Middle East Map Quiz: Find the Countries of the Middle East

How to play the Middle East map quiz

The map stretches from Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean to Iran, and from Türkiye down to Yemen at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Neighboring countries outside the Middle East, such as Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan and the Caucasus, are gray.

• Click the map. The quiz names a country ("Click Jordan") and you click it.
• Type the name. One country lights up; type its name. "Turkey" works for Türkiye and "UAE" for the United Arab Emirates.
• Multiple choice. Pick the highlighted country from four names, usually its neighbors.
• Drag labels. Drag all 17 names onto the map, or tap a name and then the country.

Practice is untimed, the Quiz is timed with three tries per country, and Challenge is a 60-second streak game. Each mode keeps its own best score on this device.

What counts as the Middle East?

"Middle East" is a historical name, not a continent, so the list changes from source to source. It started in the early 1900s as a British and American term for the lands between Europe and India. Today most definitions include the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant on the eastern Mediterranean, Iraq, Iran, Türkiye and Egypt. Some add Cyprus, as this quiz does; others add Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan or the Caucasus.

Geographers call most of this area Western Asia. Only Egypt is mostly in Africa, and a small part of Türkiye, around Istanbul, is in Europe.

Land and water: the features that shape the map

• The Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Most of it is desert, including the Rub' al Khali (the Empty Quarter), the largest continuous sand desert on Earth, shared by Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman and the UAE.
• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow from Türkiye through Syria and Iraq to the Persian Gulf. The land between them, Mesopotamia, is where some of the earliest cities and the first known writing appeared.
• The Nile runs north through Egypt to the Mediterranean, and almost all Egyptians live within a few miles of it.
• Water borders: the Mediterranean to the west, the Black Sea north of Türkiye, the Caspian Sea north of Iran, the Red Sea between Africa and Arabia, and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) between Arabia and Iran.
• The Suez Canal in Egypt links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman, is the narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf.
• The Dead Sea, between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, is the lowest point on land on Earth.

Biggest, smallest and most populous

Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East by area, about 2.15 million km², roughly a fifth the size of the United States. Egypt has the most people, with about 116 million in 2024, followed by Iran and Türkiye, each with close to 90 million. The smallest is Bahrain, an island country of about 760 km² in the Persian Gulf, connected to Saudi Arabia by a causeway about 25 km (16 mi) long. Qatar, Kuwait and Lebanon are also small enough that you'll want to zoom in.

Water is a big part of life and of history here. Much of the region gets very little rain, so people have settled along rivers and coasts for thousands of years. Several Gulf countries now take much of their drinking water from the sea through desalination plants. The region also holds a large share of the world's known oil reserves, which is one reason it appears so often in the news.

Religions and languages, briefly

Three of the world's major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, began in the Middle East, and Jerusalem holds sacred sites for all three. Islam is the main religion in most of the region's countries. Arabic is the main language in 13 of the 17 countries on this map; the others speak Persian (Iran), Turkish (Türkiye), Hebrew (Israel) and Greek (Cyprus). That mix is a good reason to learn the map country by country instead of treating the region as one place.

Capitals of the Middle East

Israel names Jerusalem its capital, and the United States recognized it as Israel's capital in 2017, but many countries keep their embassies in Tel Aviv because Jerusalem's final status is disputed. Palestine names East Jerusalem as its capital, and its government works from Ramallah; it is left out of the capitals round. In the UAE, Dubai is the biggest city, but Abu Dhabi is the capital.

Tips to memorize the Middle East

1. Start with Saudi Arabia. It covers most of the Arabian Peninsula. Then go around its edge: Yemen and Oman in the south, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait along the Gulf, then Iraq and Jordan to the north.
2. Put the three big northern countries in a row. Türkiye, Iraq (below it) and Iran (to the east) form the top of the map.
3. Zoom in on the Levant. Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan are small and close together on the Mediterranean coast. Learn them with the map zoomed in.
4. Remember the Gulf in order. Going down the coast from the north: Kuwait, then Bahrain (the island), Qatar (the thumb-shaped peninsula) and the UAE.
5. Use history. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Persian Empire and the Ottoman Empire all grew here. A history program brings the map to life.
6. Finish on paper. The blank map of Asia includes every Middle Eastern country except Egypt.

Keep learning

After the Middle East, try the full Asia map quiz or the Africa map quiz, and test the flags in the Asian flags quiz. Chronological history programs that start with Mesopotamia and Egypt are popular with homeschool families; the programs below are well-known examples.