Arab world

The Arab world is a cultural and political region made up of the countries where Arabic is the main language and where Arabs form at least a plurality of the population. It is usually counted as nineteen such states, and at its widest reading it takes in all twenty-two members of the Arab League, including Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia, which are not mainly Arab. The region stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north toward the Indian Ocean in the southeast, so it spans parts of both Asia and Africa. Its eastern half is called the Mashriq and its western half the Maghreb. Arabic serves as the common language across the region, though Berbers, Kurds, Somalis, Nubians and other peoples also live there. The World Bank put the region's population at about 456 million in 2021, with a wide economic gap between its richest and poorest countries. Arab nationalism arose in the later nineteenth century and the Arab League, founded in 1945, pursues closer cooperation and the aim of Arab unity.