Mediterranean

The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the west almost by the Morocco–Spain border. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide.

Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago.

The sea was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times, facilitating trade and cultural exchange between the peoples of the region. The history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. The Roman Empire maintained nautical hegemony over the sea for centuries and is the only state to have ever controlled all of its coast.

The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of and the deepest recorded point is in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. It lies between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west–east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Alexandretta, on the southeastern coast of Turkey, is about . The north–south length varies greatly between different shorelines and whether only straight routes are considered. Also including longitudinal changes, the shortest shipping route between the multinational Gulf of Trieste and the Libyan coastline of the Gulf of Sidra is about . The water temperatures are mild in winter and warm in summer and give name to the Mediterranean climate type due to the majority of precipitation falling in the cooler months. Its southern and eastern coastlines are lined with hot deserts not far inland, but the immediate coastline on all sides of the Mediterranean tends to have strong maritime moderation.

The countries surrounding the Mediterranean and its marginal seas in clockwise order are Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine (Gaza Strip), Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco; Cyprus and Malta are island countries in the sea. In addition, Northern Cyprus ( de facto state) and two overseas territories of the United Kingdom (Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and Gibraltar) also have coastlines along the Mediterranean Sea. The drainage basin encompasses a large number of other countries, the Nile being the longest river ending in the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean Sea encompasses a vast number of islands, some of them of volcanic origin. The two largest islands, in both area and population, are Sicily and Sardinia.

Names and etymology

The Romans called the Mediterranean ''Mare Magnum'' ("Great Sea") or ''Mare Internum'' ("Internal Sea") and, starting with the Roman Empire, ''Mare Nostrum'' ("Our Sea"). The term ''Mare Mediterrāneum'' appears later: Solinus apparently used this in the 3rd century, but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century,Vaso Seirinidou
"The Mediterranean"
in Diana Mishkova, Balázs Trencsényi, ''European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History'', series ''European Conceptual History'' 3, , 2017, p. 80 in Isidore of Seville. It means 'in the middle of land, inland' in Latin, a compound of ''medius'' ("middle"), ''terra'' ("land, earth"), and ''-āneus'' ("having the nature of").

History

Ancient civilisations

Major ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean. The sea provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food (from fishing and the gathering of other seafood) for numerous communities throughout the ages. The earliest advanced civilisations in the Mediterranean were the Egyptians and the Minoans, who traded extensively with each other. Other notable civilisations that appeared somewhat later are the Hittites and other Anatolian peoples, the Phoenicians, and Mycenean Greece. Around 1200 BC the eastern Mediterranean was greatly affected by the Bronze Age Collapse, which resulted in the destruction of many cities and trade routes.

The most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states and the Phoenicians, both of which extensively colonised the coastlines of the Mediterranean.

Darius I of Persia, who conquered Ancient Egypt, built a canal linking the Red Sea to the Nile, and thus the Mediterranean. Darius's canal was wide enough for two triremes to pass each other with oars extended and required four days to traverse.

Following the Punic Wars in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Roman Republic defeated the Carthaginians to become the preeminent power in the Mediterranean. When Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as ''Mare Nostrum'' ("Our Sea"). For the next 400 years, the Roman Empire completely controlled the Mediterranean Sea and virtually all its coastal regions from Gibraltar to the Levant, being the only state in history to ever do so, being given the nickname "Roman Lake".

Middle Ages and empires

The Western Roman Empire collapsed around 476 AD. The east was again dominant as Roman power lived on in the Byzantine Empire formed in the 4th century from the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Though the Eastern Roman Empire would continue to hold almost all of the Mediterranean, another power arose in the 7th century, and with it the religion of Islam, which soon swept across from the east; at its greatest extent, the Arabs, under the Umayyads, controlled most of the Mediterranean region and left a lasting footprint on its eastern and southern shores.

A variety of foodstuffs, spices and crops were introduced to the western Mediterranean's Spain and Sicily during Arab rule, via the commercial networks of the Islamic world. These include sugarcane, rice, cotton, alfalfa, oranges, lemons, apricots, spinach, eggplants, carrots, saffron and bananas. The Arabs also continued extensive cultivation and production of olive oil (the Spanish words for 'oil' and 'olive'—''aceite'' and ''aceituna'', respectively—are derived from the Arabic ''al-zait'', meaning 'olive juice'), and pomegranates (the heraldic symbol of Granada) from classical Greco-Roman times.

The Arab invasions disrupted the trade relations between Western and Eastern Europe while disrupting trade routes with Eastern Asian Empires. This, however, had the indirect effect of promoting trade across the Caspian Sea. The export of grains from Egypt was re-routed towards the Eastern world. Products from East Asian empires, like silk and spices, were carried from Egypt to ports like Venice and Constantinople by sailors and Jewish merchants. The Viking raids further disrupted the trade in western Europe and brought it to a halt. However, the Norsemen developed the trade from Norway to the White Sea, while also trading in luxury goods from Spain and the Mediterranean. The Byzantines in the mid-8th century retook control of the area around the north-eastern part of the Mediterranean. Venetian ships from the 9th century armed themselves to counter the harassment by Arabs while concentrating trade of Asian goods in Venice.
The Fatimids maintained trade relations with the Italian city-states like Amalfi and Genoa before the Crusades, according to the Cairo Geniza documents. A document dated 996 mentions Amalfian merchants living in Cairo. Another letter states that the Genoese had traded with Alexandria. The caliph al-Mustansir had allowed Amalfian merchants to reside in Jerusalem about 1060 in place of the Latin hospice.

The Crusades led to the flourishing of trade between Europe and the ''outremer'' region. Genoa, Venice and Pisa created colonies in regions controlled by the Crusaders and came to control the trade with the Orient. These colonies also allowed them to trade with the Eastern world. Though the fall of the Crusader states and attempts at banning of trade relations with Muslim states by the Popes temporarily disrupted the trade with the Orient, it however continued.

Europe started to revive, however, as more organised and centralised states began to form in the later Middle Ages after the Renaissance of the 12th century.

Ottoman power based in Anatolia continued to grow, and in 1453 extinguished the Byzantine Empire with the Conquest of Constantinople. Ottomans gained control of much of the eastern part sea in the 16th century and also maintained naval bases in southern France (1543–1544), Algeria and Tunisia. Barbarossa, the Ottoman captain is a symbol of this domination with the victory of the Battle of Preveza (1538). The Battle of Djerba (1560) marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the eastern Mediterranean. As the naval prowess of the European powers increased, they confronted Ottoman expansion in the region when the Battle of Lepanto (1571) checked the power of the Ottoman Navy. This was the last naval battle to be fought primarily between galleys.

The Barbary pirates of Northwest Africa preyed on Christian shipping and coastlines in the Western Mediterranean Sea. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th centuries, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves.

The development of oceanic shipping began to affect the entire Mediterranean. Once, most of the trade between Western Europe and the East was passing through the region, but after the 1490s the development of a sea route to the Indian Ocean allowed the importation of Asian spices and other goods through the Atlantic ports of western Europe.

The sea remained strategically important. British mastery of Gibraltar ensured their influence in Africa and Southwest Asia. Especially after the naval battles of Abukir (1799, Battle of the Nile) and Trafalgar (1805), the British had for a long time strengthened their dominance in the Mediterranean. Wars included Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I and Mediterranean theatre of World War II.

With the opening of the lockless Suez Canal in 1869, the flow of trade between Europe and Asia changed fundamentally. The fastest route now led through the Mediterranean towards East Africa and Asia. This led to a preference for the Mediterranean countries and their ports like Trieste with direct connections to Central and Eastern Europe experienced a rapid economic rise. In the 20th century, the 1st and 2nd World Wars as well as the Suez Crisis and the Cold War led to a shift of trade routes to the European northern ports, which changed again towards the southern ports through European integration, the activation of the Silk Road and free world trade.

21st century and migrations

In 2013, the Maltese president described the Mediterranean Sea as a "cemetery" due to the large number of migrants who drowned there after their boats capsized. European Parliament president Martin Schulz said in 2014 that Europe's migration policy "turned the Mediterranean into a graveyard", referring to the number of drowned refugees in the region as a direct result of the policies. An Azerbaijani official described the sea as "a burial ground ... where people die".

Following the 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, the Italian government decided to strengthen the national system for the patrolling of the Mediterranean Sea by authorising " Operation Mare Nostrum", a military and humanitarian mission in order to rescue the migrants and arrest the traffickers of immigrants. In 2015, more than one million migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.

Italy was particularly affected by the European migrant crisis. Since 2013, over 700,000 migrants have landed in Italy, mainly sub-Saharan Africans.

Geography

The Mediterranean Sea connects:
* to the Atlantic Ocean by the Strait of Gibraltar (known in Homer's writings as the "Pillars of Hercules") in the west
* to the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, by the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus respectively, in the east

The long artificial Suez Canal in the southeast connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea without ship lock, because the water level is essentially the same.

The westernmost point of the Mediterranean is located at the transition from the Alborán Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar, the easternmost point is on the coast of the Gulf of Iskenderun in southeastern Turkey. The northernmost point of the Mediterranean is on the coast of the Gulf of Trieste near Monfalcone in northern Italy while the southernmost point is on the coast of the Gulf of Sidra near the Libyan town of El Agheila.

Large islands in the Mediterranean include:
* Cyprus, Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, Lesbos, Chios, Kefalonia, Corfu, Limnos, Samos, Naxos, and Andros in the Eastern Mediterranean
* Sicily, Cres, Krk, Brač, Pag, Korčula, and Malta in the central Mediterranean
* Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands: Ibiza, Mallorca, and Menorca in the Western Mediterranean
The Alpine arc, which also has a great meteorological impact on the Mediterranean area, touches the Mediterranean in the west in the area around Nice