Ethnic groups of North Africa.html

This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

The term "Middle East" can have varying definitions and boundaries. Its core territory encompasses the Fertile Crescent (Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia) plus the Arabian peninsula.

The ethnic groups of the Middle East fall into several categories:

The Middle East proper is dominated by Arabs. There are various other ethnic groups, mostly Iranian (notably the Kurds) and Turkic (Turkmen), Assyrians and ethnic Jews (notably Israelis). Some Arabized populations can be considered sub-ethnicities, such as the Egyptians, the Lebanese or the Marsh Arabs in Iraq.
Greater Persia is mostly populated by Persians and Kurds, besides Turkic, Arab and other minorities such as Armenians and Assyrians.
Anatolia is mostly populated by Turks, besides minorities (notably Kurds).
the Caucasus has many ethnicities, see peoples of the Caucasus.
North Africa (the Maghreb, Eritrea, North Sudan and Somalia) has Arabs, Berbers, Somalis, Habesha, Jews, and Nubians.

1 Fertile Crescent and Arabia
2 Persia and Central Asia
3 North Africa
4 Anatolia
5 Caucasus
6 See also

Fertile Crescent and Arabia

Ethnic groups of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula (the Middle East proper)

Arabs
Egyptians
Lebanese
Marsh Arabs
Palestinians
Druze
Qara
Arab Jews
Kurdish people
Israelis (see Demographics of Israel; 75% ethnic Jews)
Assyrians
- Chaldean Christians
- Syriacs
Maronites
Iraqi Turkmen
Syrian Turkmen

Persia and Central Asia

Ethnic groups in Iran

Peoples of Greater Iran (overlaps with the Caucasus and with Mesopotamia to the west)

North Africa

Distribution of Berbers in Northwest Africa

The inhabitants of North Africa are generally divided in a manner roughly corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa: the Maghreb, the Nile Valley, and the Sahara. Northwest Africa on the whole is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers since before the beginning of recorded history, while the eastern part of North Africa has been home to the Egyptians. Following the Muslim-Arab conquest in the 7th century AD and later migrations in the 14th century, the demographics of the region have changed drastically.

In his Muqiddimah/Prolegomena, Ibn Khaldun sheds light on the Arab immigration into the Maghreb (North Africa):

"at the end of the eighth [fourteenth] century-the situation in the Maghrib, as we can observe, has taken a turn and changed entirely. The Berbers, the original population of the Maghrib, have been replaced by an influx of Arabs, (that began in) the fifth [eleventh] century. The Arabs outnumbered and overpowered the Berbers, stripped them of most of their lands, and (also) obtained a share of those that remained in their possession as, in the middle of the eighth [fourteenth] century, civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish."¹

Peoples of North Africa: the Maghreb, Egypt, Eritrea, North Sudan and Somalia.