Curated playlist
Countries and territories where Arabic is an official language
- AlgeriaIn 1827, Algiers's ruler struck the French consul with a fly whisk, and France later invaded.
- Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia is named after one family, the Al Saud. King Abdulaziz made the name official by decree in 1932.
- DjiboutiDjibouti, a tiny African country, has the United States, France, Japan and China all paying to keep soldiers there.
- KuwaitIn August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and annexed Kuwait without warning. Retreating soldiers set oil wells on fire.
- TunisiaA street vendor's self-immolation in December 2010 set off Tunisia's revolution.
- MauritaniaNear the town of Ouadane, on the Adrar Plateau in Mauritania, the desert floor is marked by a set of concentric rings. From above, the formation looks like a giant eye. It is called the Richat Structure, and it has been dubbed the Eye of…
- OmanIn 2010, the United Nations Development Programme named Oman the most improved country in the world over the preceding 40 years. That is a striking verdict for a nation on the southeastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, facing the Arabian…
- LibyaLibya, now a country in North Africa, first appears in the record as a name carved into Egyptian stone. The Great Karnak Inscription describes a war fought in year 5 of the pharaoh Merneptah, in 1208 BC. King Meryey led a confederacy…
- JordanJordan holds the world's oldest known evidence of bread-making.
- SudanNubians in Sudan beat back Arab invaders in 641 and again in 652. They were one of the few peoples to defeat the Arabs.
- MoroccoIn Turkish, Morocco is called Fas, after the medieval city of Fes. In Persian, Urdu and Punjabi it is Murrakush, a name that points to Marrakesh. In Arabic, the country is al-Maghrib, which means the west. Each name looks toward a…
- BahrainBahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia, close to the western shore of the Persian Gulf. In 2024 its population stood at 1,588,670 people. Of these, 848,934 were expatriates, or 53.4 percent, and only…
- SyriaIn December 2024, rebels took Damascus and ended the Assad family's 53-year rule of Syria.
- QatarQatar is smaller than Connecticut but holds the world's third-largest natural gas reserves.
- ZanzibarZanzibar holds the record for the shortest war in history. On the morning of the 27th of August 1896, the Royal Navy destroyed the Beit al Hukum Palace on this Tanzanian island chain off the coast of East Africa. A cease-fire was declared…
- United Arab EmiratesIn 2021, the United Arab Emirates sent a probe named Hope into Mars orbit. It was the first Arab country to reach Mars.
- IraqIraq's land gave the world writing, the wheel and the sailboat.
- ChadChad is a landlocked country in Central Africa, and its capital, N'Djamena, lies 1060 km from the nearest seaport, Douala in Cameroon. That distance, together with a largely desert climate, gave the country a bleak nickname: the "Dead…
- LebanonLebanon takes its name from a Phoenician root, lbn, which means white. The word apparently describes the snow on its mountain peaks. The name is far older than the modern country. It turns up in Middle Bronze Age texts from the library of…
- IsraelIsrael sits at one of the strangest addresses on the planet. Its eastern side drops to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. Its western coast meets the Mediterranean, and its southern tip touches the Red Sea. On land…
- EgyptAbout 99% of Egyptians live on roughly 5.5% of the country's land. The rest is desert and scattered oases.