The Maghreb (/ˈmʌɡrəb/; Arabic: ‫ المغرب‬al-Maghrib, "the west"), also known as Northwest Africa,[2] the

Greater Maghreb (‫ المغرب الكبير‬al-Maghrib al-Kabir), and historically as "The Barbary coast",[3][4] is the
western part of North Africa. The region includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania (also considered part of
West Africa), Morocco and Tunisia. The Maghreb also includes the disputed territories of Western Sahara
(controlled mostly by Morocco and partly by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic)
and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla (both controlled by Spain).[5] As of 2018, the region had a population
of over 100 million people.

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, English sources often referred to the region as the
Barbary Coast or the Barbary States, a term derived from the demonym of the Berbers.[6][7] Sometimes,
the region is referred to as the Land of the Atlas, referring to the Atlas Mountains, which are located
within it.[8] In Berber languages, the word "Tamazgha" is used to refer to the Maghreb region plus the
smaller parts of Mali, Niger, Egypt and the Spanish Canary Islands that have traditionally been inhabited
by the Berbers.

The Maghreb is usually defined as encompassing much of the northern part of Africa, including a large
portion of the Sahara Desert, but excluding Egypt and Sudan, which are considered to be located in the
Mashriq — the eastern part of the Arab world. The traditional definition of the Maghreb — which
restricted its scope to the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya
— was expanded in modern times to include Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
During the era of Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula (711–1492), the Maghreb's inhabitants — the
Muslim Berbers, or Maghrebi — were known by Europeans as "Moors".[9]