500+ Words Essay on Middle East
The Middle East is a region that roughly encompasses the majority of Western Asia and Egypt. The largest ethnic group in the Middle East are Arabs, with Turks, Turkomans, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Maronites, Assyro-Chaldeans, Circassians, Somalis, Armenians, Druze, and numerous additional minor ethnic groups forming other significant populations. The countries included within the Middle East correspond to Western Asia, excluding the Caucasus, namely Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
According to the International Organization for Migration, there are 13 million first-generation migrants from Arab nations, and of that, 5.8 million reside in other Arab countries. In Somalia, following the Somali Civil War, migration has greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many of the best-educated Somalis have left for Europe, North America, and other Middle Eastern countries. Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Israel, and Iran are also subject to significant migration dynamics. A fair proportion of those who have migrated from Arab nations are from ethnic and religious minorities facing racial or religious oppression. In Iran, many religious minorities such as Christians, Bahá’ís, and Zoroastrians have left since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
As for religion, the Middle East is very diverse in character. Islam in its many forms is by far the largest religion. However, other religions such as Judaism and Christianity are also well-represented.
List of 500+ Essay Writing Topics and Ideas
The five top languages used in the Middle East are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Berber, and Kurdish. About twenty minority languages are also spoken in the Middle East. Arabic and Berber represent the Afro-Asiatic language family. Persian and Kurdish belong to the Indo-European language family. Arabic is the most widely spoken and written language. Persian is the second-most spoken language. The third-most spoken language is Turkish. English is commonly taught and used as a second language, especially among the middle and upper classes. French is taught and used as a second language in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Lebanon. It is also taught in some primary and secondary schools in Egypt, Israel, and Syria. Urdu is widely spoken by migrant communities in many Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Qatar, as there are large numbers of Pakistani immigrants. Russian is also spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, following the emigration in the late 1990s.
Economies in Middle Eastern countries range from very poor—such as Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen—to extremely wealthy nations such as Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. However, all the nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth in the economic field. Some nations are heavily dependent on the export of oil and oil-related products, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait. Others such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey, and Egypt have a diverse economic base. Industries of the Middle Eastern countries are mainly oil and oil-related products. Others are in agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, and defence equipment. Banking is also an important sector of the economies, especially in the UAE and Bahrain.