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The Levant (IPA /l?'vænt/) is a geographical term that denotes a large area in the Middle East, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Upper Mesopotamia, and on the south by the Arabian Desert. An imprecise term, it refers to an area of cultural habitation rather than to a specific area of land. The Levant forms the middle part of the Fertile Crescent, between the Nile Valley (Egypt) to the south-west, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to the east. The Levant measures about 120 miles (190 km) east to west and 200 miles (320 km) north to south. Its lowest point is the surface of the Dead Sea, 1,000 feet (304 m) below sea level. Its highest point is the peak of Qurnat as Sawda’, 3,083 m (10,131 ft) above sea level. The term Levant, which first appeared in English in 1497, originally meant a wider sense of "Mediterranean lands east of Venetia". It derives from the Middle French levant, the participle of lever "to raise" — as in soleil levant "rising Sun" — from the Latin levare. It thus referred to the Eastern direction of the rising Sun from the perspective of those who first used it and has analogues in other European languages, notably Morgenland (i.e., morning land) in German and Danish. As such, it is broadly equivalent to the Arabic term Mashriq, "the land where the Sun rises". It is similar to the Ancient Greek name ??at???a (Anatolía) which means the "land of the rising Sun", or simply the East. It derives from a?at??? = “the rise, especially the sunrise”, resp. from ??at???? = to rise, esp. said of the Sun or Moon (??? = up, above + t???? = to go, rise, come into existence). For the Greeks, ??at???a (Anatolía) is a synonym of ????? ?s?a (Mikrá Asía = Asia Minor), not of Levant.
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