The Arab world consists of the 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. All of them are members of the Arab League, in addition to the 3 non-Arab countries of Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia. As of 2026, the combined population of all the Arab League states was around 450 million people, which includes non-Arab ethnicities in Arab majority countries as well.
The most populous Arab state is Egypt, with a population of residents. Comoros is the least populated, with around inhabitants. The largest city in the Arab world is Cairo, Egypt.
Population growth The population of the Arab world as estimated in 2023 was about 473 million inhabitants, but exact figures of the annual population growth, fertility rate, or mortality rate are unknown.
Over 59 percent of the Arab population is concentrated in urban areas and the number is expected to reach 68 percent by 2050.
The overwhelming majority of the Arab citizens are Muslims, with Christians being the largest minority group. The Arab countries host several holy cities and other religiously significant locations, including Alexandria, Mecca, Medina, Kirkuk, Arbil and Baghdad. Sunni Muslims constitute vast majority of the Arab world's residents. However, Shia Muslims make up the slight majority in areas of Iraq, and almost half the population in Bahrain.
Christianity is the second largest religion, with over 20 million Christians in total living in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, Kuwait and Jordan. There are smaller Jewish populations living mainly in the western part of the Arab world. Places such as: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia, Syria, and Yemen all have Jewish populations. However, most Arab Jews emigrated from the Arab states to Israel after its founding in 1948. Other minor religions such as Druze religion, the Baháʼí Faith, Mandeanism, Yazdanism, Zoroastrianism, Shabak religion and Yarsan are practiced on a much smaller scale.
+CountryMuslimsChristiansOthers 93% 5% 2% 98.67% <2% <1% 74.1% 13.67% 12.2% 98.67% <1% <1% 96.67% 2.23% 1.1% 95.67% 4.33% <1% 98.67% <2% <1% 91.67% 2.2% <1% 81.67% 11.1% 10.2% 67.8% 27.9% 4.3% 98.67% <1% <1% 98.2% <1% <1% 98.67% <1% <1% 81.67% 18.13% 1.2% 75.69% 12.64% 11.67% 96.67% 2.33% <1.1% 93.67% 5.3% 2.1% 98.67% <1% <1% 98.67% 13.3% <1% 94.2% 3.8% 2% 98.3% <1.7% <1% 72.9% 14.3% 12.8% 98.67% <1% <1% 93% 5% 2%
Languages
In general, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the official language in the Arab world, but additional languages are often used in the daily lives of some citizens. Arabs, however, don't natively speak MSA but their native varieties of Arabic, which are grouped based on shared features into Peninsular, Mesopotamian, Levantine, Egyptian, and Maghrebi. Currently, three major non-Arabic languages are widely used: Kurdish (in northern Iraq and parts of Syria), Berber (in North Africa), and Somali (in the Horn of Africa).
There are several minority languages that are still spoken today, such as Afar, Armenian, Hebrew, Nubian, Persian, Aramaic, and Turkish. Twenty percent of the Arab population natively speak a non-Arabic language, most commonly, Somali, Berber and Kurdish languages.
Populations Many Arab countries in the Persian Gulf have sizable non-Arab populations. Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman have a Persian speaking minority. The same countries also have Urdu speakers and Filipinos as sizable minority. Balochi speakers are a good size minority in Oman. Additionally, countries like: Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Kuwait have significant non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities (11–21%) like Hindus and Christians from Indian-Sub continent: Bangladesh; Nepal; Pakistan; and the Philippines.
Many non-Arab countries bordering the Arab states have large Arab people, such as in Burkino Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Malta, Senegal and Turkey. The Table below shows the distribution of populations in the Arab world and Palestine, as well as the official language(s) within the various Arab states. Arab statePopulation% ArabsOfficial language(s)Notes44,903,22565–85%Arabic co-official language with Amazigh.https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/arabic-speaking-countries.html1,733,10096.97%Arabic official language.https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/arabic-speaking-countries.html1,780,97125.93%Arabic co-official language with Comorian and French.11,955,17922.68%Arabic co-official language with French.121,069,00191.93%https://getthespecialists.co.uk/101_egyptian_facts/Arabic official language; co-official with Egyptian.1942 – Egypt; & Israel; Turkey and United Kingdom promoted the idea of the Arab League states.46,081,67775–85%Arabic official language with Kurdish.10,255,04596.97%Arabic official language.4,268,87396.97%Arabic official language. 6,810,12375–85%Arabic official language. 6,244,17465.97%Arabic official language.3,516,80655–57.68%Arabic official language.37,457,97165.89%Arabic co-official language with Amazigh.5,174,81495.89%Arabic official language. Palestine5,163,46265–85%Arabic co-official with Hebrew.WB: 2,731,052 (83% PLS Arabs)GS: 1,816,379 (98% PLS Arabs)2,906,25765–85%Arabic official language.36,408,82094.96%Arabic official language.1945 – Leaders of seven States in the Middle East signed the “Alexandria” Protocol, thus establishing the first Organization with a Pan-Arabism ideology in the 20th century.12,356,11223.25%https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.phpArabic is co-official with Somali.3.1/2 Millions. Arabs in HoA (est. 2000s).https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/arabic-speaking-countries.html46,874,20465–85%https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.phpArabic co-official language with English.https://www.worldatlas.com/geography/arab-countries.html17,723,46169–85%Arabic official language.https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.php12,356,11765%Arabic official language.https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.php10,102,67855.68%Arabic official language.https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.php32,168,99865.89%Arabic official language.https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.phphttps://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/the-middle-east https://www.worlddata.info/languages/arabic.phphttps://rusticpathways.com/blog/fun-facts-about-algeriahttps://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-the-pharaohs-of-ancient-egypt/
Armenians
The Arab world has between 400,000 and 500,000 Armenians inhabiting its geographical area. Armenians are largely concentrated in countries such as Lebanon (150,000 to 250,000) and Syria (100,000 to 150,000) as well as Palestine, and to a lesser degree Egypt and Iraq, but Armenians can also be found in countries like Qatar and the UAE. These Armenians are economic migrants from Lebanon and Syria.
Prior to World War I, there were some 2,000–3,000 Armenians in Palestine, mostly in Jerusalem. From 1915 and onward, thousands of Armenian genocide survivors from Cilicia (Adana Vilayet) found refuge, and settled in Palestine, increasing its Armenian population. In 1925, around 15,000 Armenians are believed to have lived in all of Palestine, with the majority in Jerusalem. During Mandatory Palestine period, the number of Armenians is estimated to have reached up to 20,000. However, the 1931 British census showed only 3,524 Armenians in all of Palestine.
A large number of Armenian monks are recorded to have settled in Jerusalem as early as the 4th century, after the uncovering of Christian holy places in the city. However, the first written records are from the 5th century. Jerusalem is thus considered the oldest living diaspora community outside the Armenian homeland. Nowadays, there are estimated 7500 living in the region of Historical Palestine.
Most Armenians are Christians mainly following the Orthodox Armenian Apostolic Church. The church has one of its two headquarters in Antelias, Lebanon, called The Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia (the other being in Armenia called Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin). There are also Armenian Catholics. The world headquarters of the Armenian Catholic Church is also located in Beirut, Lebanon (and historically in Bzoummar, Lebanon). There are also a minority Armenian Evangelical Protestants. The Middle East headquarters of the Armenian Evangelical Church is in Beirut called Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East.
Assyrians Assyrians (also known as Chaldo-Assyrians) can be found in Iraq, north eastern Syria, and to a lesser degree north western Iran and south eastern Turkey. They are an ancient Semitic people who retain Aramaic as a spoken language. They are exclusively Christian and are descendants of the ancient pre Arab Assyrians/Mesopotamians. Almost all Christians in Iraq are ethnic Assyrians, where they number approximately 400,000. 500,000 are in Syria but are harder to identify, because they are often included in with the general Christian population and speak Arabic, however the Christians of the Tur Abdin and Al Hasakah regions in the north east are predominantly Assyrian.
Berbers
Berbers are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River. Historically, they spoke Berber languages, which together form the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Since the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the seventh century, a large number of Berbers inhabiting the Maghreb have acquired different degrees of knowledge of varieties of Maghrebi Arabic.
Circassians Circassians are a people who originate in the North Caucasus. They are predominantly Muslim, and can be found in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Egypt in relatively small numbers.
Coptic Christians Egyptian Coptic Christians are a religious group who do not usually identify themselves as Arabic and they follow the Coptic Orthodox Church. They place heavy emphasis on the Egyptian aspect of their identity and their Christian heritage. Their numbers are heavily disputed but are estimated to compromise roughly 5.35% of the Egyptian population. They are mainly followers of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, there are however a minority among them who are members of the Coptic Catholic Church, and an even smaller group who belong to the Coptic Evangelical Church. The Egyptian Coptic language, which is a late script that was developed in Roman Egypt, written in the Greek alphabet and descending from the late form of the Egyptian language of ancient Egypt, continues to be used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
Jews
The Jewish tribes of Arabia were Arabian tribes professing the Jewish faith that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula before and during the advent of Islam. It is not always clear whether they were originally Israelite in ancestry, genealogically Arab tribes that converted to Judaism, or a mixture of both. In Islamic tradition the Jewish tribes of the Hejaz were seen as the offspring of the ancient Israelites. According to Muslim sources, they spoke a language other than Arabic, which Al-Tabari claims was Persian. This implies they were connected to the major Jewish center in Babylon. Certain Jewish traditions records the existence of nomadic tribes such as the Rechabites that converted to Judaism in antiquity. The tribes collapsed with the rise of Islam, with many either converting or fleeing the Arab peninsula. Some of those tribes are thought to have merged into Yemenite Jewish community, while others, like the residents of Yatta consider themselves Islamized descendants of Khaybar, a Jewish tribe of Arabia.