The Arab world consists of the 23 members of the Arab League. As of 2023, the combined population of all the Arab states was around 450 million people.
The most populous Arab state is Egypt, the North African nation with a population of 109 million residents. Comoros, the Indian Ocean nation is the least populated, with around 821,625 inhabitants. The largest city in the Arab World is Cairo, Egypt.
The Arab world (Arabic: اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī), formally the Arab homeland (اَلْوَطَنُ الْعَرَبِيُّ al-waṭan al-ʿarabī), also known as the Arab nation (اَلْأُمَّةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُ al-ummah al-ʿarabiyyah), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
The Arab world is at its minimum defined as the 19 states where Arabs form at least a plurality of the population. At its maximum it consists of the 22 members of the Arab League, an international organization, which on top of the 19 plurality Arab states also includes the Bantu-speaking Comoros, and the Cushitic-speaking Djibouti and Somalia. The region stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the southeast. The eastern part of the Arab world is known as the Mashriq, and the western part as the Maghreb.
The tribes of Arabia (Arabic: القبائل العربية) have inhabited the Arabian Peninsula for thousands of years and traditionally trace their ancestry to one of two forefathers: Adnan, whose descendants originate from West Arabia, North Arabia, East Arabia, and Central Arabia; or Qahtan, whose descendants originate from South Arabia. Further, it is held in the Abrahamic religions—particularly Islam—that the Arab people are descended from Abraham through his son Ishmael.
From the 7th century onward, concurrent with the spread of Islam, many of these tribes' members began migrating and settling in the various regions that were subdued during the early Muslim conquests, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Khuzestan, the Maghreb, and Sudan. This phenomenon triggered a process of Arabization that significantly influenced demographic shifts across most of West Asia and North Africa, culminating in the growth of the Arab population far beyond the Arabian Peninsula.