408,818 as of 2022. 41.6% of inhabitants are immigrants. Saudi Arabia has experienced a population explosion in the last 40 years, and continues to grow at a rate of 1.62% per year.
Demographic features of the population of Yemen include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The Arab world, formally the Arab homeland, also known as the Arab nation, the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
Sectarianism is a debated concept. Some scholars and journalists define it as pre-existing fixed communal categories in society, and use it to explain political, cultural, or religious conflicts between groups. Others conceive of sectarianism as a set of social practices where daily life is organised on the basis of communal norms and rules that individuals strategically use and transcend. This definition highlights the co-constitutive aspect of sectarianism and people's agency, as opposed to understanding sectarianism as being fixed and incompatible communal boundaries.
West Asia, also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian highlands, the Levant, the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula and the South Caucasus. The region is separated from Africa by the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, and separated from Europe by the waterways of the Turkish Straits and the watershed of the Greater Caucasus. Central Asia lies to its northeast, while South Asia lies to its east. Twelve seas surround the region (clockwise): the Aegean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gulf of Suez, and the Mediterranean Sea. West Asia contains the majority of the similarly defined Middle East. The Middle East is a political term that has changed many times depending on political and historical context while West Asia is a geographical term with more consistency. It excludes most of Egypt and the northwestern part of Turkey, and includes the southern part of the Caucasus.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East and North Africa together. However, it is widely considered to be a more defined and apolitical alternative to the concept of the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world. The region has no standardized definition and groupings may vary, but the term typically includes countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the UAE, and Yemen.
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. The region is best known for oil production and export, which significantly impacts the entire region through the wealth it generates and through labor utilization. In recent years, many of the countries in the region have undertaken efforts to diversify their economies.
The Shia Crescent is the notionally crescent-shaped region of the Middle East where the majority population is Shia or where there is a strong Shia minority in the population.
Islam is divided into two major sects, Sunni and Shia Islam, each with its own sub-sects. Large numbers of Shia Arab Muslims live in some Arab countries including Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Qatar.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has emphasized education's importance as a fundamental human right and a necessary element of development. Education encompasses the scope of social values, morality, tradition, religion, politics and history. It is the acquired body of knowledge that equips the emerging labor force with the necessary skills to ensure its active participation in economic development. The acquisition of literacy, arithmetic, and problem-solving skills improves the value and efficiency of labor. It creates a skilled and intellectually flexible labor force through training, expertise, and academic credentials. A professional working force enhances the quality of a nation's economic productivity and guarantees its suitability for global market competitiveness. According to a recent research report by the United Nations Population Fund, countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria have invested in family planning, healthcare, and education and have subsequently experienced more rapid economic development than the countries that were reluctant to invest in social development programs.
The Arab world consists of 23’ states. As of 2021, the combined population of all the Arab states was around 475 million people.
For approximately a millennium, the Abrahamic religions have been predominant throughout all of the Middle East. The Abrahamic tradition itself and the three best-known Abrahamic religions originate from the Middle East: Judaism and Christianity emerged in the Levant in the 6th century BCE and the 1st century CE, respectively, while Islam emerged in Arabia in the 7th century CE.
Christianity, which originated in the Middle East during the 1st century AD, is a significant minority religion within the region, characterized by the diversity of its beliefs and traditions, compared to Christianity in other parts of the Old World. Today, Christians make up approximately 5% of the Middle Eastern population, down from 13% in the early 20th century. Cyprus is the only Christian majority country in the Middle East, with Christians forming between 76% and 78% of the country's total population, most of them adhering to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Lebanon has the second highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, around 40%, predominantly Maronites. After Lebanon, Egypt has the next largest proportion of Christians, at around 10% of its total population. Copts, numbering around 10 million, constitute the single largest Christian community in the Middle East.
Ethnic groups in the Middle East are ethnolinguistic groupings in the "transcontinental" region that is commonly a geopolitical term designating the intercontinental region comprising West Asia without the South Caucasus, and also comprising Egypt in North Africa. The Middle East has historically been a crossroad of different cultures and languages. Since the 1960s, the changes in political and economic factors have significantly altered the ethnic composition of groups in the region. While some ethnic groups have been present in the region for millennia, others have arrived fairly recently through immigration. The largest socioethnic groups in the region are Egyptians, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azerbaijanis but there are dozens of other ethnic groups that have hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of members.
Arab Australians refers to Australian citizens or residents with ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa, regardless of their ethnic origins. Many are not ethnically Arab but numerous groups who include Arabs, Kurds, Copts, Assyrians, Berbers and others. The majority are Christian by faith with minorities being Muslim, Druze, Yazidi and other faiths.
The Arab Cold War was a political rivalry in the Arab world from the early 1950s to the late 1970s and a part of the wider Cold War. It is generally accepted that the beginning of the Arab Cold War is marked by the Egyptian revolution of 1952, which led to Gamal Abdel Nasser becoming president of Egypt in 1956. Thereafter, newly formed Arab republics, inspired by revolutionary secular nationalism and Nasser's Egypt, engaged in political rivalries with conservative traditionalist Arab monarchies, influenced by Saudi Arabia. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the ascension of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as leader of Iran, is widely seen as the end of this period of internal conflicts and rivalry. A new era of Arab-Iranian tensions followed, overshadowing the bitterness of intra-Arab strife.
Arabs in Romania are people from Arab countries who live in Romania. The first Fellah settlers came in 1831 - 1833 from Ottoman Syria to Dobruja. They assimilated in the Turkish-Tatarian Population. Some of them came to Romania during the Ceaușescu era, when many Arab students were granted scholarships to study in Romanian universities. Most of them were Algerians, Syrians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Egyptians, and Yemenis. Most of these students returned to their countries of origin, but some remained in Romania starting families here. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. A new wave of Arab immigration started after the Romanian Revolution. Many of the newly arrived Arabs came to Romania in the 1990s in order to develop businesses. In addition, Romania has people from Arab countries who have the status of refugees or illegal immigrants, primarily from North Africa, trying to immigrate to Western Europe. In particular, the European migrant crisis lead to Syrian people coming to Romania, although many Syrians were already living in Romania at the time of the crisis.
The Catholic Church in the Middle East is under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The Catholic Church is said to have traditionally originated in the Middle East in the 1st century AD, and was one of the major religions of the region from the 4th-century Byzantine reforms until the centuries following the Arab Islamic conquests of the 7th century AD. Ever since, its proportion has decreased until today's diaspora tendency, mainly due to persecution by Islamic majority societies.
Climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) refers to changes in the climate of the MENA region and the subsequent response, adaption and mitigation strategies of countries in the region. In 2018, the MENA region emitted 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and produced 8.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) despite making up only 6% of the global population. These emissions are mostly from the energy sector, an integral component of many Middle Eastern and North African economies due to the extensive oil and natural gas reserves that are found within the region. The region of Middle East is one of the most vulnerable to climate change. The impacts include increase in drought conditions, aridity, heatwaves and sea level rise.
1 2 3 Pew Research Center. Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. The future of world religions: population growth projections, 2010-2050: why Muslims are rising fastest and the unaffiliated are shrinking as a share of the world's population. OCLC910917100.
↑ "The Middle East Population". World Population Review. May 2019.
↑ Buchanan, Angela (2016). "2015 Forum on Ethnic Groups from the Middle East and North Africa". US Census Bureau.
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