Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA)^[1] or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA),^[2][3] is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East (also called West Asia) and North Africa together. It exists as an alternative to the concept of the Greater Middle East, which comprises the bulk of the Muslim world. The region has no standardized definition and groupings may vary, but the term typically includes countries like Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

As a regional identifier, the term "MENA" is often used in academia, military planning, disaster relief, media planning (as a broadcast region), and business writing.^[4][5] Moreover, it shares a number of cultural, economic, and environmental similarities across the countries that it spans; for example, some of the most extreme impacts of climate change will be felt in MENA.

Some related terms have a wider definition than MENA, such as MENASA (lit. 'Middle East and North Africa and South Asia') or MENAP (lit. 'Middle East and North Africa and Afghanistan and Pakistan').^[6] The term MENAT explicitly includes Turkey, which is usually excluded from some MENA definitions, even though Turkey is almost always considered part of the Middle East proper. Ultimately, MENA can be considered as a grouping scheme that brings together most of the Arab League and variously includes their neighbors, like Iran, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, the Caucasian countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malta, and a few others.

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