The Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" (i.e., the Americas and sometimes Oceania, though excluding Australasia).
The Old World comprises Africa, Asia, and Europe (collectively known as Afro-Eurasia), plus surrounding islands (or at least those parts known to classical geography before the 15th century). In its modern usage, it usually includes Australasia.
The concept of the three continents in the Old World goes back to classical antiquity. Their boundaries as defined by Ptolemy and other geographers of antiquity were drawn along the Nile and Don rivers. This definition remained influential throughout the Middle Ages (see T and O map) and the Early Modern period.
- Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
Famous quotes containing the word world:
“What an infernal set of fools those schoolmarms must be! Well, if in order to please men they wish to live on air, let them. The sooner the present generation of women dies out, the better. We have idiots enough in the world now without such women propagating any more.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)