The Middle East is a region centered in Western Asia.

In Russian-language literature, the term "Middle East" is understood either as the name of the area of Western Asia where Iran and Afghanistan are located, or as a designation of the countries of the Middle East together with Iran and Afghanistan (sometimes including Pakistan). The generic term "Near and Middle East" is also used.

In English in the XX century, this term (English Middle East) began to be widely used as a replacement for the term Near East (Near East), so in Russian the term Middle East, formerly meaning "Middle East", is usually translated as "Middle East". However, in a historical context dating back to the period around World War II, Middle East is usually translated as "Middle East"

The term Middle East originated in the 1850s during the British Indian administration. However, he gained great fame thanks to the American naval theorist Alfred Tayer Mahan, who used this term in 1902 to refer to "the area between the Arabian Peninsula and India".

At that time, the British and Russian empires were fighting for influence in Central Asia (this rivalry was called the Great Game). Mahan was aware of the importance not only of the region itself, but also of its heart, the Persian Gulf. He called the surrounding Persian Gulf region the Middle East, considering it the second most important sea passage after the Suez Canal, which the British must control to prevent the Russians from advancing towards British India. The term was first used by Mahan in 1902 in an article entitled "The Persian Gulf and International Relations" published in the National Review. This article was reprinted by The Times. Soon there was a series of twenty articles under the general title "The Middle Eastern Question", written by Sir Ignatius Valentin Chirol. In his articles, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of "Middle East" to include "regions of Asia extending to the borders of India and dominating approaches to India". Later, after a series of articles was completed in 1903, The Times began to omit quotation marks when using the term in its articles.

Up until World War II, the region between Turkey and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean sea was called near east in English, while the "Far East" had China as its center, and the Middle East was the region from Mesopotamia to Burma. In the late 1930s, the British created the Middle East Command, based in Cairo and directing British military forces in the region.

Later, the English term Middle East ("Middle East") became widely used in Europe and the United States. The Middle East Institute was founded in Washington in 1946

Modern usage

In the period between the world wars, the fate of the original English term developed in different ways. In English, the term Middle East began to be used either as a generic name for the former "Near" and "Middle" East, or in fact began to denote approximately those countries that were previously denoted by the term Near East.

The word "Middle" causes some confusion due to the changed meaning of the term. Prior to World War I, the term "Near East" was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while "Middle East" referred to Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and parts of the Caucasus. In turn, the "Far East" referred to the countries of East Asia (in particular, China, Japan, Formosa, Korea, Hong Kong, etc.).

With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the term Near East practically ceased to be used in English, while Middle East began to be applied to the countries of the Islamic world.

The first official use of the term Middle East by the U.S. government appeared in the Suez Crisis-affecting Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya in the west and Pakistan in the east, Syria and Iran in the north, and the Arabian Peninsula in the south, and Sudan and Ethiopia." In 1958, the U.S. Department of State clarified that the terms "Middle East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.

According to the policy of the Associated Press, the Middle East used to belong to Western countries, while the Middle East to eastern countries, but now they are synonymous.

In UN documents, the term Middle East is most often used and refers to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Near East is less commonly used. Both are translated into Russian as "Middle East".

Some critics generally recommend the use of an alternative term, such as "Western Asia", which is the official designation used by the UN. Many authors criticize the term Middle East as implicitly Eurocentric. In modern European languages, the term Middle East is used by both Europeans and non-Europeans in academic and official speech.

Geology of the region
The Middle East is located at the point of contact of four tectonic formations - the African plate, the Arabian platform, the Eurasian plate and the Indian subcontinent plate. In the places of their collisions, folding arose, which led to the formation of many mountain systems. Part of the Middle East is filled with mountain structures of the Alpine geosynclinal region, continuing the mountain structures of Southern Europe. In relief, they are expressed in the form of highlands with relatively raised marginal chains and lowered inner plateaus. In the south, they are joined by the Arabian-Syrian Block, representing part of the African Platform. The Arabian region is in every way closer to North Africa than to the rest of Asia. Folded and folded-block mountains and highlands alternate with accumulative plains and intermountain depressions. Intermontane depressions are filled with thick layers of loose debris material that got there from the surrounding mountains. Some lakes, which previously occupied the lowest parts of the depressions, dried up and left layers of salt and gypsum. The Middle East is a contrasting region in terms of absolute elevations. On the one hand, there are some of the highest peaks of the planet - the chogori mountains (8614 m) and Tirichmir (7690 m), on the other hand, the deepest depression is the Dead Sea, the level of which is below sea level by 392 m. Many areas of the Middle East (Iran, Pakistan, Turkey) are covered by alpine orogeny. There is increased seismicity (for example, the Ashgabat earthquake of 1948). Zones of intense newest uplifts are interspersed with areas with folded structures of older age.

On the territory of the countries of the Middle East, deposits of many types of mineral raw materials have been found. Oil fields were discovered, the largest in terms of reserves in the world (mainly in the basin of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea). In terms of oil reserves, natural combustible gas and native sulfur, the Middle East ranks first in the world. Significant reserves of zinc ores, barite, borates, lithium, corundum, mercury, asbestos, phosphorites, iron ore, potassium salts, lead, tungsten, copper, pyrite, antimony, fluorite, celestine, turquoise, lapis lazuli and other useful fossils.