Western Desert (Egypt) as the "Libyan Desert", taking its name from Ancient Libya, which lay between the Nile and Cyrenaica. With the formation of the state of Libya, the term "Western Desert" has come to describe that part of the Sahara in Egypt. To the Ancient Greeks, the term Libya described the whole Saharan littoral west of the Nile to the Atlas mountains. During Roman times the term Libya was limited to Cyrenaica and the region between there and Egypt, which were organized as the provinces of Libya Superior and Libya Inferior. The term Libyan Desert then applied to the area to the
Byzantine Greeks as "Rhōmaîoi" (, "Romans", meaning citizens of the Roman Empire), a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous with Christian Greeks. The Latinizing term "Graikoí" (Γραικοί, "Greeks") was also used, though its use was less common, and nonexistent in official Byzantine political correspondence, prior to the Fourth Crusade of 1204. While this Latin term for the ancient "Hellenes" could be used neutrally, its use by Westerners from the 9th century onwards in order to challenge Byzantine claims to ancient Roman heritage rendered it a derogatory exonym for the Byzantines who barely used it, mostly in contexts relating to