ABSTRACT
THE PRESENT ARAB SITUATION At the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the population of the Arab world was hardly more than 35 million. On the eve of the Egyptian revolution of 23 July 1952, the figure amounted to 80 million, and by the time of the set-back of the June war in 1967 it had further increased to 115 million. At the present time, the population of the Arab world exceeds 190 million, of whom more than 45 per cent (i.e. more than 87 million persons) are under 15 years of age. This population is distributed over an area of more than 13 million sq. km, 1 and is divided into twenty-two countries, including Palestine.
