Middle East, term traditionally applied by western Europeans to the countries of SW Asia and NE Africa lying W of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Thus defined it includes Cyprus, the Asian part of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, the countries of the Arabian peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait), and Egypt and Libya. The area was viewed as midway between Europe and East Asia (traditionally called the Far East Far East, in the most restricted sense, region comprising the countries of E Asia, namely China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan, and the easternmost portion of Russian Siberia (see Russian Far East ).
..... Click the link for more information. ). The term is sometimes used in a cultural sense to mean the group of lands in that part of the world predominantly Islamic in culture, thus including the remaining states of N Africa as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the 20th cent. the Middle East has been the scene of political turmoil and major warfare, including World War I, World War II, the Arab-Israeli Wars Arab-Israeli Wars, conflicts in 1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973–74, and 1982 between Israel and the Arab states. Tensions between Israel and the Arabs have been complicated and heightened by the political, strategic, and economic interests in the area of the
..... Click the link for more information. , the Iran-Iraq War Iran-Iraq War, 1980–88, protracted military conflict between Iran and Iraq. It officially began on Sept. 22, 1980, with an Iraqi land and air invasion of western Iran, although Iraqi spokespersons maintained that Iran had been engaging in artillery attacks on
..... Click the link for more information. and the Persian Gulf Wars First Persian Gulf War, Jan.–Feb., 1991, was an armed conflict between Iraq and a coalition of 32 nations including the United States, Britain, Egypt, France, and Saudi Arabia. It was a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Middle East

or Mideast or Near East

Geographic region where Europe, Africa, and Asia meet. It is an unofficial and imprecise term that now generally encompasses the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea—notably Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria—as well as Iran, Iraq, and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Afghanistan, Libya, Turkey, and The Sudan are sometimes also included. The term was formerly used by Western geographers and historians to describe the region from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia; Near East is sometimes used to describe the same area.

Middle East

1. (loosely) the area around the E Mediterranean, esp Israel and the Arab countries from Turkey to North Africa and eastwards to Iran

2. (formerly) the area extending from the Tigris and Euphrates to Myanmar