Okay, first some context. The world I'm working on draws a lot of inspiration from various eras and cultures of the Middle East in a sort of Frankenstein of my favorite bits. In particular I settled on five races I wanted to include in my world. These being Jinn, Humans, Dev (essentially Arabic ogres), Asura, and Ulliki (my own creation).

Then as I went to build their cultures beyond surface level physical traits and shape motifs I ran into a roadblock. So I'm hoping some of you more experienced worldbuilders can help me out. My question is threefold.

First question. How many races and cultures could you conceivably have in such a condensed area? It feels illogical to assign a section for one race, a different section for another race and stick the other over there. I mean without some sort of geographical barrier or a large space between them does that feel forced?

Second question. This one relates closely to the first. Does it make sense that five races with very different cultures and characteristics could naturally occur and settle within such a close radius of each other? I'd imagine that their cultures would kind of bleed into each other but how different could they be? I'm afraid that if I err on the side of caution and take the more realistic route I'll rob my peoples of more diverse cultures that they might otherwise have had?

Last question. In my original brainstorming session I created a lizard-like race that I was rather find of. That was until that critical voice in my head was like "Let me guess. They're hunters because -lizards. They're tribal and close to nature -cause lizards are in nature. They're somewhat cold hearted -because you guessed it, they're lizards. They probably do lizard stuff like flicking their tongue -lizards." Does it feel contrived? Too on the nose? I could spin it on its head and be like well these lizards are herbivores, their culture is very civilized, and they don't do the tongue thing. At which point I realize they're just humans -but they're lizards -but theyre really just humans with scales.

Anyone else have this problem? Am I thinking about it too hard? Honestly, this is a major roadblock for me and any input would just mean the world. Thanks!

Edit: For the sake of discussion let's say the area where my novel takes place is similar in size to the irl Middle East.