Africa, North

The region of North Africa includes Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara claimed by both the indigenous Saharawi people and Morocco. The region borders the North Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the east; its population is approximately 234,000,000. Four languages are used institutionally and officially (Modern Standard Arabic in every country of the region; [Page 41]Tamazight in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia; English in Sudan; and French in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco); as a whole, the region has numerous dialects of Arabic and Tamazight (Berber).

A unifying factor among the extremely varied countries of North Africa is that each of them was colonized or occupied by a foreign power, ...