Region

The Mediterranean

Also Known As The Mediterranean Basin

Transregional and Maritime Regions

The lands ringing the Mediterranean Sea, spanning three continents: southern Europe, the Levant coast of Asia, and the Maghreb and Egyptian coast of North Africa. The region shares a mild wet-winter, dry-summer climate that supports olive, grape and grain agriculture across an otherwise politically and culturally varied coastline, and its enclosed sea has functioned as a connective corridor between its bordering landmasses since antiquity.

Facts

Population

150,000,000 2

MedQSR (UNEP/MAP) states the population of the Mediterranean coastal regions, not the full population of the Mediterranean-bordering countries; the value recorded is the pages 2005 datapoint from its own stated growth series (about 100 million in 1980 to about 150 million in 2005).

Disputed

Area (sq km)

2,085,292 3

Mediterranean Basin biogeographic definition; this atlas region entity (the coastal lands of three continents) is narrower than the full basin and carries no single agreed total of its own.

Classification

Region Type

Maritime Grouping 1

Region Type

Maritime Grouping 1

FAQs

Where do most people around the Mediterranean live?

Most people live near the coast: more than a third of the Mediterranean countries' population lives in coastal areas covering under 12 percent of their land.

Mostly near the coast. According to the UNEP/MAP Mediterranean 2017 Quality Status Report, more than a third of the population of the Mediterranean countries lives in coastal administrative entities that make up less than 12 percent of those countries' surface area. The population of the coastal regions grew from about 100 million in 1980 to 150 million in 2005.

Connections

Adjacent To

Barbary Coast

Associated With

Asia

This source names Asia directly: "southern Europe, the Levant coast of Asia, and the Maghreb and Egyptian coast of North Africa."

Source National Geographic Atlas of the World

Asia

This source names The Mediterranean directly: "Indian Ocean in the south, and from the Mediterranean and Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Cairo

This source names The Mediterranean directly: "the broad fan of waterways that reach the Mediterranean."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Istanbul

This source names The Mediterranean directly: "to the Sea of Marmara and, beyond it, the Mediterranean."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Italy

North Africa

This source names North Africa directly: "and the Maghreb and Egyptian coast of North Africa."

Source National Geographic Atlas of the World

Rome

This source names The Mediterranean directly: "Its inland but river-connected site gave it access to the Mediterranean without the direct exposure to seaborne raiding that a pure coastal position would carry, a siting logic that recurs across..."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Spain

The Mediterranean Sea

The Nile

This source names The Mediterranean directly: "Great Lakes region to a broad delta on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, formed by the union of the White Nile and Blue Nile at Khartoum in Sudan."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Turkey

Open Questions

What is the total population of the Mediterranean region?

Source Mediterranean Basin (Wikipedia)

In the Other Atlases