Demographics of the Arab League - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Arab League

The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...

is a culturally and ethnically diverse league of 22 member states. As of January 1, 2007, the combined population of all the countries that are members of the Arab League was about 340 million people.

The most populous member state is Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, with a population of 80 million people. Djibouti

Djibouti

Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti , is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east...

is the least populated with around 500,000 inhabitants. Most of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf

Arab states of the Persian Gulf

"Arab states of the Persian Gulf" or "Arab Persian Gulf states" or "Persian Gulf Arab states" or "Arabic Persian Gulf states" or "Arab States of The Gulf", are terms that refer to the six Arab states of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, bordering the Persian Gulf....

import high amounts of foreign labour. For example, the UAE's native inhabitants make up less than 20% of its overall population.

Some Persian Gulf Arab states

Arab states of the Persian Gulf

import cheap labor from poorer Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

countries such as Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

, and Egypt

Egypt

, while others turn to countries in Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

and Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

Population growth

The population of the Arab League as estimated by the CIA in the year 2007 was around 340,000,000. No exact figures of the League's annual population growth, fertility rate, or mortality rate are known to exist.

Religion in the Arab World

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism were all founded in or near areas that are now Arab League countries. Consequently, the majority of the Arab League's citizens are either Muslims, Christians or Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

. The countries of the Arab League host several holy cities and other religiously significant locations, including Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, Mecca

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

, Medina

Medina

Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...

, Kirkuk

Kirkuk

Kirkuk is a city in Iraq and the capital of Kirkuk Governorate.It is located in the Iraqi governorate of Kirkuk, north of the capital, Baghdad...

, Arbil

Arbil

Arbil / Hewlêr is the fourth largest city in Iraq after Baghdad, Basra and Mosul...

, and Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

. Sunni Muslims make up the Majority of the Arab League's citizens. However, large numbers of Shi'a Muslims make up the majority in areas of Lebanon, Iraq, and Bahrain

Bahrain

' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

.
Christianity

Arab Christians

Arab Christians are ethnic Arabs of Christian faith, sometimes also including those, who are identified with Arab panethnicity. They are the remnants of ancient Arab Christian clans or Arabized Christians. Many of the modern Arab Christians are descendants of pre-Islamic Christian Arabian tribes,...

is the second largest religion in the League, with over 20 million Christians living in countries such as Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

, Egypt

Egypt

, Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, and Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

. There are smaller Jewish

Arab Jews

Arab Jews is a term referring to Jews living in the Arab World, or Jews descended from such persons.The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time...

populations living mainly in the western part of the Arab league. Places such as Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt and Iraq all have Jewish populations. However, most Arab Jews emigrated from the Arab states to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

after its founding in 1948. Other minor religions such as Druze

Druze

The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...

religion, the Bahá'í Faith

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....

, Mandeanism, Yazdanism

Yazdânism

Yazdânism is a neologism introduced by Mehrdad Izady in 1992 to denote a group of native Kurdish monotheistic religions: Alevism, Yarsan and Yazidism....

, Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...

, Shabak religion and Yarsan are practiced on a much smaller scale.

Muslim population - 311,093,951
Total population - 339,510,535

Religious percentages of the Arab League

N	Muslims	Christians	Others
_	90%	6%	4%
1	97%	2%	1%
2	81.2%	9%	8.81%
3	99%	1%	n/a
4	94%	5%	1%
5	90%	10%	n/a
6	95%	4.3%	0.7%
7	93%	6%	1%
8	85%	10%	10%
9	55.7%	43%	1.3%
10	97%	2.4%	0.6%
11	100%	0%	0%
12	95%	3%	2%
13	92.5%	5%	2.5%
14	67.5%	20%	12.5%
15	89%	4.5%	6.5%
16	100%	0%	0%
17	70%	25%	5%
18	80%	20%	n/a
19	95%	3%	2%
20	62%	8.5%	29.5%
21	95%	0.2%	4.8%

Language

Arabic is the Arab League's official language, but additional languages are often used in the daily lives of some of the League's citizens. Currently, three major languages other than Arabic are used widely: Kurdish

Kurdish language

Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....

in northern Iraq and parts of Syria, Berber

Berber languages

The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...

in North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

, and Somali

Somali language

The Somali language is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies beginning before 1900....

in the Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...

.

There are several minority languages that are still spoken today, such as Afar

Afar language

Afar is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. It is believed to have 1.5 million speakers, the Afar. The basic word order in Afar, like in other East Cushitic languages, is subject–object–verb. Its speakers have a literacy rate of between one and three per cent...

, Armenian

Armenian language

The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, Nubian

Nubian languages

The Nubian language group, according to the most recent research by Bechhaus-Gerst comprises the following varieties:# Nobiin ....

, Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

, and Turkmen

Turkmen language

Turkmen is the national language of Turkmenistan...

.
Arabic is a non-native language to 20% of the Arab League's population, with the Somali, Berber and Kurdish languages considered the most widely-used after Arabic.

On the other hand, Arabic is divided into over 27 dialects. Almost every Arab state has at least one local dialect of its own. they can be divided into 5 major branches, the Peninsula Arabic, which is the Arabic used in the Arabian peninsula, with around 9 main dialects, Arabic of the Nile Valley, which includes the Masri, Saedi, Sudanese and Chadic Arabic, the Arabic of the Fertile Crescent, which includes the Bedawi, Levant Arabic, Iraqi Arabic and North Mesopotamian Arabic, the Magharbi Arabic, which includes the Dialects used in Mauritania, Morocco, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia, also another category of Arabic is the other isolated dialects of Arabic, like the Judeo-Arabic, Mediterranean Arabic, Nubi Arabic, and the juba Arabic, which have greatly been affected by these communities' own pronunciation, culture and native tongue.

Ethnicities

Ethnicity	Total	Estimated Date
Arabs	295,921,955	est.2007
Afars	456,000	2007
Amhara Amhara people Amhara are a highland people inhabiting the Northwestern highlands of Ethiopia. Numbering about 19.8 million people, they comprise 26% of the country's population, according to the 2007 national census...	191,000	2007
Assyrians Assyrian people The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...	1,779,700	2006
Armenians Armenians Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....	260,500	2007
Beja Beja people The Beja people are an ethnic group dwelling in parts of North Africa and the Horn of Africa.-Geography:The Beja are found mostly in Sudan, but also in parts of Eritrea, and Egypt...	2,779,000	2007
Berbers	16,364,100	2007
Cherkes	229,600	20006
Western Europeans	853,950	2007
Filipino Filipino people The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....	2,000,000	2007
Greeks Greeks The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....	89,100	2007
Gypsies	500,000	2007
Han Chinese Han Chinese Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...	105,590	2007
Hindi Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin A Non-Resident Indian is an Indian citizen who has migrated to another country, a person of Indian origin who is born outside India, or a person of Indian origin who resides permanently outside India. Other terms with the same meaning are overseas Indian and expatriate Indian...	228,900	2004
Somalis Somali people Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...	8,882,500	2007
Jews Jews The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...	19,940	2007
Kurds	6,216,500	2007
Malays	516,100	2007
Nubians Nubians The Nubians are an ethnic group originally from northern Sudan, and southern Egypt now inhabiting North Africa and some parts of East Africa....	1,700,000	2006
Persians Persian people The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...	1,192,000	2006
Swahili Swahili people The Swahili people are a Bantu ethnic group and culture found in East Africa, mainly in the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya, Tanzania and north Mozambique. According to JoshuaProject, the Swahili number in at around 1,328,000. The name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil,...	497,200	2006
Tigrinya Tigray-Tigrinya people Tigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in the southern, central and northern parts of Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopia's Tigray province. They also live in Ethiopia's former provinces of Begemder and Wollo, which are today mostly part of Amhara Region, though a few regions...	47,800	2007
Tuareg	242,000	2007
Turkish Turkish people Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...	152,400	2004
Turkmens	458,900	2007
Urdu	963,300	2006

Berbers

In the Maghreb

Maghreb

The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...

(North Africa) most of the population speaks Arabic although there is a significant Berber

Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

population. Arab and Berber identity in these countries is generally defined situationally by both language and ancestry. In Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, Berber speakers

Berber languages

The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...

form about 30% of the total population; in Algeria, they represent about 20% of the population. In Libya, they form about 13% of the population. There are much smaller isolated Berber communities in Mauritania

Mauritania

Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

and one oasis in Egypt

Egypt

's Western Desert

Libyan Desert

The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 km2, it extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle...

. The nomadic Tuareg people whose traditional areas straddle the borders of several countries in the Sahara desert, are Berber. Government worries about ethnic separatism, and condescending attitudes towards the mainly rural Berber-speaking areas, led to the Berber communities being denied full linguistic and cultural rights; in Algeria, for example, Berber chairs at universities were closed, and Berber singers were occasionally banned from singing in their own language, although an official Berber radio station continued to operate throughout. These problems have to some extent been redressed in later years in Morocco and Algeria; both have started teaching Berber languages in schools and universities, and Algeria has amended its constitution to declare Berber a fundamental aspect of Algerian identity (along with Islam and Arabness.) In Libya, however, any suggestion that Berbers might be non-Arab remains taboo .

Nubians

Nubians, found in Northern Sudan

Sudan

and Southern Egypt

Egypt

, are a different ethnicity from their upper and southern Arab neighbors in Egypt and Sudan, numbering 1.7 million in Sudan and Egypt. The Nubian people in Sudan inhabit the region between Wadi Halfa

Wadi Halfa

Wadi Halfa is a city in the state of Northern, in northern Sudan, on the shores of Lake Nubia . It is the terminus of a rail line from Khartoum and the point where goods are transferred from rail to ferries going down the Lake Nasser...

in the north and Aldaba in the south. The main Nubian groups from north to south are the Halfaweyen, Sikut (Sickkout), Mahas

Mahas

The Mahas are a sub-group of the Nubian people located in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan along the banks of the Nile. The Mahas have been referred to as Nubians since the creation of Lake Nasser when indigenous people of several different cultures were made to relocate. The Mahas are one of the...

, and Danagla. They speak different dialects of the Nubian language.

In ancient times Nubians were depicted by Egyptians as having very dark skin, often shown with hooped earrings and with braided or extended hair. Ancient Nubians were famous for their vast wealth, their trade between Central Africa

Central Africa

Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....

and the lower Nile valley civilizations, including Egypt, their skill and precision with the bow, their 23-letter alphabet, the use of deadly poison on the heads of their arrows, their great military, their advanced civilization, and their century-long rule over the united upper and lower Egyptian kingdoms.

Kurds

In the northern regions of Iraq

Iraq

(15-20%) and Syria

Syria

(5-8%) live the Kurd

Kürd

Kürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...

s, an Indo-European

Indo-European

Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...

ethnic group who speak Kurdish

Kurdish language

Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....

, a language closely related to Persian

Persian language

and using Persian alphabet. The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslim, others are Alevi

Alevi

The Alevi are a religious and cultural community, primarily in Turkey, constituting probably more than 15 million people....

Muslim, with Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

, Yarsan and Jewish minorities. The nationalist aspiration for self-rule or for a state of Kurdistan has created conflict between Kurdish minorities and their governments in Iraq

Iraq

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

(20-28%), Syria

Syria

and Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

(25-30%).

Assyrians

Assyrian people

The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...

(also known as Chaldo-Assyrians) can be found in Iraq

Iraq

, north eastern Syria

Syria

, and to a lesser degree north western Iran

Iran

and south eastern Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. They are an ancient Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...

people who retain Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...

as a spoken language. They are exclusively Christian

Christian

and are descendants of the ancient pre Arab Assyrians/Mesopotamians. Almost all Christians in Iraq are ethnic Assyrians, where they number approximately 800,000. Numbers in Syria are harder to identify, because they are often included in with the general Christian

Christian

population, however the Christians of the Tur Abdin

Tur Abdin

Tur Abdin is a hilly region of south east Turkey incorporating the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria. The name 'Tur Abdin' is from the Syriac language meaning 'mountain of the servants '. Tur Abdin is of great importance to Syriac...

and Al Hasakah

Al Hasakah

Al Hasakah is a governorate in the far north-east corner of Syria that has the Euphrates river running through it. It is distinguished by its fertile lands, plentiful water, picturesque nature, and more than one hundred archaeological sites.- Districts :...

regions in the north east are predominantly Assyrians.

Arameans/Syriacs

Many Christian people in Syria

Syria

reject an Arab Identity, and prefer to be called Syriacs

Syriacs

Syriac may refer to:* Syriac alphabet* Syriac language* Syriac Christians* Syriac Christianity, the churches using Syriac as their liturgical language* Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people, adherents of Syriac Christianity-See also:...

or Arameans. Arameans reject the term Syriac because of its probable Assyrian origin. Some Syriacs identify with the Assyrians of Iraq and north east Syria, others claim a separate native non Arab Syriac identity.

Armenians

The Arab World

Arab world

The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

has between 500,000 and 1 million Armenians

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

inhabiting its geographical area. Armenians

Armenians

are largely concentrated in countries such as Lebanon

Lebanon

150,000 - 300,000 and Syria

Syria

200,000, and to a lesser degree Iraq

Iraq

, but Armenians can also be found in countries like Qatar

Qatar

Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...

and the UAE. These Armenians are economic migrants from Lebanon

Lebanon

and Syria

Syria

. Most Armenians

Armenians

are mainly Christians following the orthodox church of Armenia. The apostolic church of Armenia has one of its headquarters in Lebanon

Lebanon

Coptic Egyptians

Egypt

ian Copts do not recognise themselves as Arab, but emphasise their pre Arab Ancient Egyptian identity. They comprise 10% - 20% of the Egyptian population. They are Christians. They retain a form of ancient Egyptian language

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...

to this day for religious ceremonies.

Maronites

A large proportion of Lebanese

Lebanon

Maronite Christians identify with a pre Arab and pre Islamic Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

n identity, and do not self identify as ethnic Arabs.

Somalis

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

is a Muslim country, but many Somalis

Somali people

Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...

just recognize themselves as Somali instead of Arab despite centuries-old ties to Arabia. Although Somalia

Somalia

joined the Arab League

Arab League

in 1974, accords Arabic official language status, and Arabic is spoken by Somalis in commerce, religion and education, the country's primary language is Somali

Somali language

. The population also predominantly consists of ethnic Somalis

Somali people

Djibouti

, whose demographics are approximately 60% Somali

Somali people

and 35% Afar

Afar people

The Afar , also known as the Danakil, are an ethnic group in the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, although some also inhabit the southern point of Eritrea.-Early history:...

, is in a similar position. Arabic is one of the official languages, 94% of the nation's population is Muslim, and its location on the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

places it in close proximity to the Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

Turkmen

The Arab world is also home to sizeable populations of Turkmen

Iraqi Turkmen

The Iraqi Turkmen are an ethnic group who mainly reside in northern Iraq. Estimates of their numbers vary dramatically, in accordance with Iraq's assimilation policies no realistic and independent census results have been revealed regarding the Iraqi Turkmen population...

. These are related to the Azeri people of Iran

Iran

. The vast majority are secular Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

, but there are a small number of Christians also.

Yezidi

The Yezidi people are mainly found in Iraq and Syria. They are closely related to Kurds, but emphasise their separate identity. They follow their own religion, Yazdanism

Yazdânism

Yazdânism is a neologism introduced by Mehrdad Izady in 1992 to denote a group of native Kurdish monotheistic religions: Alevism, Yarsan and Yazidism....

Shabaks

Shabak people

Shabak people are an ethnic and religious minority group living in northern Iraq, who live mainly in the villages of Ali Rash, Khazna, Yangidja, and Tallara in Sinjar district in the province of Ninawa in northern Iraq. Their language, Shabaki, is a Northwestern Iranian language very close to...

are mainly found in Iraq, they are either Muslim or follow native religions. They are also related to Kurds, but like the Yazidi, emphasise their separate identity.

Mandaeans

Mandaeans, sometimes also called Sabians

Sabians

The Sabians of Middle Eastern tradition were a monotheistic Abrahamic religious group mentioned three times in the Quran: "the Jews, the Sabians, and the Christians." In the Hadith they are nothing but converts to Islam, while their identity in later Islamic literature became a matter of...

are a people found mainly in southern Iraq. Their numbers total no more than 10,000. They follow an ancient Gnostic religion.

Roma/Gypsies

Roma are to be found in many parts of the middle east, numbers are hard to judge, they speak their own language and may loosely follow Islam, Christianity or their own native beliefs.

Circassians

Circassians are a people who originate in the North Caucasus

North Caucasus

The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....

. They are predominantly Muslim, and can be found in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in relatively small numbers.

Mhallami

The Mhallami, or Mhalmites, are a Semitic people originating from the Assyrian/Syriac people. They originally spoke Aramaic and were Eastern Rite Christians, but are now primarily speakers of North Mesopotamian Arabic and Sunni Muslims of Shafi`i madh'hab.-Origin:"A small minority of the Syriacs,...

are a tiny minority of Assyrians

Assyrian people

The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...

and Syriacs

Syriacs

/Arameans who have converted to Islam but retained their Assyrian or Syriac culture.

Jews

Many Jews in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

have roots in Arab countries, from where most were expelled

Jewish exodus from Arab lands

The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries was a mass departure, flight and expulsion of Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab and Muslim countries, from 1948 until the early 1970s...

in the first decades following the creation of Israel and the 1948 Arab war on Israel. Small minorities exist still in Syria

Syria

and Morocco

Morocco

.

Since most modern borders of the Arab world are products of Western imperial powers, they often ignore distinct ethnic and geographic boundaries. Thus, in addition to regions with large Arab populations being located in non-Arab countries (such as the Turkish province of Hatay

Hatay Province

Hatay Province is a province in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast. It is bordered by Syria to the south and east and the Turkish provinces of Adana and Osmaniye to the north. The province is part of Çukurova, a geographical, economical and cultural region that covers the provinces of...

, populated mainly by indigenous Iskanderun Syrians, and the Iranian province of Khuzestan, which has a minority of Iranian Arabs), many peripheral states of the Arab world have border-straddling minorities of non-Arab peoples, as is the case with the non-Arab Black Africans

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

of southern Sudan

Sudan

and southern Mauritania

Mauritania

.

Many Arab countries in the Persian Gulf have sizable (10–30%) non-Arab populations, usually of a temporary nature, at least in theory. Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman has a sizeable Persian

Persian language

speaking minority. The same countries also have Hindi-Urdu speakers and Filipinos as sizable minority. Balochi speakers are a good size minority in Oman. Countries like Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Kuwait have significant non-Muslim / non-Arab minorities (10–20%) like Hindus and Christians from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines.

Many non-Arab countries bordering the core Arab world states have large Arab populations, as is the case in Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

, Niger

Niger

Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

, and Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

Comparison of population to area and GDP

Area (km²)	Population (est. 2007)	GDP PPP (in billions $)
13,333,296	340,043,965	1,860,193
2,381,740	33,333,216	250,000
665	708,573	18,000
2,170	711,417	1,275
23,000	496,374	1,878
1,001,450	80,335,036	334,400
437,072	27,499,638	50,720
92,300	6,053,193	30,000
17,820	2,505,559	55,910
10,400	4,224,000	51,474
1,759,540	6,036,914	72,680
1,030,700	3,270,065	8,124
446,550	33,757,175	152,500
212,460	3,204,897	44,530
11,437	907,229	26,370
2,149,690	27,601,038	366,200
637,657	9,118,773	5,575
1,886,068	30,894,000	97,470
185,180	19,314,747	77,660
163,610	10,276,158	89,740
83,600	4,444,011	129,500
527,970	22,230,531	20,630