# Why are the Middle East and the Near East the same place? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900 "2008-04-25T21:31:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/1 "2008-04-25T21:31:13Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/2 "2008-04-25T21:44:12Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/3 "2008-04-25T21:52:00Z")
The Near East is Turkey, which is traditionally not part of the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/4 "2008-04-25T22:51:34Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/5 "2008-04-26T00:31:32Z")
According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Etymology), Near East and Middle East refer to roughly the same area. > [@](#): > > With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, “Near East” largely fell out of common use in English, while “Middle East” came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage of “Near East” was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term Middle East, which is not used by these disciplines. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/6 "2008-04-26T10:26:13Z")
I think these are all relative to the “center of the earth”, or Mediterranian. ---
**Author:** ![JustThinkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@JustThinkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustThinkin)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-middle-east-and-the-near-east-the-same-place/446900/7 "2008-04-26T13:12:19Z")
[QUOTE=Can Handle the Truth] According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Etymology), Near East and Middle East refer to roughly the same area. > [@](#): > > With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, “Near East” largely fell out of common use in English, while “Middle East” came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage of “Near East” was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term Middle East, which is not used by these disciplines. [/QUOTE] 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.