[12] Two thousand years ago the Himyarites became the masters of South Arabia, dominating the region for several centuries. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas. The plateau slopes eastwards from the massive, rifted escarpment along the coast of the Red Sea, to the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. In exchange for the promise of independence, Arab forces in the Arabian Peninsula helped the French and British conquer the Fertile Crescent. The Arab countries have some associations dedicated to cooperation amongst them. In the 11th century, Turkic peoples from Central Asia began migrating into the Middle East. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Enter a Crossword Clue. There, larger, well-defended hilltop capitals probably dominated a series of smaller sites with access to water over a wide region. Before the modern era, the region was divided into primarily four distinct regions: the Central Plateau (Najd and Al-Yamama), South Arabia (Yemen, Hadhramaut and Oman), Al-Bahrain (Eastern Arabia or Al-Hassa), and the Hejaz (Tihamah for the western coast), as described by Ibn al-Faqih.[10]. The island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, about 200 miles southeast of the mainland, has strong ethnographic links to Arabia; politically it is part of Yemen. However, from the 10th century (and, in fact, until the 20th century) the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca maintained a state in the most developed part of the region, the Hejaz. [47], There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 106,000 to 130,000 years ago. Mountain ranges include the Hejaz in the northwest, and the Azir in the southwest. The motives of the artists remain obscure, but many paintings appear linked to the trance experiences of medicine men, in which the antelope (eland) was a key symbol. Note: Wikipedia lists the Palestinian Authorityan administrative organization which governs parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Stripas an Arab state. The Crossword Solver finds answers to classic crosswords and cryptic crossword puzzles. Country of southern Arabia Crossword Clue | Wordplays.com Editorial credit: hikrcn / Shutterstock.com To address this gap, a sample of 157 Saudi males was analyzed at high resolution using . The following is a list of cities and towns in Saudi Arabia . Neom - Wikipedia All were centres of political authority, controlling trade and cattle movement over a wide area stretching from eastern Botswana in the west to Mozambique in the east. The Kalahari desert forms the central depression of the Southern African plateau. Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, for example, all have elected legislatures, though the authority of the monarchs in these countries always supersedes that of any elected body. https://www.britannica.com/place/Arabia-peninsula-Asia, Social Sci LibreTexts - Pre-Islamic Arabia, Academia - Perspectives from the Arabian Peninsula, Arabian Peninsula - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Arabia - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), 'The Hajj is not Mecca': Why prayers at Mount Arafat are the spiritual peak of Islamic pilgrimage. With the advent of the Omani Empire,[10] ties were strengthened between India and the Eastern Coast of Africa and Madagascar. A public subscription was opened throughout the Islamic world to fund the construction. to the early 2nd century C.E. The region is generally drained eastward toward the Indian Ocean, a pattern exemplified by the largest rivers, the Zambezi and Limpopo. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Some of the monarchies in the Arab world do have some provisions for democratic governance. The interior of Southern Africa consists of a series of undulating plateaus that cover most of South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana and extend into central Angola. Each group had its own territory, in which special importance was attached to natural resources, and in many instances bands moved seasonally from small to large camping sites, following water, game, and vegetation. [28][29] By comparison, the Tuwayr, Shammar and Dhofar generally do not exceed 1,000m (3,300ft) in height.[30]. Author of. Coastal plains abut the Indian Ocean in Mozambique and the Atlantic in Angola and Namibia. petroleum production due to its geographical location. A. Rizk, A. E. M. Nairn [et al. The Arab conquest of Northern Africa began two years later. Southern Arabia (Vicariate Apostolic) [Catholic-Hierarchy] Another important international Arab organization is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The Arab countries are 19 countries located in the Middle East and Northern Africa, in which the vast majority of the population is of ethnic Arab origin and/or speaks the Arabic language (this excludes Western Sahara, which is not internationally recognized as an independent country). Land of Arabia. The southwestern part of the country is rich in petroleum, and natural gas. The connections between australopithecines and earlier potentially hominin forms remain unclear, while a number of species of australopithecines have been identified. Their domain originally comprised only the holy cities of Mecca and Medina but in the 13th century it was extended to include the rest of the Hejaz. Along with pastoralism and pottery came other signs of change: domestic dogs, changes in stone tool kits, altered settlement patterns, larger ostrich-eggshell beads, and the appearance of marine shells in the interior, which suggests the existence of long-distance trade. [24] The Arabian Peninsula is known for having one of the most uneven adult sex ratios in the world, with females in some regions (especially the east) constituting only a quarter of people aged between 20 and 40.[25]. [59][60], Nevertheless, Mecca and Medina remained the spiritually most important places in the Muslim world. https://www.thoughtco.com/list-of-arab-states-1435128 (accessed July 5, 2023). Research into local history in the late 20th and early 21st century has presented fragmented historical knowledge, and older generalizations have given way to a complex polyphony of voices as new subfields of historygender and sexuality, health, and the environment, to name but a fewhave developed. "What Are the Countries That Make up the Arab States?" Although the peninsulas available natural resources are not distributed equally among its statesthose in the south and southwest derive far less wealth from oil, for examplesimilar economic transformations have taken place, or are taking place, in all the societies. There are large populations of Kurds, for example, in both Iraq and Syria. "Arabia" and "Arabian" redirect here. Which Countries Border The United Arab Emirates? Most of Southern Africas early agricultural communities shared a common culture, which spread across the region remarkably quickly from the 2nd century ce. Arabia Felix had originally been used for the whole peninsula, and at other times only for the southern region. Though historically lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate as the result of both very strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates. Islam: Beliefs and Observances (5th ed. The following is a list of all these nations arranged in alphabetical order, including each country's population and language information. (French is not official but a language of commerce and spoken by the majority of the population), 22) United Arab EmiratesPopulation: 9,701,3115Official Language: Arabic, 23) YemenPopulation: 28,667,230Official Language: Arabic. The Federation of South Arabia (Arabic: Ittid al-Janb al-'Arab) was an organization of states under British protection in what would become South Yemen. The only checkpoint on the Oman-Saudi Arabia border is Ramlat Khaliya. It also works to promote common political and economic interests. Cattle raising led to increased social stratification between rich and poor and established new divisions of labour between men and women; the accumulation of cattle and the continuous site occupation inherent in cereal production enabled the storage of wealth and the deployment of more organized political power. Some areas have a summer humid tropical monsoon climate, in particular the Dhofar and Al Mahrah areas of Oman and Yemen. The domination of the Mutapa state extended into Mozambique. In addition, the organisms living in symbiosis with the Red Sea coral, the protozoa and zooxanthellae, have a unique hot weather adaptation to sudden rise (and fall) in sea water temperature. Although they do not typify the later Iron Age as a whole, the conspicuous consumption at these sites and the bias in oral sources toward centralized states means they have attracted perhaps a disproportionate share of scholarly attention. The Arabian Peninsula is bounded by the Red Sea on the west and southwest, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south and southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) on the east. On the other hand, the CIA lists Western Sahara as an independent country, with a population of 619,551 and languages such as Hassaniya Arabic and Moroccan Arabic. The abolition of all exceptional privileges granted to foreigners under the capitulations. Omissions? The next most populous Arab countries are Algeria and Sudan, which both have populations of approximately 44 million. see History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw, Cambridge University Press, 1977, As cited by R, John and S. Hadawi's, Palestine Diary, pp. Qatar, the only peninsular country in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home to the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English. As observed on the physical map above, two main desert regions dominate the landscape of the country. Higher elevations are made temperate by their altitude, and the Arabian Sea coastline can receive cool, humid breezes in summer due to cold upwelling offshore. Their evolution into the species Homo habilis and then into the species Homo erectuswhich displayed the larger brain, upright posture, teeth, and hands resembling those of modern humans and from whom Homo sapiens almost certainly evolvedis still fiercely debated. Occasionally, Greece is included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in rebellion to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire in 1821 (see Eastern Question). [50][51] South Arabian civilizations include the Sheba, the Himyarite Kingdom, the Kingdom of Awsan, the Kingdom of Ma'n and the Sabaean Kingdom. The facade of a tomb with its details and architectural elements in Hegra, Saudi Arabia. Bull's head, made of copper in the early period of Dilmun (ca. The seventh century saw the rise of Islam as the peninsula's dominant religion. It is located in the Northern and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth. People of European ancestry began migrating to the region in the mid-17th century; they now constitute a sizable minority in South Africa and a much smaller population in Zimbabwe. Tom Cruise has graced the red carpet in Abu Dhabi for the Middle Eastern premiere of Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One., The United Nations is calling on countries in the Middle East and Europe to ramp up aid efforts in Sudan to address the deepening humanitarian crisis, Chinese Premier Li Qiang is meeting with visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a drive by Beijing to elevate relations and increase its overall presence in the Middle East, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began a visit to China on Tuesday that comes as Beijing is seeking a larger role in Middle East politics and competing for energy resources, Global prices for wheat and corn soared Tuesday after a major dam in Ukraine collapsed, renewing market fears about the fragility of the country's ability to ship food to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia as it fights a war with Russia, This article was most recently revised and updated by. [70], In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. These changes were, however, neither simultaneous nor evenly spread. Yet the reasons for adaptation are equally unclear and the model equally controversial. The only major river flowing into the Atlantic Ocean is the Orange, which drains parts of South Africa, Lesotho, and Namibia. Egypt, Qatar, Syria and Saudi Arabia joined a multinational coalition that opposed Iraq. The fact that most of the peninsula is unfavourable for settled agriculture is of enormous significance. In the 19th century Great Britain or the Ottomans controlled much of the peninsula, but the central interior almost continually remained independent under the Saudis. The six countries located wholly on the peninsula are Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This ethnographical territory [dubious - discuss] is sometimes referred to as Toskeria (Albanian: Toskria). BRICS meet with 'friends' seeking closer ties amid push to expand bloc Similarities between Toutswe and the material culture of later sites in the Limpopo valley and Zimbabwe suggest that Toutswe also may have inspired new forms of social and economic organization for peoples further afield. It is with the origins of these food-producing communities and their evolution into the contemporary societies of Southern Africa that much of the precolonial history of the subcontinent has been concerned. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The uncertainties of evidence for the long preliterate pastwhere a bone or potsherd can undermine previous interpretations and where recent research has subverted even terminologyare matched by conflicting representations of the colonial and postcolonial periods. The new culture at Khami developed both the stone building techniques and the pottery styles found at Great Zimbabwe and seeded a number of smaller sites over a wide region of the southern and western plateau. The island nation of Madagascar is excluded because of its distinct language and cultural heritage. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The peninsulas total area is about 1,200,000 square miles (3,100,000 square kilometres). Geology. Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Western Asian Nation, occupying the central region of the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. There are two indigenous language groups: the now extinct Old South Arabian languages and the unrelated Modern South Arabian languages, both members of the Semitic family. There can be little doubt that for hundreds of thousands of years Southern Africa, like eastern Africa, was in the forefront of human development and technological innovation. Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world, with a population in excess of 104 million. After the war, a so-called "Damascus Declaration" formalized an alliance for future joint Arab defensive actions between Egypt, Syria, and the GCC member states. This indicates human migrations from Africa to Arabia occurred around this time. During the Hellenistic period, the area was known as Arabia or Aravia (Greek: ). Despite the ever-increasing number of radiocarbon dates available for the many Late Stone Age sites excavated in Southern Africa, the reasons for changed consumption patterns and variations in technology are poorly understood. [9] In the classical era the Sinai Peninsula was also considered a part of Arabia. In a matter of decades Muslim armies decisively defeated the Byzantine army and destroyed the Persian Empire, conquering huge swathes of territory from the Iberian peninsula to India. Enter a Crossword Clue Sort by Length # of Letters or Pattern [43] 200,000-year-old stone tools were discovered at Shuaib Al-Adgham in the eastern Al-Qassim Province, which would indicate that many prehistoric sites, located along a network of rivers, had once existed in the area. INR. [13] The Ottomans used the term Arabistan in a broad sense for the region starting from Cilicia, where the Euphrates river makes its descent into Syria, through Palestine, and on through the remainder of the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas. Droughts are common in much of the region. The war began with a coup d'tat carried out by the republican leader, Abdullah as-Sallal, which dethroned the newly crowned Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. One such organization is the League of Arab States or Arab League, which was formed in 1945 to promote the independence of the Arab countries that were still mostly under colonial rule at the time. The British wrested Egypt from the Ottomans in the late 19th century. Poetry, religious laws and precepts, and values associated with heroism permeated the culture of the past, but the innovations associated with Western culture reached the entire peninsula in the 20th century and have substantially influenced art, mores, and behaviour. Corrections? What Are the Countries That Make up the Arab States? The nature of these transitions and the differences among the sites are still poorly understood, and, again, archaeologists disagree as to whether the changes can be explained by local developments or are best explained by the arrival of migrating populations. The controversies in Southern African history begin with the discovery of a fossilized hominin skull in a limestone cave at Taung near the Harts River north of Kimberley in 1924, followed in 1936 by discoveries in similar caves in the Transvaal (now Limpopo and Gauteng provinces) and Northern Cape province, in South Africa. [67], The Damascus Protocol of 1914 provides an illustration of the regional relationships. Desert-adapted wildlife is present throughout the region. Middle East - Wikipedia Despite several military moves and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate. Najd. Saudi Arabia: country data and statistics - Worlddata.info Toutswe may provide evidence for a new population; on the other hand, the evidence of its large cattle herds provides insight into the way in which the natural buildup of herds in a favourable environment could stimulate social change and territorial expansion. Shifting geographic and political boundaries and changing historiographical perspectives render this impossible. 1) AlgeriaPopulation: 41,657,488Official Languages: Arabic and Berber or Tamazight (with French as lingua franca), 2) BahrainPopulation: 1,442,659Official Language: Arabic, 3) ComorosPopulation: 821,164Official Languages: Arabic, French, Shikomoro (a blend of Swahili and Arabic; Comorian), 4) DjiboutiPopulation: 884,017Official Languages: French and Arabic, 5) EgyptPopulation: 99,413,317Official Language: Arabic, 6) IraqPopulation: 40,194,216Official Languages: Arabic and Kurdish. In the 16th century, for instance, the Ottoman Empire was able to conquer most of the coasts, but it could take neither the interior of the peninsula nor the southeast. The first evidence of pastoralism in the subcontinent occurs on a scattering of sites in the more arid west; there the bones of sheep and goats, accompanied by stone tools and pottery, date to some 2,000 years ago, about 200 years before iron-using farmers first arrived in the better-watered eastern half of the region. Southern Africa | History, Countries, Map, Population, & Facts Arabia, from the advent of Islam in the 7th century, maintained close ties with other parts of the Middle East through commercial, religious, social, military, and political interactions. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. . "Demographic and health indicators in Gulf Cooperation Council nations with an emphasis on Qatar." Other significant hominin finds were made in the Sterkfontein Valley (in Gauteng province) beginning in the 1940s. Archaeologists are divided over whether all these cultural and economic attributes arrived with a single group of new immigrants speaking a new language or resulted from a more piecemeal development of different skills and the adoption of new techniques by indigenous hunter-gatherers, as has already been suggested in the case of herding among the Khoekhoe. However, some reefs were destroyed in the Persian Gulf, mostly caused by phosphate water pollution and resultant increase in algae growth as well as oil pollution from ships and pipeline leakage. The Limpopo and Save rivers were early arteries of the trade from the southernmost Arab trading posts, with African intermediaries initially bringing ivory and perhaps animal skins, and later copper and gold, to the coast. By the early 19th century, however, Ottoman rule in the Arab lands began to decline. More sophisticated techniques of ironworking, more extensive gold and copper mining, and a great increase in stone building suggest the evolution of more complex state structures, the growth of social inequalities, and the emergence of new religious and spiritual ideas. [52] Central Arabia was the location of the Kingdom of Kinda in the 4th, 5th and early 6th centuries. The Arab world is considered an area of the world that encompasses the region from the Atlantic Ocean near northern Africa east to the Arabian Sea. library.cornell.edu. The Fertile Crescent countries of Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon gained independence in the latter half of the 1940s.