The exact roster of countries thought to be a part of the Middle East region is often debated. These countries all lie at the eastern edge of a large geological plate (the Arabian plate) that is tilted down from west to east – thus there are mountainous areas on the western end of the plate and oil deposits concentrated along the eastern edge at the shores of the Persian Gulf. The Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman are linked not only by shared history, language and religion, but by the shared opportunities and problems caused by the presence of large oil reserves in these countries. The Levant, for example, encompasses modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, and is often seen as an important area in part because of its close historical connection with countries in Europe and around the Mediterranean. Within the larger Middle East, one can also describe sub-regions, such as North Africa or the Levant, which share certain characteristics. It is also often defined as being a locale of trade and cultural transmission, and sometimes conflict, between Europe, Africa and Asia. It has a long shared history and a shared religious tradition, being the birthplace of the three main monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Middle East is, very generally speaking, an arid region in Southwest Asia and part of North Africa stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, bounded by the Black and Caspian Seas in the north and the Sahara Desert and Indian Ocean in the south. In the case of the Middle East, both physical and human geographic considerations are brought to bear to define the region. They may also be defined by characteristics of human geography, such as shared historical experience, the same language, the same religion, or similar cultural practices. They may be defined by physical geography for example, areas bordered by mountains or rivers or seas, or areas which share a similar climate. Regions are subjectively determined (and thus debatable) areas that we perceive to have certain characteristics in common. To decide what the Middle East is, and what area it covers, we have to understand what a region is. The four most common languages of the Middle East all use the term in translation to describe the region: Interestingly, today the term Middle East is commonly used within the region itself. The origin of the name speaks volumes about the political realities of the nineteenth century, when the perspective of the British in particular carried enormous weight. Today, Near East and Middle East are synonyms, but Middle East is the more widely used term (except in archaeology, where Near East is still more common). And of course, the term is entirely Eurocentric – the region is east from the perspective of western Europe, but not from China, or Russia, or Africa. Of course, the Far East denoted the countries of East Asia, including China, Japan, and Korea. It was originally used to distinguish the area east of the Near East – the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire – and west of India. It was coined only at the end of the nineteenth century by the British foreign service, and used in a 1902 article by a United States naval officer. It is an interesting term – middle of what? east of what? While the term is now widespread both inside and outside the region, it is in fact relatively new. The Middle East is the common term for a region consisting of countries in southwest Asia and, usually, at least part of North Africa.
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