"Middle East" is not a completely settled term, but using the most common definition of the term, it includes Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the disputed territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.

Sometimes the term "Middle East" is taken to include Turkey and Cyprus, although both Turks and Cypriots assert that they are part of Europe and not the Middle East. The list of countries discussed in the context of Middle East is occasionally extended, due to strong cultural, economic and political relationships to include Morocco, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan and even Iran and Pakistan.

One of the problems with the term "Middle East" is its perceived Eurocentrism. The region is only "to the east" from the perspective of Europe. To an Indian, it lies to the west; to a Russian, it lies to the south. There is also a problem with the word "Middle." What is the Middle East in the middle of?

The answer to this lies in the older term "Near East." Before the First World War, "Near East" was used in Europe to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while "Middle East" refered to Persia, Afghanistan and sometimes Central Asia, Turkestan and the Caucasus. ("Far East" referred to countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.) With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" fell out of use, the "Middle East" came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Arab World.

The ambiguity of the term "Middle East" annoys some geographers, who have tried to popularise South-West Asia as an alternative, with little success. "Arab World" is used in some contexts, but it excludes peoples such as the Israelis, the Iranians and the Kurds who are not Arabs. In some ways the ambiguity of "Middle East" is an advantage, since it can be defined in a number of ways.

For the past half-century the Middle East has been at the centre of world affairs, and is probably the modern world's most strategically, economically, politically and culturally sensitive area. It possesses huge stock of crude oil, is the birthplace and spritual centre of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the location of the long-running Israel-Palestinian conflict and is the most important source of international terrorism.

See also Levant, Mesopotamia, Orientalism, Cradle of Humanity

History

See separate article, History of the Middle East

Transportation

Transportation in the Middle East throughout history was cheaper than in most other areas of the world. While the region lacks rivers, the rivers that did exist, such as the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates, linked large sections of the population. More importantly, however, was the camel. This hardy and efficient pack animal gave the Middle East a comparative advantage in trade for many centuries.

In part because of this, but mostly because of the impoverished nature of the regional governments railways came very late to the Middle East. In 1883 there were still no railways anywhere outside of Egypt. In those areas that were under European control, such as Egypt after 1882, there was no question of European construction and control of the railways. In areas still under the control of the Ottoman Empire Europeans were also selected to build railways. The area lacked skilled engineers and indigenous efforts were often plagued with technical problems. The most egregious example of this is the Mudanya to Bursa line that was built at too steep a grade for it to be usable by locomotives, and the whole project became a complete waste of resources. Perhaps even more important was a lack of investment capital in the empire, and money for the railway projects was thus raised on the financial markets in Paris, London, and Berlin.

The standard pattern of Middle Eastern railway building was to have the government grant a European company a monopoly over a certain route for a certain period of time. Often added to these concessions were financial guarantees promising that the government would make up a certain portion of any financial loses, if the railways succeeded in carrying a certain annual tonnage. The European companies would raise the large amounts of capital needed to fund the railways on the financial markets in the Western European capitals. There were of course many variations to this pattern. Some railways were built almost entirely by Middle Eastern capital. There is also the Hijaz line that was funded by Muslims from around the world. All these lines still relied upon European engineers, however. In Egypt, while the railways were constructed by European groups, they were managed by a central government organization, but Europeans played an important role there as well.