Maghreb

The Maghreb, also known as the Greater Maghreb and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The Maghreb region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people.

The Maghreb is usually defined as encompassing much of the northern part of continental Africa, including a large portion of the Sahara Desert, while excluding Egypt and the Sudan, which are considered to be located in the Mashriq — the eastern part of the Arab world. The traditional definition of the Maghreb — which restricted its scope to the Atlas Mountains and the coastal Mediterranean plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya — was expanded in recent decades to today include Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. During the era of al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula (711–1492), the Maghreb's inhabitants — the Muslim and Jewish Maghrebis — were known by Europeans as the "Moors". The Greeks referred to the region as the "Land of the Atlas", referring to its Atlas Mountains.

Before the establishment of modern states of the region during the 20th century, the Maghreb most commonly referred to a smaller area encompassing Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia — between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains. It often also included the territory of eastern Libya, and it always excluded what is now considered modern Mauritania. As recently as the early-to-mid 20th century, the term "Maghreb" was exclusively used to refer to the western Mediterranean region of coastal North Africa in general, and to Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia in particular.