Geography of Mesopotamia parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The neighboring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is usually made between Upper or Northern Mesopotamia and Lower or Southern Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazirah, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad. Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. In modern scientific usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation.
History of Mesopotamia often dubbed the cradle of civilization. The rise of the first cities in southern Mesopotamia dates to the Uruk period, from c. 4000 BC onward; its regional independence ended with the Achaemenid conquest in 539 BC, although a few native neo-Assyrian kingdoms existed at different times. Mesopotamia literally means "(Land) between rivers" in ancient Greek. The oldest known occurrence of the name Mesopotamia dates to the 4th century BC, when it was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria. Later it was more generally applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris,