The Levant

The Levant is a historical-geographical term, that characterizes a large area in the near east, limited to the North by the Taurus mountains, to the South by the Arab desert, to the West by the Mediterranean, and to the East by the Upper Mesopotamia/Iraq. It does not include Anatolia/Turkey, the Caucasus mountains, nor any part of the Arab Peninsula. The Sinai Peninsula is sometimes considered a more marginal part of the Levant. The current countries and areas of the Levant include Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel. The Levant stretches about 900 kilometers East to West and about 530 kilometers North to South, with an area of about 520.000 square kilometers. The lowest point is the Dead Sea surface, and the highest point the mountain Qurnat al Sawda in Lebanon, 3.088 meters above sea level.

Originally, the Levant meant the East or the Mediterranean countries East of Italy. The word comes from the Latin “Levare”, meaning to lift or rise (referring to the rising sun), and is similar in French (Levant) and Italian/Spanish (Levante). In Danish, the area is generally referred to as the Middle East (Mellem-Oesten) or the Orient (Orienten). We even have our own little Levant Quai across from Orient Key in Nordhavn, Copenhagen, close to America Place and Asia Place.  

The Levant region is often considered the cradle of civilization and by many of wine-making. Agriculture developed there around 7000 BC, following the establishment of the first known walled city of Jericho a couple of thousand years earlier. A few thousand years later, rich city cultures emerged (Sumeric, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian), along with neighboring Phoenicians and Jews. Then came the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans (Petra in current day Jordan was settled by the Nabataens, a nomadic Arab people, in the fourth century BC), before the establishment of the Byzantine and Persian empires during the first half of the first millennium AD. Islam and the Kalifat were next, before giving way to Osman and Mongolian equestrian armies, the former conquering Cairo and Mekka  in 1517 and dominating the region for the following four centuries. The crusaders were but a brief interlude during 1100-1300. With the weakening of the Osman empire during 1700-1800, European (French, English) influence gained track, with Palestine and Mesopotamia (Transjordan and Iraq) falling under British control and Syria-Lebanon under French control following WW1. Jordan and Iraq gained independence in 1921, and the Ottoman empire finally collapsed with Ataturk’s establishment of modern-day Turkey in 1924. Following WW2, Lebanon and Syria gained independence, and Israel was established in part of Palestine. The more recent history is well-known to most, and no less bloody, with the large Palestinian population being expelled to the neighboring countries or crammed into smaller and smaller space. The ongoing war in Gaza is the latest and bloodiest episode.