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Member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

  • AlgeriaStone artifacts dating to approximately 1.8 million years old were discovered at Ain Hanech in northern Algeria, representing the oldest archaeological…
  • Saudi ArabiaHuman habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago. A 2011 study found that the first modern humans to spread east across Asia…
  • DjiboutiCut stones dated about 3 million years old have been collected in the area of Lake Abbe. In the Gobaad plain, between Dikhil and Lake Abbe, the remains of…
  • KuwaitThe Mesolithic era, around 8000 BC, left the first human traces in what is now Kuwait. Archaeologists found evidence of early habitation at site H3 and Bahra…
  • UzbekistanThe 8th century BC saw Eastern Iranian nomads known as Scythians establish kingdoms across the region now called Uzbekistan.
  • Burkina FasoArchaeological excavations in 1973 uncovered scrapers, chisels, and arrowheads dating back to the period between 14,000 BC and 5,000 BC.
  • TunisiaThe 9th century BC marked the founding of Carthage by Phoenician settlers from Tyre, a city now located in modern-day Lebanon.
  • SenegalIn 1444, the Portuguese explorer Dinis Dias stepped onto Gorée Island, marking the first European contact with what is now Senegal.
  • TajikistanThe territory now known as Tajikistan has been home to cultures dating back to the fourth millennium BC. Archaeologists have identified the Bronze Age…
  • TurkmenistanTurkmenistan occupies a landlocked position in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the north. Afghanistan lies to the southeast while Iran…
  • SudanSūdan was not merely a scribe who recorded history from a safe distance but a man who stood shoulder to shoulder with Maharaja Suraj Mal during the most…
  • JordanThe oldest known evidence of hominid habitation in Jordan dates back at least 200,000 years. Scientists have found the world's oldest known evidence of…
  • KazakhstanThe Botai culture thrived between 3700 and 3100 BC in the region now known as Kazakhstan. Archaeologists credit this group with the first domestication of…
  • GuyanaThe name Guyana comes from an indigenous Amerindian language and means land of many waters. This vast territory lies between latitudes 1° and 9°N, and…
  • PakistanIn the Soan Valley of northern Pakistan, stone tools dating to approximately 2 million years ago mark some of the earliest human activity in South Asia.
  • MalaysiaThe name Malaysia emerged from a combination of the word Malays and the Latin-Greek suffix -ia, translating to 'land of the Malays'.
  • AfghanistanHuman habitation in what is now Afghanistan dates to the Middle Paleolithic era, with archaeological evidence suggesting people lived there at least 50,000…
  • QatarThe Qatari peninsula juts into the Persian Gulf, a flat, low-lying plain of sand that stretches between latitudes 24 and 27 degrees north.
  • AzerbaijanThe name Azerbaijan traces back to Atropates, a Persian satrap under the Achaemenid Empire who was reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander the…
  • IndonesiaThe name Indonesia derives from the Greek words indos and nesos, meaning Indian islands. This term dates back to 1850 when English ethnologist George Windsor…
  • United Arab EmiratesThe United Arab Emirates stretches across 83,600 square kilometers of the Arabian Peninsula. Its landscape shifts from salt pans along the Persian Gulf to…
  • IraqThe fertile plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers fostered the rise of early cities, civilisations, and empires including Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia…
  • Ivory CoastPortuguese merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa into four regions based on available resources.
  • IranThe earliest known presence of hominins in Iran dates to around 800,000 BP. Middle Paleolithic sites have been discovered mainly in the Zagros Mountains.
  • NigeriaOn the 8th of January 1897, a British journalist named Flora Shaw coined the name Nigeria for the territory along the Niger River.
  • BangladeshThe word Bangladesh first appeared in a political song by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905. Kazi Nazrul Islam used the term again in his own patriotic composition…
  • EgyptThe Nile River flows through a landscape that has supported human life for over ten thousand years. Evidence of rock carvings along the banks and in…
  • TurkeyGöbekli Tepe stands as a stone monument older than Stonehenge, with some henges erected around 9600 BC. This site in southeastern Turkey predates the…
  • MaldivesThe Maldives stretches across the equator from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south. This chain of 26 atolls covers roughly 90,000…