Search results
May 4, 2024 · Middle East, the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, encompassing at least the Arabian Peninsula and, by some definitions, Iran, North Africa, and sometimes beyond. Learn more about the history of the classification of the region in this article.
- Facts & Related Content
The name Muhammad, which originated in the Middle East, is...
- Near East
Near East, usually the lands around the eastern shores of...
- Facts & Related Content
- The fertile crescent, the cradle of civilization. World History: Patterns of Interaction. If this area wasn't the birthplace of human civilization, it was at least a birthplace of human civilization.
- How ancient Phoenicians spread from Lebanon across the Mediterranean. Philip's Atlas of World History.
- How the Middle East gave Europe religion, three times. The Concise Atlas of World History. The Middle East actually gave Europe religion four times, including Islam, but this map shows the first three.
- When Mohammed's Caliphate conquered the Middle East. Mohammad Adil. In the early 7th century AD in present-day Saudi Arabia, the Prophet Mohammed founded Islam, which his followers considered a community as well as a religion.
The Middle East is a large region composed of several countries in north Africa and western Asia. Learn about the Persian Gulf War, the Iran Hostage Crisis, Israel, Syria, Palestine and more.
- Zionism
- Palestine - History, Religion & Conflicts
- Israel - Facts, History & Conflicts
- Iran Hostage Crisis - Definition, Results & Facts
- Persian Gulf War: Dates & Operation Desert Storm - HISTORY
- Ottoman Empire - WWI, Decline & Definition
- Six-Day War
- Camp David Accords
- Iran-Iraq War - Summary, Timeline & Legacy
- Arab Spring
The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, 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.
- 7,207,575 km² (2,782,860 sq mi)
- 371 million (2010)
People also ask
What countries are in the Middle East?
What is the history of the Middle East?
What lands are in the Middle East?
Is the Middle East part of the Arab world?
- A Transition in America Occurs as The Landscape Shifts in The Middle East
- New Regional Diplomacy
- The Catch-22 of Civil Wars in The Middle East
- Iran’s Hardliners Consolidate Their Hold on Power
- The End of The 20-Year War in Afghanistan
- The Lessons of The May War in Gaza
- Israel’s New Government Lowers The Temperature of The Debate
- A Year of Reckoning in Energy Markets
- More Climate Change Highs (and Lows) For The Middle East
- Technopolitics Emerge as A Key Factor in The New Geopolitics
Paul Salem President Brian Katulis Vice President for Policy The center of gravity for the Biden administration’s overall policy was on domestic issues, with a sharp focus on the pandemic and economic crisis at home. On the foreign policy front, the three C’s — China, climate change, and COVID-19 — along with efforts to rebuild ties with democratic...
The GCC turns to diplomacy and dialogue to manage conflict
Gerald M. Feierstein Senior Vice President After decades of confrontation and the threat of war, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, emphasized in 2021 their desire to “turn a page” and seek to manage, if not resolve, regional conflicts through dialogue and negotiation. Beginning with the al-Ula agreement that ended the intra-GCC feud with Qatar, the two predominant GCC states have expanded their dialogue with Iran, calmed tensions with Turkey, purs...
Facing long odds and growing pressure at home, Erdoğan tries a new approach: diplomacy
Gönül Tol Director of Turkey Program and Senior Fellow, Frontier Europe Initiative In mid-August 2020, a Turkish and a Greek warship were involved in a mild collision during a standoff in the eastern Mediterranean — one many called the most explosive the region had seen in 20 years. The row between the two NATO allies over energy exploration was the latest in a series of aggressive foreign policy moves by Turkey. Since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan allied himself with the Nationalist Action...
The year of Assad’s normalization
Charles Lister Senior Fellow, Director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs In the not-too-distant future, 2021 will stand out as the year when a methodical process began to reintegrate Bashar al-Assad and his regime in Syria into the “international community.” Despite the enormity of the Assad regime’s war crimes since 2011 — prosecutors have more evidence against Syriathan the world had against Hitler and the Nazi Party at Nuremberg — a combination of fatigue, disinterest,...
Ross Harrison Senior Fellow and Director of Research Civil wars in the Middle East, while symptomatic of the failure of states to build legitimacy and inclusive governance, also are emblematic of a fractured and failed region. Despite some attenuation of the civil wars in terms of the levels of violence and the degrees of lethality in 2021, these c...
Alex Vatanka Director of Iran Program and Senior Fellow, Frontier Europe Initiative In Iran, the biggest headline of 2021 was the hardliners’ recapture of all centers of power in Tehran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his armed stalwarts in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) masterminded the installation of Ebrahim Raisi as Ira...
Marvin G. Weinbaum Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies The 20-year Afghan war, American’s longest, finally ended in 2021. On Aug. 15, fighters of the Taliban movement occupied Kabul, shortly after the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and his close advisors had fled. The war ended largely as it had begun, with rule by an Islam...
Khaled Elgindy Senior Fellow, Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs Last May’s war in Gaza, which left 256 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead, was the deadliest eruption of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian arena in nearly seven years. The 11-day war was triggered by events some 50 miles away in Israeli-occupied East Jer...
Mark A. Heller Non-Resident Scholar The Israeli election in March 2021 produced what three other elections in the previous two years had failed to deliver: a new government headed by someone other than Benjamin Netanyahu. The governing coalition assembled by Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Yamina Party, is riven by internal contradictions...
Karen E. Young Senior Fellow and Director of Program on Economics and Energy 2021 was a year of reckoning in global energy markets. We started to think more globally about climate change policy action with COP 26, even as many found the commitments disappointing. The Middle East has become ground zero for much of the debate on net zero. Saudi Arabi...
Mohammed Mahmoud Senior Fellow and Director of the Climate and Water Program The global implications of ongoing climate change this year have been especially acute in the Middle East. For a region that is already prone to hot and dry conditions, the suite of climate change impacts that the Middle East experienced this year are potentially an indica...
The implications of NSO Group
Eliza Campbell Director, Cyber Program The saga of Israeli technology company NSO Group could fill volumes — and indeed, in 2021, to many observers of the Middle East it might have seemed as if it did. Why, readers might have asked themselves, does this matter? What exactly about a single midsize technology firm, only one of many in a crowded and fast-growing Israeli tech sector with a stunning 6,426 local start-ups, captured so much political and analytical attention this year, and what does...
Looking ahead to 2022
Brian Katulis Vice President for Policy This look back at 10 key events and trends that shaped 2021 sets the foundation for thinking about what’s to come in 2022 and beyond in the Middle East. Countervailing trends — de-escalation through diplomacy at a time of continued tensions as actors use force, particularly with weapons enhanced by new technologies, including cyberweapons — demonstrate that the complicated competition for power and influence across the region continues to evolve. This r...
Oct 3, 2020 · The region includes 18 countries. These are Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. These countries are located primarily in Western Asia, Egypt is in North Africa, and a part of Turkey lies in Southeast ...
Jan 28, 2019 · The most conservative definition limits the Middle East to the countries bound by Egypt to the West, the Arab Peninsula to the South, and at most Iran to the East. A more expansive view of the Middle East, or the Greater Middle East, would stretch the region to Mauritania in West Africa and all the countries of North Africa that are members of ...
