Fertile Crescent is an arc-shaped region in western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea, to the west, and the Persian Gulf, to the east. Mountains rise to the north and the Syrian Desert lies to the south. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow through the region. James H. Breasted, an American historian, made up the term Fertile Crescent in 1916 to describe the fertile northern border of the Syrian desert. The Sumerians developed the world’s first civilization on the floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent around 3500 B.C. The Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Eblaites, Israelites, and Phoenicians also lived in the Fertile Crescent.
