The hidden "country" of MAGHREB explained

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]So if you ever talk to or encounter North Africans, I'm talking about like you know Libyans, Tunisians, Algerians, especially Moroccans, and if you ask them one question, it will open up an entire Pandora's box, usually filled with ragefilled responses, depending on who you ask. Some people will say yes, of course. Others will say no, definitely not. I would argue that the majority or somewhat majority of them might say no. I don't have the exact numbers, but anyway. And after 45 minutes of listening to passionate responses, you start to kind of grasp how important this one question is to millions of people across this area of the world because sometimes you just want to know, are you guys Arabs?

[00:00:43]Let's have a geogra talk.

[00:00:48]Hey everybody, I'm your host Barbs and oh my goodness. Hello darkness, my old friend. What have we here? It is the Code Black Geography Now mug. This is one of the many pieces of merch that you can get at geography now.com. Feel free to get whatever you want. We have a lot of cool merch at the website. We got hoodies. We got drawstring bags. We have mugs. Get it. Do whatever you want with it. I don't care. Drink from it. I don't care. It's yours. And as I always say, it is not selling out if it's your brand. Anywh who, so in this world, there's a lot of countries that share a common language with other countries.

[00:01:17]You know, you can find Spanish spoken throughout the Americas as far as Chile all the way to Africa and Equatorial Guinea. You can find Russian being spoken everywhere from Bellarus to Tajikiststan. But just like these language block regions of the world, you realize just because the language is spoken there, it doesn't necessarily mean that the people have roots from the origin of that language. Now, the Arabic language originated from, shocker, the Arabian Peninsula. Some say the earliest Arab tribes came from what is now Yemen.

[00:01:44]And today, Yemen holds some of the oldest known sites and secrets to the Arab world. That being said, as you can see now, the Arabic language has spread far beyond just the Arabian Peninsula, having official status as far as Morocco to the Kamoros Islands off of East Africa in the Indian Ocean. The rise of Islam is obviously the largest factor contributing to this language block. And just like how European languages were spread across the world, Arabic became the lingua frana for multiple peoples across the world in Western Asia and Northern Africa. Now, this question of are you Arab is a kind of contentious one for various regions in the Arab-speaking world. Like if you go to the Middle East, some people might say that they are Levventine or Mesopotamian as opposed to Arabic. Or if you go to places like Sudan, they might say something like we are AfroAb or we are Arab-speaking Africans. Or some of them might say we're a mix or it it all depends on who you ask. If you watched Ruba in my Sudan episode, my co-host, she exper she explained it pretty well in the demographic section. So yeah, watch that episode if you haven't seen it yet. And when you go to North Africa, you will notice that there is an intensely distinct macro region that has a whole different thing going on from the rest of the Arab world. Peoples in this region are fiercely protective of their identity and they will let you know who they are. So much so that they actually created their own IGO union apart from the Arab League. This is the region called the Maghreb. Basically, it includes every country and people group in North Africa except for Egypt. Reason being because Egypt they they got a whole separate identity thing going on apart from the Mghreb. In the Mghreb you have five countries. Moritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. And depending on who you talk to, some people might include the Western Sahara, SADR, Polasario, Saharawi people, whatever you want to call it, but we'll we'll get into that stuff later. Okay.

[00:03:24]Anyway, basically in this general macro region of North Africa, there seems to be a very interesting and intense shared identity amongst many of the people. Not all, but many of them with traits and customs that they all kind of acknowledge or are familiar with. Like even if they have drama with each other, it all goes back to the whole we are Mrebby people's ideology. You know what's crazy? I've done quite a bit of traveling. I'm not saying that to be like boastful or anything, but like it's literally part of my job. Like I travel a lot in my work and this is actually one of the places of the world, one of the regions I have not been to yet. Like you know Egypt or Morocco, you know they're super touristy, you know, pyramids of Giza, whatever. I've never been to North Africa. And that's even crazier because I actually have a personal genetic connection to this place. I don't know if you guys remember, but a while back I did a DNA test with My Heritage, which by the way has graciously decided to sponsor this video. Thank you, My Heritage. And I and when I got My Heritage results back, it turns out I am over 13% North African.

[00:04:22]So, it's possible I could have MRABI heritage. My Heritage is one of the top DNA test companies for people that are interested in finding more about their genetic and ethnic makeup. They have a privacy policy that is committed to never selling out or licensing your genetic data. They give an ethnicity estimate based off of 43 supported ethnicities across 2100 geographic regions. On the website, you can see your actual DNA test results on a cool spinning globe animation. You can see DNA matches with other people, whether they are your direct family members or potentially new family members you didn't even know you had. You can even communicate with them via the internal messaging system. There's even a cool ancient origins and traits feature you can click on to explore more about your heritage. Go to the checkout page and use the code GN19 for a discount for your My Heritage kit to be sent to you.

[00:05:06]Instructions will be included so you can get the ball rolling. And if you're interested, use this QR code to go there, or you can go to the link in the description of this video, see what you're made up of atmyheritage.com.

[00:05:16]Thanks, MyHeritage. So with all that being said, let's kind of do a little bit of a deep dive and look at what and who is in this Maghreb region. Okay. So first and foremost, the vast majority of peoples in the Mghreb are Afroaziatic, which they're like the family branch of all the language groups and peoples that are in this area. I literally just did a video explaining language groups across the world. But for those of you who don't know, Afroasiatic includes many of the major language branches like the Semitic, Berber or Amazic, Kushirk, Chadic, Omoric, and Egyptian Coptic. So pretty much all those languages are related distantly to each other. It's kind of like how Spanish and German, you know, they can't understand each other, but they're all under Indo-Uropean. So they're kind of related in some way, but very distantly. Same deal with all the language groups in this area. Okay?

[00:06:01]Distant cousins of each other mostly.

[00:06:04]And the general rule with the Maghreb region is that usually the further west you go, the more non-Arab it gets. And here's the thing. Even the people that identify as Arab in the Maghreb still have their own separate distinct cultures and, you know, subgroups within each other and dialects. It's crazy. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to kind of break down the Maghreb by region and distinct ethnic group that occupies that certain region so you can kind of understand how demographically think things are structured within this area. Okay. So, let's start off with the biggest ethnic group in this area, the Amaz. You might know them as the Berbers. It's kind of like an outdated term, but some people still use it. I've even heard some Amaz people say, "Yeah, we don't mind being called Berber." But I don't know. The native word for it is amaz. So, I usually just say that. But if you're or Berber, what do you prefer to be called? I don't know. I just I whatever. I'm just going to say Amaz.

[00:06:58]Okay. The Amaz peoples are the largest non-Arab groups within the Mghreb area.

[00:07:03]And they mostly inhabit the areas of what are now Morocco and Algeria. So much to the point where now the Amaz language is co-official with Arabic in both Morocco and Algeria. That's how common you can hear it being spoken.

[00:07:16]They even have street signs with the Amaz language written. It's they have their own alphabet and writing system.

[00:07:22]It's crazy. It looks really cool. Oo, I I love that alphabet. Ooh. And here's the thing. Even within the Amaz community, there's tons and tons of tribes and clans and sub affiliations within the Amaz peoples. like an Amaz person in Morocco might be completely different from someone in the middle of the Sahara in Algeria. You know, it's like they have a shared identity, but they also have distinct cultures. You know, it's it's also geographic regions as well. So, generally speaking, the Amaz people are kind of divided between three or four regions depending on how you consider it. West, mountain, and east. Morocco has the largest population of Amaz peoples. The largest well-known ones are the Rifians which live in the Rift Mountains as well as the Atlas mountain Amaz peoples and the Shilha and Tashalite Amazik peoples that lived in the south more dry desert areas. The Rifian Amazik people actually did at one point have like a separatist movement going on. And uh there's even like a Rifian Amaz people community in Morocco right now. And I I I explained it in another one of my previous videos before the separatist groups of Africa. But yeah, then we go to Algeria and it looks a little different. Algeria has the Kabil Amazik peoples mostly in the Kabil mountains. They also had their own kind of separatist movement thing going on.

[00:08:35]Uh these are probably the Amaziks within Algeria that have the strongest sense of national cultural identity and uh yeah they live in the mountainous Mediterranean regions of Algeria and many of them are also very highly urbanized as well. They're not pastorialists. They're actually a lot of them are urban Amaz peoples. In addition, you also have the Shawi Amaz mostly in eastern Algeria as well as parts of Tunisia. And then you also have the Mosabites found in the Mab Valley of the Saharan Oasis region. Many of them are actually Ibadi Muslim, which is a sect of Islam. They're basically the uh the Oasis peoples in Algeria. And then if you go really down south in Algeria, you encounter the Tuare eggs. Now, some people say that the Tuare eggs are completely distinct apart from the Amaz to the point where they are a completely different separate people group, but they are technically related to the Amaz. But some of them say, "No, we aren't. Don't call us Amaz. We're Tuare and whatever. At least on a linguistic scale, they are cousins. Tuare eggs are the are probably some of the truest truest Saharan peoples. They are probably the most like furthest away from the ocean people on Earth. And here's the thing for Mali. Yes, they are part of the Azawad movement in northern Mali. That is the the group of people that have been having conflict with the AES, the alliance of Sahel states, which is a joint confederation between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nijair. And it's a whole complicated situation right now between the governments of all three of those countries versus the Tore Azawad movement within the Saharan regions of northern Mali. It's it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. I made a video on it.

[00:10:08]Yeah. Check that out. I made I make videos on a lot of things, don't I? I'm kind of like a geography guy. Yeah.

[00:10:13]Anyway, so those are the uh Amazon MREBI regions. But there's also other groups. For example, obviously the Arab identifying peoples, but even within the Arab community of North Africa or Arab identifying people, they even have their own subsections and subgroups. Most of the people in Libya speak the Sulimi dialect of Arabic. In Tunisia, it's mostly the Hilalian dialect. Algeria and Morocco share their own eastern, western, and central versions of Darijah. And in many parts of Tunisia, they also speak pre-Hilal Arabic, which is also very similar to the Maltese language in the country of Malta. It's Malta is not too far off from Tunisia.

[00:10:56]And many people in Tunisia say that they can understand Maltese people when they talk and vice versa. The only Semitic language in the EU and it's mostly related to Tunisian Arabic. Isn't that crazy? Everybody in the Arab world knows that the dialect of Morocco and to some extent Algeria are some of the most difficult dialects to understand in all of the Arab-speaking world. And Darijah, that dialect is unique because it fuses multiple influences from multiple languages. Like for example, from the Amaz languages, a little bit of French, a little bit of Spanish, everything. It just mixes everything all together and creates this whole new almost completely different language, Darijah. Out of all the North African countries, Morocco is the only kingdom. It's the only monarchy. They have a king. Whereas all the other countries have their own republic or whatever system. Now, let's quickly hop over back to the far western Atlantic part of the Maghreb. Places like Moritania, Western Sahara/South Morocco, whatever you consider. I'm not going to get into a geopolitical argument right now. You find the Hassania Arabic speaking Sahari and Moritanian peoples. And this is a whole other thing. Like they speak Hassania Arabic, which is a whole other dialect.

[00:12:03]It's a strong dialect of Arabic. And when Arab people hear it, they're like, "Oh, okay. Now I know where you're from." Moritanians in the Arab world, they're kind of like the land of wind and poets. Like when you go to Moritania, it is windy as hell. Oh my.

[00:12:16]It's It's hot and the sun is beating down, but it's also very windy. Like my goodness, so much wind. I've never seen a windier place ever. But yeah, and Moritanians are known for being some of the best poets in the entire Arab world.

[00:12:26]But yeah, the Sahari peoples and the Hassania Arabs in Moritania, they typically divide themselves into two classes. the white and the black moors.

[00:12:36]It's complicated cuz if you ask them, they'll say, "Yes, we speak Arabic, but we have our own roots based off of native Saharan peoples and maybe even some of them say we have a little bit of like Bantau heritage as well that from the parts of Western Africa that are just below them." It really depends on who you talk to. Um, there's no clearcut answer for all of them cuz they all come from different lineages and tribes. but broad term the Hassania Arabic speaking peoples of the far western regions of the Maghreb. So that's that's western Mghreb. Now let's go a little bit further east and go to Algeria. Now from my understanding from talking to Algerians and everything, Algeria is kind of like the middle ground where you start to it's like the bridge between the Arab world and the Amaz world and the Mediterranean world. It's like everything clashes in Algeria. And then you get like a lot of Frenchy stuff too cuz like France colonized them for a while and you see a lot of like French architecture. Algeria is like they they're going through like eight different identity crises right now. But for what it's worth, they do have a very strong native Amaz culture, which is why the Amaz language is also coicient with Arabic in their country. They also have the largest section within the Maghreb of the Torres down south. You know what's crazy? When I talk to North Africans, they all tell me the same thing. Even the Egyptians, like non-magrebi North Africans, like North Africans, you know, we can be intent, but the number one rule, do not mess with the desert people. Like that's the one thing they all tell me like when you go to anywhere in North Africa, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, whatever, blah blah blah blah blah. Do not mess with the desert people cuz like the desert people, they they have a whole other thing going on. Do not disrespect them.

[00:14:14]Like that's what they all tell me. I don't know if you're North African. I don't know, maybe you can attest to that if that's true or not. But I I believe it cuz if I was in the desert and I saw some desert people, I'd be like, "Yeah, no, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm in your territory." So, I'm going off I'm going off topic. Anyway, uh so back where were we? Algeria. Yes, Algeria. When you go to Algeria, it's so funny because they have such a weird complicated relationship with Morocco because like culturally they're very kind of similar with Morocco. Like they have the whole Amazik thing going on. Of course, it's but they don't have a monarch. They also have this argument over the whole Sahari thing with Western Sahara. And that's kind of like the the the crux of the of the conflict between them because Algeria hosts a lot of the Sahari people in Tinduf, the city that's on the border with Morocco. And you know, that kind of makes Morocco feel a little complicated with how they have a relationship with Algeria and blah blah blah. It goes back and forth, but they're basically brothers. They're brothers, but they argue over this Sahari thing. And anyway, Algeria and Morocco, that's I'm pretty sure my Moroccan and Algerian subscribers are going to explain a lot in the comments for you so that I don't have to. So, now let's go to Tunisia. Tunisia is kind of like this strange outlier with all of this because cuz Tunisians it's from my understanding and with my, you know, conversations with Tunisians people.

[00:15:30]Tunisians, if you're in the comments, please correct me if I'm wrong, but Tunisians have a a separate kind of identity thing going on apart from the Amazik thing. Sure, some of them might say we do have some native Amaz roots, but the weird thing is is that a lot of Tunisians actually like to hold on to their possible Carthaginian/ maybe Phoenician roots. Long ago, Tunisia was the home of Carthage, the largest rival against the Roman Empire.

[00:15:56]And Carthaginians are basically the descendants of the ancient Phoenicians cuz ancient Phoenicians were a very strong seafaring culture that came mostly from the Levant areas of what is now Lebanon and you know uh all that stuff in the Middle East and they sailed over and they took over various parts of North Africa. So before even the Arabs came into North Africa, there were the Phoenetians that eventually evolved into the Carthaginians and that's where a lot of Tunisians kind of get their possible maybe identity from, whatever you want to call it, in addition with their possible Arab possible Amazique thing.

[00:16:27]So there's there's like a whole kind of Phoenician, Carthaginian, whatever you want to call it, kind of identity thing that happens in Tunisia and that's more prevalent for them as opposed to the other regions of North Africa. So, it's like you don't have that in like Algeria or Morocco, you know, but you have it in Tunisia specifically. And if you talk to a Tunisian and you ask them about it, I'm pretty sure they could tell you a whole a whole spiel about that and how it pertains to their identity. Now, we go to Libya. And let's for lack of a better term, I'll just say out of all these North African Maghreb countries, Libya is probably the most probably the closest to Arab identifying as opposed to like Amazon peoples identifying depending on the region you're in. It's weird though because Libyans Libya today it's they're not officially partitioned but kind of like functionally split into separate rival power blocks and there's like three of them. There's uh Tripolitania in the west which is where the capital Tripoli is. That's where the government of national unity is found the kind of you know UN recognized government of Libya. And then you have the opposing side Sirena which is the eastern administration of Libya. uh people that are aligned with Khalifa Haftar's Libyan Army, what's it called? The LAAF, the Libyan Arab Armed Forces. And then in the south, you have Fzan. It's a mix of like tribal authorities, militias, and shifting power dynamics and local coalitions. It's just the again the desert people. So that's how Libya is kind of split up. And and when you talk to Libyan people, they either come from one of these three regions and they'll tell you a whole story. And the crazy thing is in the southern parts of Fzison, you actually find a non-Afroasiatic peoples, the the Nylosaharan group of the Tubu peoples. They speak a Nylo Saharan language and they are completely different from everybody else. And all oh and also I forgot in the very very very southern parts of Moritania, you also get some West African Bontu peoples as well. Niger Congo groups mostly Wooloff. In addition, there's also the Andalusian peoples that were mostly Sphartic Jewish peoples that came from Spain that migrated downwards into North Africa, mostly inhabiting areas of what is now Morocco all the way up to Tunisia. Gerba Island in all in Tunisia has a huge long history of Jewish inhabitation and they even have like synagogues over there. So yeah, this whole MREB area like even though yes, there is some tension in some areas regionally. You know, you got the whole Libya partition thing. You got the whole like Morocco, Algeria, Sahari thing with Western Sahara, whatever. Blah blah blah. Even though there's some tension, whatever, you have this underlying kind of desert/mediterranean dry aid climatebased culture rooted in color and traditions with like a hint and tincture of like survivalist undertones. Because it's the desert, you had to learn how to survive. Like you had to know where to get water. You had to know how to be a pastoralist with camels and livestock. You had to know how to navigate with the stars and you had to know how to deal with this whole intense crazy landscape. You know, the MRBi people are a people of knowing how to handle the inhospitable. Um, and I that's kind of what is shared amongst them in a macro region of North Africa.

[00:19:35]They just uh they just they know who they are and they'll let you know it.

[00:19:39]They are mrebbies. They are the North Africans. So there you go. That's kind of the that's kind of the summary. the hidden macro region country. Not really country. I'm just calling it that for the sake of this video, but the I'll call it a macro region. Macro region of the MREB. Okay, so there you go. Hope you learned something. Uh, stay cool.

[00:19:57]Stay tuned.