DEMogRaPhic DEvEloPMENTS iN ThE MENa REgioN 211
of the population of the entire MENA region. Compared to their MENA neigh-
bours, all three of these countries had a relatively lower than average population
increase of around 3.8 times since 1950. The population increase in Morocco
and Turkey today even lies below the average for all MENA states. Only Egypt is
still growing at about the average rate of the entire MENA region (Yousef 2004).
In its migration activity as well as in many other political and economic
respects the MENA region is closely aligned to its southern neighbours.
The MENA region has nineteen direct and indirect bordering neighbours
with a total population of about the same as the MENA region itself.^3 In
the past, the other countries of this region were demographically similar
to the MENA countries. Today, however, their annual population growth
of 2.5 per cent is still signif icantly higher than that of the MENA region.
Figure 7.1 Urban population as percentage of total population
01020304050607080EU MENA Egypt Morocco TurkeyPercentage of t otal popula tion1950
2010Source: UNPD (2012)
The MENA region is home to some of the oldest cities in human history –
including the two megacities of Cairo and Istanbul. At the beginning of the
1950s, most inhabitants of the MENA countries lived in rural areas, with the
cities of the region being home to only 28 per cent of the population (see
Figure 7.1). In modern Europe, too, urbanisation expanded in the second half
of the twentieth century, with 74 per cent of all EU citizens now residing in
3 In 2010, there was a total of 447 million inhabitants in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast,
Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania,
Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Togo.