Talk:Middle East

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

ethnic groups

Azeris, Nubians, Iraqi Turkmen, Yazidis and Greek Cypriots are not in the cited source (). Wikiuser552 (talk) 00:37, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

@Wikiuser552 Your recent edit introduces original research by adding multiple unsourced ethnic groups, including an extinct ancient civilization (the Babylonians), to the lede. The source you've cited (which is about Arabic dialects) does not in any way support these additions. As for your edit summary, that is your personal opinion and contradicts the established consensus at the Arabs article. Please self-revert. Skitash (talk) 00:50, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 August 2025

Israel is part of the middle east. https://www.britannica.com/place/Middle-East 107.135.135.209 (talk) 17:05, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Skitash (talk) 17:10, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Israel is part of the Levant region. It’s already included. Thepeacefulstaff (talk) 16:53, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Typo

“Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world.” There are 17 Middle Eastern countries, not 18. Change “(13 out of 18)” to “(13 out of 17)”. Thepeacefulstaff (talk) 16:58, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Suggestion

Beneficial to add, to some degree, in the lede (where most viewers only read).

“The following presentation uses maps to illustrate the lack of consensus among governments, international organizations, and scholars regarding how to define the Middle East or even whether to use that term. The instability of the concept “Middle East” points to the need to break down traditional area studies barriers.”

Images: https://mideast.unc.edu/where/

“There are several common conceptions of which countries the term Middle East encompasses.

Virtually every use of the term includes: The Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates)

The Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip)

and Iraq.

Iran, Turkey (Türkiye), and Egypt are typically, but not always, included. Cyprus, which has a strong historical connection with the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, is sometimes considered part of the Middle East.”

https://www.britannica.com/place/Middle-East

Perhaps Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey can be shaded a lighter green on the map. Thepeacefulstaff (talk) 17:22, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 27 October 2025

Description of suggested change:

Please add this

Diff:

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{{Middle East}} {{Regions of Africa}} {{Regions of Asia}}{{Authority control}} {{Coord|29|N|41|E|type:country_source:wikidata|display=title}}

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{{Middle East}} {{Regions of Africa}} {{Regions of Asia}}{{Continent topic|prefix=Politics of|title=[[Politics]] pages by [[continent]]|state=expanded}}{{Authority control}} {{Coord|29|N|41|E|type:country_source:wikidata|display=title}}

2405:6E00:623:F942:6008:2983:CC46:595E (talk) 03:46, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

 Not done No legitimate reason to add such navbox. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 04:31, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Please add this because Politics of the Middle East goes to this page.

Diff:

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{{Middle East}} {{Regions of Africa}} {{Regions of Asia}}{{Authority control}} {{Coord|29|N|41|E|type:country_source:wikidata|display=title}}

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{{Middle East}} {{Regions of Africa}} {{Regions of Asia}}{{Continent topic|prefix=Politics of|title=[[Politics]] pages by [[continent]]|state=expanded}}{{Authority control}} {{Coord|29|N|41|E|type:country_source:wikidata|display=title}}

2405:6E00:623:877F:9341:F5FA:4867:115E (talk) 11:14, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: See the previous response. This is not a useful navbox for this article. Day Creature (talk) 14:35, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

The Nominal GDP list can't sort correctly

The Nominal GDP list uses "," instead of "." for Saudi Arabia and Turkey. This means that if you sort by nominal GDP, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are at the bottom while they should be at the top. Looking at the page: GDP (nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) all countries use a "," I suggest replacing the "." in the GDP list with a "," to keep it in line with other pages, and fix the Nominal GDP list. Aqmery (talk) 15:26, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I am not seeing this issue. Are your other columns sorting correctly? CMD (talk) 16:09, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the other columns are sorting correctly.

The issue I'm seeing is that the nominal GDP list uses "." instead of "," for most of the numbers.

On the GDP(nominal) page and in the other columns in the list a "," is used, but for some reason the column with Nominal GDP (mostly) uses a "." (except for Saudi Arabia and Turkey where it's $1,083.749 and $1,437.406). Aqmery (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

A comma is used for Saudi Arabia and Turkey because their GDPs exceed $999 billion. They are correctly sorting to the top or bottom of the list. CMD (talk) 05:18, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

External links

Will the following link be accepted: Gulf/2000 Project? תיל"ם (talk) 06:34, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Bias

Caucasians and Cypriots aren't even mentioned in the same level of the Arab countries. Biased Mynameiscandle (talk) 06:01, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 March 2026

In the table, where you have predominant religion - Islam is wrong for Lebanon. Half the country and its diaspora are Christian ~2026-13614-24 (talk) 23:03, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

 Done I checked our article Lebanon, and it said 53% Islam and 41% Christianity. That is a very large minority, so I added Christianity to the table. Lova Falk (talk) 08:13, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Definition completely wrong

This definition of the Middle East has inexplicably come about through repeated lazy references in the news and other media; Turkey, the eastern Mediterranean seaboard and Egypt should be referred to as the Near East. ~2026-15502-40 (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Definition completely wrong

This definition of the Middle East has inexplicably come about through repeated lazy references in the news and other media; Turkey, the eastern Mediterranean seaboard and Egypt should be referred to as the Near East. ~2026-15502-40 (talk) 00:20, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

It is unfortunately not up to us to determine what is and isn’t the modern Middle East. The term itself is extremely vague and has changed many times depending on politics. Today it will mean one thing. 10 years from now it will mean something else. Thepeacefulstaff (talk) 03:41, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Edit request 22 March 2026

Description of suggested change:

For the Other definitions of the Middle East section,
Diff:

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Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the [[Maghreb]] region of North Africa is sometimes included.

+

Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking and the implications of Maghrebi groups having a Middle Eastern [[chromosome]] component ([[Haplogroup J-M267]] especially) as their second most widespread and common [[Y linkage|Y lineage]], the [[Maghreb]] region of [[North Africa]] is sometimes included.

Notes:

source: Insights into the Middle Eastern paternal genetic pool in Tunisia: high prevalence of T-M70 haplogroup in an Arab population

Below are quotes from the above, but with some words added/changed for my own convenience at the time. They should be considered for the page's potential Notes section:

• > The Arabs from Wesletia harbored the highest frequency (71.8%) of the Middle Eastern component ever observed in North Africa. (...) In the Tunisian Andalusians, the North African component largely prevailed, followed by the Middle Eastern contribution.
  
• > North Africa's 2nd most widespread and common Y lineage is J-M267, accounting for around 30% of North Africans and assumed to have spread out of the Arabia Peninsula into North Africa, as is shown by, for instance, its east–west decreasing prevalence. There is wide agreement about the sources of J-M267 in North Africa, which imply multiple and temporarily different expansions of Middle-Eastern and Arabic populations through the Mediterranean. (...)
  
• > The male lineages that better testify the influence of the Middle East, belong to haplogroup J-12f2a, which was carried by 52.2% males from Wesletia. In addition, in Wesletia another Middle Eastern haplogroup, T-M70, reached the frequency of 17.4%, a remarkable value once up to now the haplogroup had only been occasionally detected in North Africa, with the existing reports documenting its occurrence at rather low frequencies in Egypt and Libya

QuestioningEspecialy (talk) 23:45, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

•  Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want made. To clarify; the source you have given doesn't say anything about this being a reason for why the Maghreb region is sometimes included in the definition of what constitutes the Middle East. Maghrebi groups having a genetic links to Middle Eastern groups does not mean that is the reason it's sometimes included as part of the Middle East. ―Maltazarian ^{(talk$\lor$investigate)} 16:31, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Wrong

"The Middle East is a geo-political [sic] region"

It's not 'geo-political'. It's 'geopolitical': no hyphen in there. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/geopolitical Semantism (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Fixed You were right! Lova Falk (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Edit request 13 August 2026

Description of suggested change: Please change the number of occupied dependencies from 4 to 3, to align with the data in the infobox.

(Diff is in the continent infobox, around line 60 of the source.)

Diff:

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"title = <span class="nobold">Occupied (4):</span>"

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"title = <span class="nobold">Occupied (3):</span>"

Marphod (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

 Done NomanPK44 (talk) 19:39, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Edit request 3 October 2026

the phrase "sometimes Afghanistan, India and others." is repeated twice in the article and one instance should be removed

Diff:

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and sometimes [[Afghanistan]], [[India]] and others. and sometimes [[Afghanistan]], [[India]] and others.

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and sometimes [[Afghanistan]], [[India]] and others.

Spellsstick (talk) 04:12, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

 Done, thanks. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:22, 3 October 2026 (UTC)