Old World

For other uses, see Old World (disambiguation).

  Old World

Map of the "Old World" (the 2nd-century Ptolemy world map in a 15th-century copy)

This T and O map, from the first printed version of Isidore's Etymologiae (Augsburg, 1472), identifies the three known continents (Asia, Europe and Africa) as respectively populated by descendants of Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham).

The "Old World" (Latin : Mundus vetus) is a Eurocentric term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas and Oceania. ^[1] It is used to contrast the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously thought of by the Europeans as comprising the entire world, with the "New World", a term for the newly encountered lands of the Western Hemisphere, being the Americas And Oceania. ^{[2] [3]}

History

In the context of archaeology and world history, the term "Old World" includes those parts of the world which were in (indirect) cultural contact from the Bronze Age onwards, resulting in the parallel development of the early civilizations, mostly in the temperate zone between roughly the 45th and 25th parallels north, in the area of the Mediterranean, including North Africa. It also included Mesopotamia, the Persian plateau, the Indian subcontinent, China, and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.^{[ citation needed ]}

These regions were connected via the Silk Road trade route, and they had a pronounced Iron Age period following the Bronze Age. In cultural terms, the Iron Age was accompanied by the so-called Axial Age, referring to cultural, philosophical and religious developments eventually leading to the emergence of the historical Western (Hellenism, "classical"), Near Eastern (Zoroastrian and Abrahamic) and Far Eastern (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Taoism) cultural spheres.

Other names

The mainland of Afro-Eurasia (excluding islands or island groups such as the British Isles, Japan, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and the Malay Archipelago) has been referred to as the World Island. The term may have been coined by Sir Halford John Mackinder in The Geographical Pivot of History . ^[4]

References

1. "Old World". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
2. "New world". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
3. Facts, Samuel Kinuthia in World (25 May 2018). "What Does Old World and New World Refer To?". WorldAtlas. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
4. See Francis P. Sempa, "Mackinder's World" Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine . American Diplomacy (UNC.edu). Retrieved 8 September 2018.