The Middle East
The Middle East is the region where Asia, Africa, and Europe meet. Although the area’s precise boundaries are difficult to define, characteristics of a transition zone combine with special local elements to produce a distinctive regional identity. Part of the Middle East’s identity is the product of the expansion and contraction of its sociocultural borders throughout its history. New groups, goods, and ideas entered the area because of this continuing interaction at this tricontinental hub of the Afro-Eurasian landmass. Tensions between elements of unity and diversity are thus created, and their resolution has created and maintained a unified mosaic of peoples and cultures in Middle Eastern society.
The term Middle East was first used in 1902 by the U.S. naval writer Alfred Mahan in a discussion of British imperial strategy. The term referred then to the western and northern approaches to India. Current usage began during World War II, when the Allies used the term Middle East to refer to the region stretching from South Asia to North Africa. Gradually Middle East replaced older terms such as NEAR EAST or the LEVANT in popular usage.
The modern countries that make up the Middle East, in the most common current usage, can be divided into four groups: Northeast Africa (Egypt and Libya); the Fertile Crescent countries (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel); the nations of the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman); and the Northern Tier (Turkey and Iran). This area of about 9,000,000 sq km (3,475,000 sq mi) has a population of nearly 246,000,000 persons (1990 est.). Other nations are sometimes also considered part of the Middle East: one may find North Africa, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Greece, Cyprus, or Muslim areas of Soviet Central Asia included in discussions of the Middle East.