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ENCYCLOPÆDIA
BRITANNICA |
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Middle East The lands around the southern and
eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco to the
Arabian Peninsula and Iran and sometimes beyond. The central part of this
general area was formerly called the Near East, a name given to it by some of
the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide the
Orient into three regions. Near East applied to the region nearest Europe,
extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf; Middle East, from
the Gulf to Southeast Asia; and Far East, those regions facing the Pacific
Ocean. The change in usage began to evolve
prior to World War II and tended to be confirmed during that war, when the
term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt. Thus
defined, the Middle East consisted of the states or territories of Turkey,
Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine (now Israel), Jordan, Egypt,
The Sudan, Libya, and the various states of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman
[now United Arab Emirates]. Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to
enlarge the number of lands included in the definition. The three North
African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in
sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states. In addition, geographic
factors often require statesmen and others to take account of Afghanistan and
Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East. Occasionally Greece is included in
the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern)
question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in
rebellion to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire in 1821 (see
Eastern Question). Turkey and Greece, together with the predominantly
Arabic-speaking lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were also
formerly known as the Levant. Use of the term Middle East,
nonetheless, remains unsettled, and some agencies (notably the United States
State Department and certain bodies of the United Nations) still employ the
term Near East.
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