Encyclopedia > Old World

  Article Content

Old World

The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus: Europe, Asia, and Africa. The term is in distinction for the New World, meaning the Americas.

Although Asia and Africa were not well known to Europeans at the time, their existence was known, as far as Japan and South Africa, so they are considered Old World. Australia and Antarctica are neither definitely Old World nor definitely New World, since the terms "Old World" and "New World" predate their discovery by Europeans.

Also used to refer to traditional wine-growing regions and the wines produced there, in contrast to New World wines.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
East Islip, New York

... The per capita income for the town is $27,356. 3.7% of the population and 2.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 4.3% ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 23.8 ms