Ethnic groups in the Middle East


The ethnic groups in the Middle East refers to the peoples that reside in Western Asia and Egypt in North Africa, a transcontinental region commonly known as the Middle East. The region has historically been a crossroad of different cultures. Since the 1960s, the changes in political and economic factors have significantly altered the ethnic composition of groups in the region. While some ethnic groups have been present in the region for millennia, others have arrived fairly recently through immigration. The largest ethnic groups in the region are the Arabs, Azerbaijanis, Egyptians, Kurds, Persians, and Turks, but there are dozens of other ethnic groups which have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of members.
Other indigenous, native, or long-standing ethnic or ethnoreligious groups include: Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Gilaks, Greeks, Jews, Kawliya, Lurs, Mandaeans, Maronites, Mazanderanis, Mhallami, Nawar, Samaritans, Shabaks, Talysh, Tats, Turkmens, Yazidis and Zazas.
More recent migrant or diaspora populations include Albanians, Bengalis, Britons, Bosniaks, Chinese, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Filipinos, French people, Indians, Indonesians, Italians, Malays, Pakistanis, Pashtuns, Punjabis, Romani, Sikhs, Sindhis, Somalis, Sri Lankans, and Sub-Saharan Africans.

Demographics

Middle East

;Arabic-speaking peoples
;Africans – North Africans
;Africans – Sub-Saharan Africans
;Israelites
;Syriac-speaking peoples
;Indo-European peoples
;Turkic peoples
;Indo-European peoples
;Kartvelian peoples
;Semites
;Turkic peoples
;Muhacir
;Indo-European peoples:
;Kartvelian peoples:
;Semites:
;Turkic peoples:
;Peoples of the Caucasus in Iran

Diaspora populations

Because of the low population of many of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf and the demand for labor created by the large discoveries of oil in these countries there has been a steady stream of immigration to the region. Ethnic groups which comprise the largest portions of this immigration include Afghans, Bengalis, Britons, Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Malays, Nepalis, Pakistanis, Punjabis, Sikhs, Sindhis, Somalis, Sri Lankans, and Sub-Saharan Africans. Many of these people are denied certain political and legal rights in the countries in which they live and frequently face mistreatment by the native-born citizens of the host countries.