How did mapmakers come up with the name "middle east" to describe where Arabic countries are?

Question

How did mapmakers come up with the name "middle east" to describe where Arabic countries are?

Answer 1

Many of the early cartographers had a Eurocentric view...hence calling what we refer to as the Middle East, the Middle East and calling China, Japan, and southease Asia "The Far East."  The names have just kind of stuck...at least in Europe and the United States.

Answer 2

The Middle East is a historical and political region of Afro-Eurasia with no clear boundaries. The term "Middle East" was popularized around 1900 in the United Kingdom; it has a loose definition traditionally encompassing countries or regions in Western Asia and parts of North Africa. The corresponding adjective to Middle East is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner.

Answer 3

I believe the world's regions were named based on their geographical  relationship to Great Britain (so Turkey etc are the near east, the arabic countries are the middle east, and china, japan, etc. are the far east.  Of course the far east is actually west to us, so the far east would be our near west, the middle east our middle west, and the near east our far west.  Neat, huh?

Answer 4

because they used an ego-centric view of the world where the "west" (to use their terminology) is the centre and everything else is viewed in relation to it... ie "far east"

Answer 5

well, the US and Europe are referred to as the western world. Because Europe pretty much used to be the center of the world way back when, the historians and geographers at the time referred to Asia as the east, (e.g. China, Korea, Japan are in the far east because they had to travel east to get there and get goods). Not really sure what Africa is called ( if it is called anything). So since the arabic countries were in middle southern, asian, they are reffered to as the middle east.

Answer 6

just look at a map.. its east, in the middle..