Western Asia

History

"Western Asia" was in use as a geographical term in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, before "Near East" became current as a geopolitical concept. For example, William Ouseley used the phrase in 1795 in Persian Miscellanies to refer to a region including Syria, Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Persia. In the context of the history of classical antiquity, "Western Asia" could mean the part of Asia known in classical antiquity, as opposed to the reaches of "interior Asia", i.e. Scythia, and "Eastern Asia" the easternmost reaches of geographical knowledge in classical authors, i.e. Transoxania and India. In the 20th century, "Western Asia" was used to denote a rough geographical era in the fields of archaeology and ancient history, especially as a shorthand for "the Fertile Crescent, excluding Ancient Egypt" for the purposes of comparing the early civilizations of Egypt and the former.