What is the Levant? Countries and people of Levant

What is the Levant? Where is it located and which countries does it include? And why does Levant often call the cradle of world civilization? This will be discussed in our article.

What is the Levant? The meaning and origin of the toponym

Perhaps, many have heard this word, met it in the media. What is the Levant? Let's try to understand this question.

Immediately it is worth mentioning that the Arabs call this region "Al-Sham." The term "Levant" is used (and used earlier) to denote territory in the Eastern Mediterranean - a site conventionally located between modern Turkey and the Red Sea. For the first time this toponym is found in the documents of the end of the XV century. At that time the Levant designated all the lands on the map east of Italy. And the word itself came from the French language and translates as "sunrise," or "ascending." In other words, the Levant is the land where the Sun rises (of course, from the point of view of Europeans).

The territory of the Levant today covers parts of several states. This is Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan.

The population of Levant

The peoples of the Levant unite not only the generality of the geographical position. They have a story, a similar kitchen and customs. In addition, almost all of them, with the exception of Jews, speak the same language - Levantine-Arabic.

Most of the inhabitants of the Levant are Arabs, as well as Muslims (on religious grounds). Jews differ in the compactness of their residence: outside the state of Israel there are only a few hundred. There are also followers of other religions - Catholics, Yezidi Kurds, Protestants and others.

The Levant is the cradle of world civilization?

"Fertile crescent" - this is often called this region of the planet. And it is not accidental, because it was here that "agriculture" was invented. The first centers of cultivation of cereal crops in the territory of the Levant, according to the results of archaeological excavations in 2013, appeared almost ten thousand years ago.

The Levant is called one of the possible places for the birth of human civilization as a whole (along with the valley of the Indus River, Mesoamerica and Peru). True, such statements are very often speculative and pseudoscientific.

The countries of Levant and Igil

The toponym "Levant" is also present in the name of the largest terrorist organization in the modern world. We are talking about the so-called "Islamic state" or abbreviated - IGIL. The full interpretation of this abbreviation reads: "The Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant."

For the first time IGIL talked about in 2011. Then the terrorists successfully used the start of the civil war in Syria: they captured weapons, a number of oil wells and some settlements. Today, under their control are significant areas of Syria, Iraq, as well as Libya and Lebanon. The total population of the "Islamic state" as of the end of 2015 is almost 80 thousand people. Of these, about 15% are in the armed forces of the quasi-state. In 2014, terrorists even began to mint their own coins - dinars.

The main sources of replenishment of the "budget" of the terrorist state are robberies, sale of oil and captured historical relics on the black market, extortion of money ransoms for hostages. The main enemies of IGIL are the USA and Israel. But the main goal of the organization is to restore the historical boundaries of the no longer existing Ottoman Empire.

Conclusion

Now you know what the Levant is, and you have an idea of where it is. Unfortunately, this geographical term is today associated with the name of the largest terrorist organization that operates in this territory.