The Mediterranean and continent connect is the southernmost seawater from Iberia and the most important river entering the Black Sea is the Danube. Herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and "Southern Sea" interchangeably. Countries bordering on the Black Sea are Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia. The Black Sea forms in an enclosed basin, located between south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. The Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the Strait of Gibraltar on the west and to the Sea of Marmara and Black Sea, by the Dardanelles and the Bosporus respectively, on the east. The Sea of Marmara is often considered a part of the Mediterranean Sea, whereas the Black Sea is generally not. The man-made Suez Canal in the south-east connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea.
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The steppes to the north of the Black Sea have been suggested as the original homeland (Urheimat) of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, (PIE) the progenitor of the Indo-European language family. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis (Georgia), marked for the Greeks an edge of the known world. The Balkan Mountains cross the country reaching to the edge of the Black Sea, dividing the coastline from south to north. Bulgaria's northern Black Sea Coast features rocky headlands where the sea abuts cliffs. The southern coast is known for its wide sandy beaches. |
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An eastern Hallstatt cultural zone including Croatia, Slovenia, western Hungary, Austria, Moravia, and Slovakia can be distinguished from a western cultural zone which includes northern Italy, Switzerland, eastern France, southern Germany, and Bohemia.
The Red Sea is a gulf or basin of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species and 200 soft and hard corals. The sea occupies a part of the Great Rift Valley that is from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in East Africa. The Red Sea is the world's most northern tropical sea. The Great Rift Valley is the result of the rifting and separation of the African and Arabian tectonic plates that began around 35 million years ago in the north, and by the ongoing separation of East Africa from the rest of Africa along the East African Rift, which began about 15 million years ago.
The northernmost part of the Rift forms the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon separating the Lebanon Mountains and Anti-Lebanon Mountains. To the south in Israel, it is known as the Hula Valley separating between the Galilee mountains and the Golan Heights. From the Dead Sea southwards, the Rift is occupied by the Wadi Arabah and then the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. According to legend, Solomon rewarded Hiram for certain services rendered him by the gift of an upland plain among the mountains of Naphtali. Hiram was dissatisfied with the gift, and called it "the land of Cabul". The Jews called it Galil. During the Hasmonaean period, in the midst of the decline of the Seleucid Empire, the region was taken over by the Jews. In Roman times, the region was divided into Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. The first three Gospels of the New Testament are chiefly taken up with Jesus' public ministry in this province, namely in the villages of Nazareth and Capernaum. The Egyptians were the first to attempt a mission of exploration in the Red Sea.