The Indo-Mediterranean is the region comprising the Mediterranean world, the Indian Ocean world, and their connecting regions in the vicinity of the Suez Canal.
The Indo-Mediterranean is the region comprising the Mediterranean world, the Indian Ocean world, and their connecting regions in the vicinity of the Suez Canal.
From around 3000 BCE to 1000 CE, connectivity within Afro-Eurasia was centered upon the Indo-Mediterranean region; [2] William Dalrymple has argued that connectivity in Eurasia centered on this region, which he refers to as part of a "Golden Road", until 1200 CE and the rise of the Silk Road. [3] However, Southeast Asia was only loosely connected to the Indo-Mediterranean trade, primarily receiving a few Mediterranean objects through the filter of South Asia. [4]
In the second half of the first century BCE, the Roman Empire emerged with a unified realm and control over the Mediterranean, allowing for more investment and wealth generation; this Pax Romana allowed Rome to become involved in the Indian Ocean trade. [5] [6] Their 32 CE conquest of Egypt better positioned them to be involved in the region, with Indian ambassadors coming to Rome in increasing numbers as the Indo-Roman trade began to greatly expand in volume; [7] [8] Greek merchants settled on the west coast of India to facilitate the trade, [9] with Romans celebrating the luxury products and wealth thusly acquired. [5] [10] The Indo-Mediterranean also facilitated interactions between India and the Mesopotamians, Anatolians and Greeks in different time periods; [11] many actors were involved in facilitating trade throughout this region, including Egyptians, Nabateans and Palmyrenes. [12]
Some evidence is present to suggest that Indo-Mediterranean trade may have also involved a "northern route" through the Caspian Sea and Pontic–Caspian steppe. [13]
The expansion of the first Arab Muslim empires from the 7th century onward, which conquered much of the Mediterranean, played a role in bridging the Indo-Mediterranean together. [14]
By the 14th century, buoyed by the emergence of overlapping trading networks from the western regions of Africa to the east coast, central sub-Saharan Africa became more involved in Indo-Mediterranean trade, with the Indo-Mediterranean generally going on to become more economically unified by the spread of Islam. [15]
Rising Western dominance and changes in communication technologies in the Indo-Mediterranean began to reshape dynamics in the region by the 19th century. [16]
The 1869 completion of the Suez Canal furthered European colonialism in Asia and Africa, as it enabled direct passage through the Indo-Mediterranean rather than by travelling around Africa. [17] Around that time, British planners contemplated building an Indo-Mediterranean railway to shore up lines of communication with British India in case the Suez Canal was blocked. [18] [19]
The United States became the dominant power in the Indo-Mediterranean, taking over from the British, starting with the 1956 Suez Crisis. [20] In recent years, the U.S. has had to compete with China in the region, and so it has furthered its ties with India. [21]
Italian foreign policy planners have recently been examining Italy's modern role in the "Enlarged Mediterranean", including its ties to the Indo-Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific. [22] [23] They see the Red Sea as particularly important due its bridging role in the Indo-Mediterranean. [24]
A currently proposed initiative to handle trade in the Indo-Mediterranean is the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar affirmed the initiative in 2024, citing the historical importance and rising trade taking place in the region. [25]
The Indo-Mediterranean Initiative (IMI) [26] was launched on the 16th of June 2024 at Ara Pacis under the leadership of Senator Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata, former foreign Minister of Italy hosted [27] by the Indian Chamber of Commerce's Chief Representative for Italy, Vas Shenoy. The initiative aims to track IMEC, bring together decision makers, thinkers, policy experts in the IMEC countries to discuss the security, future and strategy of the Indo-Mediterranean.
This is a list of countries that are part of the Indo-Mediterranean, since they lie along the Indian Ocean and/or the Mediterranean. Arranging from north to south, west to east in directional order.
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2 (27,240,000 sq mi) or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean, or Antarctica, depending on the definition in use. The Indian Ocean has large marginal, or regional seas, such as the Andaman Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Laccadive Sea.
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 has played a central role in the history of Western civilization. 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 Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez—leading to the Suez Canal. It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley.
The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The 193.30-kilometre-long (120.11 mi) canal is a key trade route between Europe and Asia.
The Gulf of Aden is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. In the northwest, it connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and it connects with the Arabian Sea to the east. To the west, it narrows into the Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti. The Aden Ridge lies along the middle of the gulf, and tectonic activity at the ridge is causing the gulf to widen by about 15 mm (0.59 in) per year.
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, and is the capital of the Suez Governorate. It has three ports: the Suez Port, al-Adabiya, and al-Zaytiya, and extensive port facilities. Together they form a metropolitan area, located mostly in Africa with a small portion in Asia.
A thalassocracy or thalattocracy, sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire. Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories. Examples of this were the Phoenician states of Tyre, Sidon and Carthage; the Italian maritime republics of Venice and Genoa of the Mediterranean; the Omani Empire of Arabia; and the empires of Srivijaya and Majapahit in Maritime Southeast Asia. Thalassocracies can thus be distinguished from traditional empires, where a state's territories, though possibly linked principally or solely by the sea lanes, generally extend into mainland interiors in a tellurocracy.
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two. It does not include the temperate and polar regions of the Indian and Pacific oceans, nor the Tropical Eastern Pacific, along the Pacific coast of the Americas, which is also a distinct marine realm. The term is especially useful in marine biology, ichthyology, and similar fields, since many marine habitats are continuously connected from Madagascar to Japan and Oceania, and a number of species occur over that range, but are not found in the Atlantic Ocean.
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a single trade route contains long-distance arteries, which may further be connected to smaller networks of commercial and noncommercial transportation routes. Among notable trade routes was the Amber Road, which served as a dependable network for long-distance trade. Maritime trade along the Spice Route became prominent during the Middle Ages, when nations resorted to military means for control of this influential route. During the Middle Ages, organizations such as the Hanseatic League, aimed at protecting interests of the merchants and trade became increasingly prominent.
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the Southeast Asian countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor.
The history of Eurasia is the collective history of a continental area with several distinct peripheral coastal regions: Southwest Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe, linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Perhaps beginning with the Steppe Route trade, the early Silk Road, the Eurasian view of history seeks establishing genetic, cultural, and linguistic links between Eurasian cultures of antiquity. Much interest in this area lies with the presumed origin of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language and chariot warfare in Central Eurasia.
Berenice Troglodytica, also called Berenike or Baranis, is an ancient seaport of Egypt on the western shore of the Red Sea. It is situated about 825 km south of Suez, 260 km east of Aswan in Upper Egypt and 140 km south of Marsa Alam. It was founded in 275 BCE by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BCE), who named it after his mother, Berenice I of Egypt.
The Lessepsian migration is the migration of marine species along the Suez Canal, usually from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and more rarely in the opposite direction. When the canal was completed in 1869, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other marine animals and plants were exposed to an artificial passage between the two naturally separate bodies of water, and cross-contamination was made possible between formerly isolated ecosystems. The phenomenon is still occurring today. It is named after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat in charge of the canal's construction. The term was coined by Francis Dov Por in his 1978 book.
Indian Ocean trade has been a key factor in East–West exchanges throughout history. Long-distance maritime trade by Austronesian trade ships and South Asian and Middle Eastern dhows, made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Southeast Asia to East and Southeast Africa, and the East Mediterranean in the West, in prehistoric and early historic periods. Cities and states on the Indian Ocean rim focused on both the sea and the land.
The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, commonly just Maritime Silk Road (MSR), is the sea route part of the Belt and Road Initiative which is a Chinese strategic initiative to increase investment and foster collaboration across the historic Silk Road.
The European-Asian sea route, commonly known as the sea route to India or the Cape Route, is a shipping route from the European coast of the Atlantic Ocean to Asia's coast of the Indian Ocean passing by the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas at the southern edge of Africa. The first recorded completion of the route was made in 1498 by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, the admiral of the first Portuguese Armadas bound eastwards to make the discovery. The route was important during the Age of Sail, but became partly obsolete as the Suez Canal opened in 1869.
The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route is the maritime section of the historic Silk Road that connected Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, eastern Africa, and Europe. It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished until the 15th century CE. The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia who sailed large long-distance ocean-going sewn-plank and lashed-lug trade ships. The route was also utilized by the dhows of the Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond, and the Tamil merchants in South Asia. China also started building their own trade ships (chuán) and followed the routes in the later period, from the 10th to the 15th centuries CE.
Indo-Pacific beads are a type of mainly tube drawn glass beads which originated in the Indian subcontinent but are manufactured widely in Southeast Asia. These are usually 6mm in diameter, undecorated and come in various colours for example green, yellow, black, opaque red, etc.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a planned economic corridor that aims to bolster economic development by fostering connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Persian Gulf and Europe. The corridor is a proposed route from India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Greece.
