The Arab World

The overall total population of the Arab nations in the world is estimated to be approximately 315 million (estimates; World Almanac, 2004). Arab populations encompass a vast geographical region that extends from Iraq in the east to Morocco in the west. They occupy the whole of Mesopotamia, Middle East, Arabian Gulf, North Africa, as well as some parts of East and West Africa. Arab populations are distributed on 23 different countries, namely: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (Fig.1a). Arabs do not homogeneously populate this geographical area and tend to concentrate highly in narrow locations such as the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris valleys, the coastal regions of North Africa, the Gulf, and Western Asia (Fig. 1b).