MESOPOTAMIA

MESOPOTAMIA, the name given after Alexander the Great's time to the territory "between the rivers" Euphrates and Tigris, stretching from Babylonia NW. to the Armenian mountains; under irrigation it was very fertile, but is now little cultivated; once the scene of high civilisation when Nineveh ruled it; it passed from Assyrian hands successively to Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab and Turkish rule.

Presently, the area corresponds to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, the northeastern section of Syria and to a much lesser extent southeastern Turkey and smaller parts of southwestern Iran.