Arab world

Countries considered Arab.

Extension of the Arabic language.

It's called the Arab world (in Arabic: العالم العربي‎, al-`ālam al-`arabī ) or Arab countries (البلدان العربية, al-buldān al-`arabiyya) to the set of countries in which the Arab people live or where the Arabic language is the majority. The Arab world is made up of most of the countries of the Middle East, including the entirety of the Arabian peninsula, and of the nations of the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. By extension, this name also designates the world community of people who make up those who have Arabic —in its multiple variants— as their mother tongue. In this regard, the term Arab nation (الأمة العربية, al-ummah al-ʿarabīyyah).

The existence of the Arab world is a consequence of the Islamic conquest from the year 622, the first of the Hegira. The original Arabs inhabited the Arabian peninsula and some surrounding regions. The Muslim conquerors mainly spread their religion, Islam, and the official language of the Islamic State, Arabic. The implantation of both in the conquered zones was variable to the populations. Thus, there were populations that adopted both, as are the majority of those that currently make up the Arab world, with a predominantly Muslim religion. There were, however, those who adopted the Arabic language but not Islam, as is the case of the numerous Christian minorities that still exist in several Arab countries (Maronites, Nestorians, Copts, Mozarabs in the disappeared Al-Andalus, etc.). There were also others who adopted Islam but not the Arabic language: this is the case of the non-Arab minorities in these countries (Berbers, Kurds, Nubians) or it is about regions that were conquered early and kept their original languages, as is the case with Iran., Turkey and Pakistan. The partition of the Ottoman Empire has also influenced its current state.

The concept of Arabic, therefore, although closely linked to Islam for historical and cultural reasons, is exclusively linguistic and should not be confused with that of "Muslim", which It is the community of people whose religious creed is Islam. In fact, 80% of Muslims have Arabic as their first language, and on the other hand many Arabs are Christians.

The concept of the Arab world or Arab nation is relatively modern and is linked to European nationalisms that link language to the political structure. It competes to some extent with the concept of Umma or community of Muslims.

Panarabism or Arab nationalism is the ideology that seeks to unite all Arab countries into a single political entity. The concept of the Arab nation is due to him.

Geography

The Arab World stretches for nearly 7,840 kilometers, from La Güera in Western Sahara to the easternmost tip of Oman, near the city of Sur. It covers North Africa and the part of southwestern Asia called the Middle East. In Libya is the border that traditionally divides the Arab world in two: the Maghreb or West and the Mashreq or Levant. At present, Libya falls politically within the first, and is a member state of the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA).

Its total area is the magnitude of all Spanish-speaking countries in the Western Hemisphere (12.9 million km²), larger than Europe (10.4 million km²), Canada (10 million km²), China (9.6 million km²), the United States (9.6 million km²) or Brazil (8.5 million km²) but with a large percentage of uninhabited and desert territory. Only Russia with 17 million km² (the largest country in the world) and Anglophone North America (the United States and Canada together, with 18 million km²) are even larger geocultural units.

The term Arab often connotes the Middle East, but the largest and most populous region of the Arab world is North Africa. Its more than 8 million km², which includes the largest country on the African continent, Algeria (2,381 million km²) in the center of the region, about three quarters the size of India, or about one and one times half the size of Alaska, the largest state in the United States. The largest country in the Arab Middle East region is Saudi Arabia (2.149 million km²).

At the other extreme, the smallest continental Arab country in North Africa and the Middle East is Lebanon (10,452 km²), although the smallest Arab country is the island of Bahrain, with an area of 665 km².

Notably, all Arab countries border a sea or ocean, with the exception of the northern Arab region of Chad.

The Arab world is often referred to in Arabic by the expression "from the Gulf to the Ocean" (من الخليج إلى المحيط min al-jaliy ilà l-muhit), alluding to two of the great geographical accidents that delimit it: the Persian Gulf ("Arabian Gulf" in Arabic) to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

The types of relief that are located in the Arab countries are: The Nafud, Dahna and Al-Rub Al-Jali deserts in the Arabian peninsula and the Sahara desert in North Africa. In the Sahara are the Ahaggar and Aïr massifs, and in the northwest region the highlands of the Great Atlas. The mountain range that runs parallel to the Red Sea in the Arabian Peninsula. The Nile River valley in northeast Africa, and the Euphrates and Tigris river valleys in the Mesopotamian region.

States and territories

At present, the following states are considered to be an integral part of the Arab world:

Western Sahara (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), administered by Morocco, is also part of the Arab world, although it is not recognized by the Arab League, nor by the UN.

Palestine is a member of the Arab League, but is not recognized by Israel or the United States. Arabic-speaking minorities exist in surrounding countries such as Chad, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and others. Arabic speakers number about 300 million people.

The predominant climate is dry desert. The temperature in the summer months reaches up to 49 °C in many places and its rainfall is very low, an average of less than 100 mm per year. Another characteristic of this type of climate is that it presents high temperatures during the day and intense cold at night. In the coastal regions of the Arab countries, the Mediterranean climate predominates.

Permanent rivers are very rare. The most important are the following: The Nile (the second longest in the world, with 6671 km in length) in the northeastern region of Africa. The Tigris and Euphrates in the Mesopotamian region on the Asian continent.

The predominant vegetation is xerophytic.