ABSTRACT
Most of the countries of the Arab East lack reliable information on all aspects of the distribution of inhabitants among beduins, semi-nomads, villagers, and townspeople. Clearly, beduins constitute a large proportion of the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula—a quarter to a third of the total population, according to various estimates; in Saudi Arabia they account for as much as one-half to two-thirds of the population (together with semi-nomads); in Libya nomads are about one-fifth of the population (in Cyrenaica, more than 50%); and unsettled tribes are prevalent in Sudan also, but there is no available material from which some figure may fairly be assessed. Estimates for the countries bordering on the Syrian Desert—Iraq, Syria, and Jordan—place the percentage of beduins at 6–10% in each of them; while in Egypt (0.25%, i.e., 50,000) and in Lebanon their number is insignificant.
