Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half , or third, of the Mediterranean Sea , often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea .
41-477: The Levant ( / l ə ˈ v æ n t / lə- VANT ) is a term used to define the historical and geographical subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west and core West Asia , or by the political term, Middle East to the east . In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering
82-766: A Muslim majority in the Levant is presumed to have been reached by the 13th century. The majority of Levantine Muslims are Sunnis adhering to the four madhhabs ( Hanafi , Shafi'i , Hanbali and Maliki ). Islamic minorities include the Alawites and Nizari Ismailis in Syria, and Twelver Shiites in Lebanon . Levantine Christian groups include Greek Orthodox ( Antiochian Greek ), Syriac Orthodox , Eastern Catholic ( Syriac Catholic , Melkite and Maronite ), Roman Catholic ( Latin ), Nestorian , and Protestant . Armenians mostly belong to
123-547: A hybrid of mostly medieval Arabic vernaculars with strong influence from contact with Turkish and Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people. Western Neo-Aramaic is additionally spoken in three villages in Syria: Maaloula , Jubb'adin and Bakhah . Among diaspora communities based in the Levant, Greek , Armenian and Circassian are also spoken. According to recent ancient DNA studies, Levantines derive most of their ancestry from ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of
164-436: A number of other varieties and dialects of Arabic are spoken in the Levant area, such as Levantine Bedawi Arabic (by Bedouins ) and Mesopotamian Arabic (in eastern Syria). Of the languages of Cyprus , the two official languages are Turkish and Greek. The most used languages by population are Greek in the south followed by Turkish in the north. Two minority languages are recognized: Armenian , and Cypriot Maronite Arabic ,
205-732: Is borrowed from the French levant 'rising', referring to the rising of the sun in the east, or the point where the sun rises. The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare , meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή Anatolē ( cf. Anatolia 'the direction of sunrise'), in Germanic Morgenland ( lit. ' morning land ' ), in Italian (as in Riviera di Levante ,
246-722: Is the Church of St. Anthony of Padua on İstiklal Avenue in the Beyoğlu (Pera) district of Istanbul, which was constructed between 1906 and 1912 by the Italian Levantine community. They have been influential in creating and reviving a tradition of opera . Famous people of the present-day Levantine community in Turkey include Maria Rita Epik, Franco-Levantine Caroline Giraud Koç and Italo-Levantine Giovanni Scognamillo . Most of Turkey's small Catholic community are Levantines. Notable people of
287-670: The Armenian Apostolic Church . There are also Levantines or Franco-Levantines who adhere to Roman Catholicism . There are also Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church . Other religious groups in the Levant include Jews , Samaritans , Yazidis and Druze . Most populations in the Levant speak Levantine Arabic ( شامي , Šāmī ), a variety of Arabic descended from
328-596: The Black Sea 's economy and history. The three-word term is mainly a complex euphemism for the Balkan peninsula used by those who stigmatise the word " Balkanisation " and to suggest parallels with other conflicts of the Eastern Mediterranean. The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean includes the Eastern Mediterranean as well as the other regions of contiguous Afro-Eurasia : West Asia , North Africa ,
369-679: The Bronze and Iron age Levant. Other Arabs include the Bedouins of Syrian Desert , Naqab and eastern Syria , who speak Bedouin Arabic . Non-Arab minorities include Circassians , Chechens , Turks , Jews , Turkmens , Assyrians , Kurds , Nawars and Armenians . Overlapping regional designations Subregional designations Others Other places in the east of a larger region Eastern Mediterranean It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communities connected with
410-687: The Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper. Cilicia (in Asia Minor) and the Sinai Peninsula (Asian Egypt) are sometimes included. As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today. Both the noun Levant and the adjective Levantine are now commonly used to describe the ancient and modern culture area formerly called Syro-Palestinian or Biblical: archaeologists now speak of
451-715: The Crusades with the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages . As with the case of Eastern Catholics and other Christians in the Middle East , Latin Catholics have both a history and a present of persecution . Levantines were mostly of Italian (especially Venetian and Genoese ), French , or other Euro-Mediterranean origin. They have been living in the eastern Mediterranean coast of Lebanon and Syria since
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#1732837072668492-603: The Greek Dodecanese islands, and the countries of Lebanon , Syria , Palestine , Israel , Jordan and Egypt . North-eastern Mediterranean has been put to print as a term for the Greater Balkans: Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , Greece , Slovenia , North Macedonia , Serbia , Kosovo , Montenegro , Romania . A five-author statistics-rich study of 2019 has sought to add Moldova and Ukraine beyond, which others link more to
533-474: The Greek islands ). In 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon (1920–1946) was called the Levant states. Today, "Levant" is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted
574-626: The Horn of Africa , Central Asia , Afghanistan , and Pakistan . Levantines (Latin Catholics) [REDACTED] Palestine [REDACTED] Israel [REDACTED] Jordan [REDACTED] Lebanon [REDACTED] Syria [REDACTED] Turkey ( Hatay Province ) The Latin Church of the Catholic Church has several dispersed populations of members in
615-527: The Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria ("Greater Syria"), which includes present-day Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , the Palestinian territories and most of Turkey southwest of the middle Euphrates . Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia . In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of
656-653: The Middle East , notably in Turkey , Cyprus and the Levant ( Syria , Lebanon , Palestine and Jordan ). Latin Catholics employ the Latin liturgical rites , in contrast to Eastern Catholics who fall under their respective church's patriarchs and employ distinct Eastern Catholic liturgies , while being in full communion with the worldwide Catholic Church. Latin Catholics in the Middle East are often of European descent, particularly from
697-733: The Ottoman Sultan in 1579. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire , and in 1670 the French Compagnie du Levant [ fr ] was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the Far East was known as the "Upper Levant". In early 19th-century travel writing , the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire , as well as independent Greece (and especially
738-707: The Southern Levant . While the usage of the term "Levant" in academia has been restricted to the fields of archeology and literature, there is a recent attempt to reclaim the notion of the Levant as a category of analysis in political and social sciences. Two academic journals were launched in the early 2010s using the word: the Journal of Levantine Studies , published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and The Levantine Review , published by Boston College . The word Levant has been used in some translations of
779-586: The maritime republics of Venice , Genoa , Pisa , Ancona and Ragusa who had colonies in the East Mediterranean coast; or the descendants of the French/Italian Levantines who lived in the Crusader states of the Levant (in present-day Lebanon , Israel and Syria ), especially in port towns such as Beirut , Tripoli , Tyre , Byblos , Acre , Jaffa , Latakia , etc.; or in major cities near
820-546: The Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece in Southern Europe to Egypt and Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya) in Northern Africa . In the 13th and 14th centuries, the term levante was used for Italian maritime commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Anatolia , Syria-Palestine , and Egypt , that is,
861-677: The Italian Levantines may have ancestral origins also in the eastern Mediterranean coast (the Levant, particularly in present-day Lebanon and Israel ) dating back to the period of the Crusades and the Byzantine Empire . A small group came from Crimea and from the Genoese colonies in the Black Sea , after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The majority of the Levantines in modern Turkey are
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#1732837072668902-867: The Levant and of Levantine archaeology ; food scholars speak of Levantine cuisine ; and the Latin Christians of the Levant continue to be called Levantine Christians . The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of Western Asia , the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa ", and in geological ( tectonic ) terms as the "northwest of the Arabian Plate ". The populations of the Levant share not only geographic position, but cuisine , some customs, and history . They are often referred to as Levantines . The term Levant appears in English in 1497 , and originally meant 'the East ' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'. It
943-594: The Sun rises". In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to trade with the Ottoman Empire . The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon after World War I . This is probably the reason why the term Levant has come to be used more specifically to refer to modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and the island of Cyprus . Some scholars mistakenly believed that it derives from
984-511: The boundaries of the Levant as follows. A distinction is made between the main subregions of the Levant, the northern and the southern: The island of Cyprus is also included as a third subregion in the archaeological region of the Levant: The vast majority of Levantines are Muslims . After the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, Islam was first introduced into the region. However,
1025-513: The coast, such as Tarsus , Antioch , Jerusalem , etc. Others may be converts to Catholicism , immigrants from Anglo-French colonization, or Eastern Christians who had resided there for centuries. When the United Kingdom took over the southern portion of Ottoman Syria in the aftermath of the First World War , some of the new rulers adapted the term "Levantine" pejoratively to refer to
1066-686: The descendants of traders/colonists from the Italian maritime republics of the Mediterranean (especially Genoa and Venice ) and France , who obtained special rights and privileges called the Capitulations from the Ottoman sultans in the 16th century. There are two large communities of Italian Levantines: one in Istanbul and the other in İzmir. At the end of the 19th century there were nearly 6,000 Levantines of Italian roots in İzmir. They came mainly from
1107-412: The inhabitants of mixed Arab and European descent in Lebanon , Syria and Palestine , and to Europeans (usually French , Italian or Greek ) who had assimilated and adopted local dress and customs. Today, a small percentage of Lebanon 's small group of Latin Catholics are of at least partial French / Italian descent. The Catholic community of Cyprus ( Latinoi, Λατίνοι ) consists one of
1148-714: The island of Cyprus in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant , the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, Journal of Levantine Studies and the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age . Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of
1189-466: The lands east of Venice . Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine and Egypt. The term entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian levante , meaning "rising", implying the rising of the Sun in the east, and is broadly equivalent to the term al-Mashriq ( Arabic : ٱلْمَشْرِق , [ʔal.maʃ.riq] ), meaning "the eastern place, where
1230-550: The mainland and islands of Greece ), the Ionian Sea (thus southern Albania in Southeastern Europe ), and can extend west to Italy 's farthest south-eastern coasts. Jordan is climatically and economically part of the region. The eastern Mediterranean region is commonly interpreted in two ways: The countries and territories of the Eastern Mediterranean include Cyprus , Turkey ( Anatolia ), its smaller Hatay Province ,
1271-574: The medieval Crusader era and later the 20th-century colonial period . Depending on the specific area in question, due to their cultural heritage descending from Catholics who lived under the Ottoman Empire , they are sometimes referred to as Levantines , Italo-Levantines [ it ] , or Franco-Levantines ( Arabic : شوام ; French : Levantins ; Italian : Levantini ; Greek : Φραγκολεβαντίνοι Frankolevantini ; Turkish : Levantenler or Tatlısu Frenkleri ) after Frankokratia . A distinctive era of influence occurred during
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1312-525: The middle Byzantine or the Ottoman era and in Constantinople ( Istanbul ), Smyrna ( İzmir ) and other parts of Anatolia (such as the port towns of Amasra , Sinop , Trabzon , Enez , Çanakkale , Foça , Çeşme , Bodrum , Alanya , Mersin , Iskenderun , etc., where the colonies of Genoese and Venetian merchants existed) in present-day Turkey . The majority are either the descendants of traders from
1353-565: The name of Lebanon. Today the term is often used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. Another term for "Syria-Palestine" is Ash- Shaam ( Arabic : ٱلشَّام , /ʔaʃ.ʃaːm/ ), the area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the north Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia in the east, and Sinai in the south (which can be fully included or not). Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor),
1394-534: The nearby Genoese island of Chios in the Aegean Sea . The community had more than 15,000 members during Atatürk 's presidency in the 1920s and 1930s, but today is reduced to only a few hundreds, according to Italian Levantine writer Giovanni Scognamillo . They continue to live in Istanbul (mostly in the districts of Karaköy , Beyoğlu and Nişantaşı ), and İzmir (mostly in the districts of Karşıyaka , Bornova and Buca .) The largest Catholic church in Turkey
1435-672: The portion of the Liguria coast east of Genoa ), in Hungarian Kelet ('east'), in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant , ('the place of rising'), and in Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ ('east'). Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source oriens meaning 'east', is literally "rising", deriving from Latin orior 'rise'. The notion of the Levant has undergone a dynamic process of historical evolution in usage, meaning, and understanding. While
1476-538: The pre-Islamic Arabic dialects of Syria and Hejazi Arabic , but retaining significant influence from Western Middle Aramaic . Levantine Arabic is usually classified as North Levantine Arabic in Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey, and South Levantine Arabic in Palestine and Jordan. Each of these encompasses a spectrum of regional or urban/rural variations. In addition to the varieties normally grouped together as "Levantine",
1517-460: The sea and land greatly climatically influenced. It includes the southern half of Turkey's main region Anatolia , its smaller Hatay Province , the island of Cyprus , the Greek Dodecanese islands, and the countries of Egypt , Israel , Jordan , Palestine , Syria and Lebanon . Its broadest uses can encompass the Libyan Sea (thus Libya ), the Aegean Sea (thus European Turkey and
1558-619: The term ash-Shām as used by the organization known as ISIL, ISIS, and other names , though there is disagreement as to whether this translation is accurate. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE (OHAL; 2013), the definition of the Levant for the specific purposes of the book is synonymous to that of the Arabic " bilad al-sham , 'the land of sham [Syria]'", translating in Western parlance to greater Syria . OHAL defines
1599-432: The term "Levantine" originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it later came to refer to regional "native" and "minority" groups. The term became current in English in the 16th century, along with the first English merchant adventurers in the region; English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s, and the English merchant company signed its agreement (" capitulations ") with
1640-511: The term Levant to identify the region due to its being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine. The term is also used for modern events, peoples, states or parts of states in the same region, namely Cyprus , Egypt , Iraq , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon , Palestine , Syria , and Turkey are sometimes considered Levant countries (compare with Near East , Middle East , Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia ). Several researchers include
1681-456: The three recognized religious minorities of Cyprus, together with the Armenians and Maronites , according to the 1960 constitution. About 35,000 Levantines live in Turkey . The name Italo-Levantine is specifically applied to people of Italian (especially Venetian or Genoese ) origin, but even with some French or other Euro-Mediterranean roots, who have lived in Istanbul , İzmir and other parts of Anatolia in Turkey . Some of