Logically speaking, one would assume that since the part of Asia farthest from Europe was called the Far East, the Near East would be the part nearest to Europe, and the Middle East would be the part in between. But only archaeologists seem to say “Near East”, and nobody calls India the Middle East. How did the terminology get mixed up this way?
I could’ve sworn that I asked this a while ago, but search isn’t turning up anything. I suppose that either it or my memory is acting wonky.
The Near East is Turkey, which is traditionally not part of the Middle East.
The ancient Greeks knew of three continents. Europe, which included Greece. Asia, meaning Asia Minor, and Africa. Although Europe connects to Asia waaaay up there at the top of the Black Sea, to the ancient Greeks this was a shadowy and far off place.
So “Asia” is the “East”. Asia Minor, what is now Turkey, is the Near East. The Middle East is Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia. The Far East is Persia, Afghanistan, India, and points beyond.
According to Wikipedia, Near East and Middle East refer to roughly the same area.
I think these are all relative to the “center of the earth”, or Mediterranian.
This matches my experience. My BA is in Near Eastern Studies (yup, useless) but I usually tell folks it was Middle Eastern Studies because that more acurately describes it in the vernacular that most folks understand. It covered most of the areas currently dominated by Islamic peoples. One of my professors specialized in Turkish history and stuff; another did most of her field work in Morocco. It was a very small major, so must of our professors belonged to other disciplines but had a specialty or side-specialty that touched the near east.