The Middle East (term originally coined in English [see § Terminology]) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes...

Mare Nostrum (; Latin: "Our Sea") was a Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. In Classical Latin, it would have been pronounced [ˈma.rɛ ˈnɔs.t̪rʊ̃ː], and in Ecclesiastical Latin, it is pronounced [ˈmaː.rɛ ˈnɔs.t̪rum]. In the decades following the 1861 unification of Italy, Italian nationalists and Italian fascists who saw Italy as the successor state to the Roman Empire attempted to revive the term. == Roman usage == The term Mare Nostrum originally was used by the Ancient Romans to refer to the Tyrrhenian Sea after their conquest of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica during the Punic Wars with Carthage...

The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM; French: Union pour la Méditerranée, Arabic: الإتحاد من أجل المتوسط Al-Ittiḥād min ajl al-Mutawasseṭ) is an intergovernmental organization of 43 member states from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 27 EU member states (including those not on the Mediterranean) and 16 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, Western Asia and Southern Europe. It was founded on 13 July 2008 at the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, with an aim of reinforcing the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euromed) that was set up in 1995 as the Barcelona Process. Its general...

Gold plating is a method of depositing a thin layer of gold onto the surface of another metal, most often copper or silver (to make silver-gilt), by chemical or electrochemical plating. Plating refers to modern coating methods, such as the ones used in the electronics industry, whereas gilding is the decorative covering of an object with gold, which typically involve more traditional methods and much larger objects. == Gold plating chemistry == There are five recognized classes of gold plating chemistry: Alkaline gold cyanide, for gold and gold alloy plating Neutral gold cyanide, for high-purity...

Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was traditionally silver in the West, to make silver-gilt (or vermeil) objects, but gilt-bronze is commonly used in China, and also called ormolu if it is Western. Methods of gilding include hand application and gluing, typically of gold leaf, chemical gilding, and electroplating, the last also called gold plating. Parcel-gilt (partial gilt) objects are only gilded...

The Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent that covers an area of 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in India and Pakistan. It is the world's 18th-largest desert, and the world's 9th-largest hot subtropical desert. About 85% of the Thar Desert is in India, and about 15% is in Pakistan. The Thar Desert is about 4.56% of the total geographical area of India. More than 60% of the desert lies in the Indian state of Rajasthan; the portion in India also extends into Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana. The portion in Pakistan extends...