The ethnic groups in the Middle East refers to the peoples that reside in West Asia as well as Egypt in North Africa, a transcontinental region commonly known as the Middle East. The region has historically been a crossroad of different cultures. Since the 1960s, the changes in political and economic factors (especially the enormous oil wealth in the region and conflicts) have significantly altered the ethnic composition of groups in the region. While some ethnic groups have been present in the region for millennia, others have arrived fairly recently through immigration. The largest ethnic groups in the region are the Arabs, Kurds, Persians, and Turks, but there are dozens of other ethnic groups which have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of members.