Old World

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Old World (disambiguation).

The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans, Asians, and Africans in the 15th century before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively known as Africa-Eurasia), plus surrounding islands. The term is in distinction from the New World, meaning the Americas and Australasia.

Although the interiors of Asia and Africa were not well known to Europeans at the time, their existence was known, as was Japan, which is also considered Old World. Oceania and Antarctica are neither definitively Old World nor New World, since the terms "Old World" and "New World" predate their discovery by Europeans.