The term Middle East did not exist as a geopolitical concept until the early 20th century, when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan published an article in September 1902 titled The Persian Gulf and International Relations. Mahan, a man obsessed with the flow of global power through waterways, identified the Persian Gulf as the critical choke point that Britain needed to control to prevent Russian expansion toward British India. Before this moment, the region was known as the Near East, a term that described the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while the area stretching from Mesopotamia to Burma was simply the space between the Near East and the Far East. Mahan realized that the strategic value of the region lay not in its ancient history or its religious significance, but in its position as the gateway to the Indian Ocean. He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf the Middle East, effectively creating a new geopolitical category to serve the interests of the British Empire. This definition was quickly adopted by the British press, with Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol writing a twenty-article series in October 1903 that expanded the term to include all Asian regions commanding the approaches to India. The term Middle East was stripped of its quotation marks by The Times in 1903, cementing its place in the Western lexicon as a tool for imperial strategy rather than a description of a natural cultural region.
The Cradle of Human Memory
Long before the term Middle East was coined, the region served as the birthplace of agriculture and the first complex civilizations, earning it the title of the cradle of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution began here, where agriculturalists and herdsmen migrated across the landscape, shaping the ethnic and demographic makeup of the region. The world's earliest civilizations, including Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and Kish in the Levant, originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions. These early societies were followed by the Hittite, Greek, Hurrian, and Urartian civilizations of Asia Minor, as well as the Elamite, Persian, and Median civilizations in Iran. The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire, followed by the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, and later the Roman and Byzantine Empires. The Romans stationed up to five or six of their legions in the region solely to defend it from Sassanid and Bedouin raids. From the 4th century CE onwards, the Middle East became the center of the two main powers at the time, the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire. However, it would be the later Islamic Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age, which began with the Islamic conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic Arab ethnic identity that largely persists today. The four caliphates that dominated the Middle East for more than 600 years were the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid caliphate, and the Fatimid caliphate.
The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the Allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards. In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil. Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries. During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Besides the political reasons there was also the ideological conflict between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world. Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence.
The Mosaic of Peoples and Faiths
The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, many of which originated there. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also well represented. Christian communities have played a vital role in the Middle East, and they represent 78% of Cyprus population, and 40.5% of Lebanon, where the Lebanese president, half of the cabinet, and half of the parliament follow one of the various Lebanese Christian rites. There are also important minority religions like the Baháí Faith, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism, Mandaeism, Druze, and Shabakism, and in ancient times the region was home to Mesopotamian religions, Canaanite religions, Manichaeism, Mithraism and various monotheist gnostic sects. Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic peoples. Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Greek Cypriots, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas. European ethnic groups that form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Franco-Levantines, Italo-Levantines, and Iraqi Turkmens. Among other migrant populations are Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Pashtuns, Romani, and Afro-Arabs. Migration has always provided an important vent for labor market pressures in the Middle East. For the period between the 1970s and 1990s, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf in particular provided a rich source of employment for workers from Egypt, Yemen and the countries of the Levant, while Europe had attracted young workers from North African countries due both to proximity and the legacy of colonial ties between France and the majority of North African states.
The Language of the Region
The six top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Modern Hebrew and Greek. About 20 minority languages are also spoken in the Middle East. Arabic, with all its dialects, is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, with Literary Arabic being official in all North African and in most West Asian countries. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Several Modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri and Soqotri are also spoken in Yemen and Oman. Another Semitic language is Aramaic and its dialects are spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandaeans, with Western Aramaic still spoken in two villages near Damascus, Syria. There is also an Oasis Berber-speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa. It is a non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic sister language. Persian is the second most spoken language. While it is primarily spoken in Iran and some border areas in neighbouring countries, the country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Other Western Iranic languages spoken in the region include Achomi, Daylami, Kurdish dialects, Semmani, Lurish, amongst many others. The close third-most widely spoken language, Turkish, is largely confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries, but it is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member of the Turkic languages, which have their origins in East Asia. Another Turkic language, Azerbaijani, is spoken by Azerbaijanis in Iran. The fourth-most widely spoken language, Kurdish, is spoken in the countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Sorani Kurdish is the second official language in Iraq after Arabic. Hebrew is the official language of Israel, with Arabic given a special status after the 2018 Basic law lowered its status from an official language prior to 2018. Hebrew is spoken and used by over 80% of Israel's population, the other 20% using Arabic. Modern Hebrew only began being spoken in the 20th century after being revived in the late 19th century by Elizer Ben-Yehuda and European Jewish settlers, with the first native Hebrew speaker being born in 1882. Greek is one of the two official languages of Cyprus, and the country's main language. Small communities of Greek speakers exist all around the Middle East; until the 20th century it was also widely spoken in Asia Minor and Egypt. During the antiquity, Ancient Greek was the lingua franca for many areas of the western Middle East and until the Muslim expansion it was widely spoken there as well. Until the late 11th century, it was also the main spoken language in Asia Minor; after that it was gradually replaced by the Turkish language as the Anatolian Turks expanded and the local Greeks were assimilated, especially in the interior.
The Economic Paradox of Wealth and Poverty
Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor, such as Gaza and Yemen, to extremely wealthy nations, such as Qatar and UAE. According to the International Monetary Fund, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in nominal GDP in 2023 were Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel. For nominal GDP per person, the highest ranking countries are Qatar, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran had the largest economies in terms of GDP PPP. For GDP PPP per person, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel. The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of GDP nominal per capita, is Yemen. The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different because while some are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products, others have a highly diverse economic base. Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment, banking, and tourism. With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, in part because of the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions. Since the end of the COVID pandemic however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater numbers of tourists because of improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies. Unemployment is high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among people aged 15 to 29, a demographic representing 30% of the region's population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2025 is 10.8%, and among youth is as high as 28%.
The Climate and the Future
The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, especially in the Arabian and Egyptian regions. Several major rivers provide irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas here, such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia, and the basin of the Jordan River that spans most of the Levant. These regions are collectively known as the Fertile Crescent, and comprise the core of what historians had long referred to as the cradle of civilization. Conversely, the Levantine coast and most of Turkey have relatively temperate climates typical of the Mediterranean, with dry summers and cool, wet winters. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of petroleum. Monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula in particular have benefitted economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and dependence on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a major contributor to climate change and a region that is expected to be severely adversely affected by it. The region lies at the juncture of Africa and Eurasia and of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism, Yezidi, Druze, Yarsan, and Mandeanism, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, and the Baháí Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The region is one of the regions where agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa.
The Shifting Definitions of a Region
The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office. However, it became more widely known when United States naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry that would become known as the Great Game. Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East. He said that, beyond Egypt's Suez Canal, the Gulf was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India. Until World War II, it was customary to refer to areas centered on Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the Near East, while the Far East centered on China, India and Japan. The Middle East was then defined as the area from Mesopotamia to Burma; namely, the area between the Near East and the Far East. This area broadly corresponds to South Asia. In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe and the United States. Following World War II, for example, the Middle East Institute was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, which pertained to the Suez Crisis. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as the area lying between and including Libya on the west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia. In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms Near East and Middle East were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. Since the late 20th century, scholars and journalists from the region, such as journalist Louay Khraish and historian Hassan Hanafi have criticized the use of Middle East as a Eurocentric and colonialist term. The Associated Press Stylebook of 2004 says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous. It instructs: Use Middle East unless Near East is used by a source in a story. Mideast is also acceptable, but Middle East is preferred. European languages have adopted terms similar to Near East and Middle East. Since these are based on a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are generally different from the English terms. In German the term Naher Osten is still in common use, while in the four Slavic languages, Russian, Bulgarian, Polish and Croatian, terms meaning Near East are the only appropriate ones for the region. However, some European languages do have Middle East equivalents, such as French, Swedish, Spanish, Greek, and Italian. Perhaps because of the political influence of the United States and Europe, and the prominence of Western press, the Arabic equivalent of Middle East has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press. It comprises the same meaning as the term Middle East in North American and Western European usage. The designation, Mashriq, also from the Arabic root for East, also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world. Even though the term originated in the West, countries of the Middle East that use languages other than Arabic also use that term in translation. For instance, the Persian equivalent for Middle East is Khāvar-e miyāneh, the Hebrew is hamizrach hatikhon, and the Turkish is Orta Doğu.