Fertile Crescent, historic region of the Middle East. A well-watered and fertile area, it arcs across the northern part of the Syrian desert. It is flanked on the West by the Nile and on the East by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and includes parts of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. The region is where the civilizations of the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin began. The term was popularized by the American Orientalist James Henry Breasted (1865-1935).