The Arab League has 22 member states. It was founded in Cairo, Egypt, in March 1945 with seven members, namely the Kingdom of Egypt, the Kingdom of Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Republic, Transjordan, and North Yemen. Membership increased during the second half of the 20th century. Seven countries have observer status. The headquarters are located in Cairo, Egypt.

Seven countries are observer states, a status that entitles them to express their opinion and give advice but denies them voting rights. These are Eritrea, where Arabic is one of the official languages, as well as Brazil and Venezuela, which have large and influential Arab communities. India is another observer of the Arab League, with a sizable number of people claiming Arab descent and millions of Indian expatriates living and working in the Arab world. Armenia was granted observer status in 2004. Chad was granted observer status in 2005. Greece became an observer state in 2021.

Only two countries where Arabic is an official language remain outside of the League, Chad and Mali. In Eritrea and South Sudan, although Arabic is not an official language, a dialect of the language is spoken by portions of the populations in these countries. Additionally, there are two other Arabic-speaking states with limited recognition, namely Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Somaliland, but their disputed status being claimed by League members Morocco and Somalia respectively, makes their membership unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Chad's membership was endorsed by the Egyptian government under Hosni Mubarak in 2010. Chad applied for membership on 25 March 2014. Arabic is one of its two official languages, some 12% of Chadians identify as Arab and around 900,000 are Arabic-speaking. Chad has had observer status since 2005.

South Sudan declared its independence from League member state Sudan in July 2011. A clause in the Charter of the Arab League accords the right of territories that have seceded from an Arab League member state to join the organization. South Sudan has been assured full membership in the Arab League should its government choose to seek it. Instead, the nation could opt for observer status. It has indicated that it would not be joining the League since the government believes it does not meet the pre-conditions for membership, stating that:

"The League requires that the countries must be Arabic-speaking countries that consider Arabic language the main language of the nation — on top of that, the league also requires that the people of that particular country must believe that they are Arabs. The people of Southern Sudan are not of Arabic origin, so I don't think there will be anybody in Southern Sudan who will consider joining the Arab League."

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the Foreign Minister of South Sudan Deng Alor Kuol said:

"South Sudan is the closest African country to the Arab world, and we speak a special kind of Arabic known as Juba Arabic."