Olympia: Geocultural Provinces of Anatolia, the East, Egypt, and Africa

Anatolia. This is an ancient name for the province and comes from a Greek word meaning “the East.” It includes most of today’s Turkey. Things relating to it are Anatolian; its people, Anatolians.

Boundaries: N: the Black Sea from the Bosporus east to the mouth of the Coruh River; E: the Coruh, Euphrates, and Orontes rivers; S: the Mediterranean Sea; W: the Aegean Sea, Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara, and Bosporus.

The East. The Romans named this area "the Orient" meaning "the East." Things relating to it are Eastern; its people, Easterners.

We may subdivide it into two historical significant areas. We may refer to the first, the Tigris-Euphrates river valley, as Mesopotamia. The second, the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, is the Levant (which also means "the East"). Things relating to it are Levantine.

This province includes today’s Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Sinai Peninsula, and a sliver of northwest Saudi Arabia.

Boundaries: NE: the Tigris River valley; S: the Syrian Desert and Red Sea; W: the Mediterranean Sea, Orontes and Euphrates rivers.

Egypt. For most of the last 6,000 years, this province has been known as Egypt. It’s that old.

The boundaries of this geocultural province, however, differ from those of the modern state of Egypt. The provincial boundaries are: N: the Mediterranean from the eastern corner of the Nile delta (today’s Port Said) west to the southern point of the Gulf of Sidra (near today’s Marsa al Burayqah, Libya); E: the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez; S: the southern point of the Gulf of Sidra.

Africa was the name given by the Romans to a province centered on the city of Carthage. Ruins of this ancient rival of Rome lie just outside today’s Tunis.

This geocultural province includes the narrow coastal ribbon of land of today's Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and western Libya.

Boundaries: N: the Mediterranean Sea from the Strait of Gibraltar to the southern point of the Gulf of Sidra; E: the southern point of the Gulf of Sidra into the Sahara; S: where habitable land ends and the Sahara begins; W: the Atlantic coast north from the mouth of the Oum Er-Rbia River (southwest of today’s Casablanca) to the Strait of Gibraltar.

Copyright © 2013 by Steven Farsaci.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.