Mediterranean Sea

"The Mediterranean Sea is the Pearl of Europe, or as you know it, also the Pearl of Africa, and/or the Pearl of the Middle East. Despite this terrible crisis, I knew that it would come when it comes to this terrible war."

--Su Ji-Hoon, The Mediterranean Crisis

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is usually identified as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago.