A contiguous mass of about 14 million square kilometers.
  Extending from the shores of the Arab-Persian Gulf in the east to the coasts of Mauritania and Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean in the West, and from the slopes of the Anatolian plateau and the Mediterranean Sea in the North to the Sahara desert, Equatoria, and the Indian Ocean in the south.
  Mostly desert and
  Consequently has a very low population density, though there are striking concentrations of people in some of the cities and river valleys.
  The area is divided into twenty-two different states and territories ranging in size from the city-states of the Gulf (Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait) through the agrarian states of the Maghreb and the Fertile Crescent to the overpopulated Nile valley state of Egypt