Mesopotamia
The region called the Near East is the meeting place for the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe, on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. The land that lay between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, encompassing the civilizations of Sumer, Babylon and Assyria we call Mesopotamia, from a Greek word meaning "Between the two rivers." One of the earliest civilizations arose here around 3500 BCE, as well as in China and on the Sarasvati River in India.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers form the boundaries, eastern and western respectively, of the land called Mesopotamia in ancient times, today, comprising the heart of modern Iraq. Each river flows roughly southeast one thousand miles or so to the Persian Gulf through hilly country and vast plains with a wide desert region to its southwest and the Zagros mountains to the northeast. At the points where they enter Iraq, the two rivers are separated by two hundred or so miles of open steppe. Near modern Baghdad, the rivers almost meet, but then separate again until they unite more than one hundred miles later, emptying into the Persian Gulf as one body of water.
Southern Mesopotamia, extending from fifty miles above Baghdad down to the Gulf, is a flat alluvia plain, the rivers meandering slowly allowing the formation of marshes, swamps and shallow lakes.
The later civilizations of Mesopotamia, that is, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, interacted with Egypt particularly during its New Kingdom period, so it may be of interest to include a capsule summary of their histories here.