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In recent years, environmental and economic reasons have motivated the development of transition metal-free carbon-carbon bond forming reactions and some excellent reviews have covered this research area of particular interest for the pharmaceutical industry. However, none of these reviews has been specifically dedicated to summarize and discuss the results achieved in the rapidly growing field of the transition metal-free direct (hetero)arylation reactions of heteroarenes. This review, which covers the literature from 2008 to 2014, aims to provide a thorough insight into the synthetic and mechanistic aspects of these atom economic and environmentally benign reactions also highlighting their advantages and possible disadvantages compared to conventional methods for the synthesis of arylheteroarenes and biheteroaryls via transition metal-catalyzed reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]