Why is it called the ‘Middle East’: The 1902 story most people don’t know

The article traces the origin of the term “Middle East” to 1902 when an American naval strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, first used the phrase to describe the lands between India and the Persian Gulf.

“Everyone calls it ‘ Middle East’, whether it's in a book or on television”

The Times of India

It says Europe centred the map and measured regional identity by distance from London, placing the “Middle” East between the Near East (Balkans) and the Far East (China and Japan) in a Eurocentric worldview.

The Times of India

The piece argues this naming arose under the British Empire and reflects a colonial map.

Shortly after 1902 Mahan popularised the phrase to describe the lands between India and the Suez Canal that the British Navy had to control to protect its empire.

The article notes that this strategic framing helped the term spread into global headlines and that many scholars and political leaders now debate the phrase’s appropriateness.

The Times of India

It presents Mahan’s purpose as tied to imperial maritime strategy rather than neutral geography.

The article says the meaning of “Middle East” expanded significantly in 1939 during World War II, citing Britannica and the Middle East Institute (MEI).

“Everyone calls it ‘ Middle East’, whether it's in a book or on television”

The Times of India

It reports that the British established a Cairo command covering a vast area from North Africa to Iraq, and because that military command’s reports were widely published the term entered general public usage and replaced “Near East” in American and British English.

The wartime administrative usage therefore broadened and entrenched the label.

The piece describes later shifts away from the colonial label: it says Former Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru first suggested naming the region “West Asia” to place it within the Asian continent and to foster Asian solidarity through a post-colonial perspective, according to the MEI.

It adds that the acronym “MENA” (Middle East and North Africa) gained adoption—Britannica and the World Bank are cited—because the region’s cultural and economic ties extend across the Sinai into Africa.

The Times of India

The article notes that organisations use “MENA” to move past the colonial “Middle” label while critics still call MENA a Western-centric grouping that prioritises trade and security over indigenous identities, and it concludes that the phrase remains a colonial map still in transition as “West Asia” and “MENA” signal a shift toward geographic sovereignty.