What is the Middle East?
A: The Middle East is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia,
Asia Minor, East Thrace, Egypt, Iran, the Levant,
Mesopotamia (modern-day
Iraq), and the Socotra Archipelago (a part of Yemen).
The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of
what term?
A: The term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early
20th century.
The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over
its what?
A: It’s changing definitions and has been viewed by some to be
discriminatory or too Eurocentric.
The region includes most of the territories included in
the closely associated definition of what?
A: Western Asia (including Iran), but without the South Caucasus, and
additionally includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai Region) and all of
Turkey (not just the part barring East Thrace).
Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part
of what?
A: The Arab world.
What are the most populous countries in the region?
A: They are Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, while
Saudi Arabia is the largest
Middle Eastern country by area.
Several major religions have their origins in the
Middle East, including what?
A: Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam.
Arabs constitute the main socioethnic grouping in the
region, followed by whom?
A: Turks, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen,
Yazidis, and Greek Cypriots.
The Middle East generally has what type of climate?
A: A hot, arid climate, especially in the Peninsula and Egyptian regions.
Several major rivers provide irrigation to support
agriculture in limited areas here such as what?
A: The Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of
Mesopotamia, and most of what is known as the Fertile Crescent.
Conversely the Levantine coast and most of Turkey have
what?
A: More temperate, oceanic, and wetter climates.
Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have
vast reserves what?
A: Petroleum, with monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula benefiting economically
from petroleum exports.
Because of the arid climate and heavy reliance on the
fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is what?
A: Both a heavy contributor to climate change and a region expected to be
severely negatively impacted by it.
The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s
in what?
A: The British India Office.
It became more widely known when what American naval
strategist used the term in 1902 to "designate the area between Arabia and
India"?
A: Alfred Thayer Mahan.
During this time the British and Russian Empires were
vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry which would become known as
what?
A: The Great Game.
Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the
region, but also of its what?
A: Its center, the Persian Gulf.
He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the
Middle East, and said that after Egypt's Suez Canal, it was what?
A: The most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the
Russians from advancing towards British India.
In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle
East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its what?
A: Its military forces in the region.
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near
East" largely fell out of common use in what?
A: English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the re-emerging
countries of the Islamic world.
The first official use of the term "Middle East" by the
United States government was in what?
A: The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, which pertained to the Suez Crisis.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the
Middle East as what?
A: "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 what?
A: Interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria,
Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, and Qatar.