Middle East, geographic and cultural region located in southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa. The geopolitical term Middle East, first coined in 1902 by United States naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan, originally referred to the Asian region south of the Black Sea between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and
India to the east. In modern scholarship, and for the purposes of this article, the term refers collectively to the Asian countries of Bahrain, Cyprus,
Iran, Iraq,
Israel (and the Israeli-occupied
Gaza Strip and
West Bank), Jordan, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Syria,
Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and
Yemen, and the African country of Egypt. A broader, more cultural definition might include the Muslim countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Libya, Sudan,
Afghanistan, and
Pakistan. Some Middle Eastern countries are extremely rich because of their oil reserves. Others with high populations and no significant oil resources (notably Egypt and Yemen) are considerably poorer.
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