When and why did "Near East" become "Middle East?"

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This article at the Washington Post claims the name Middle East for what was the Near East started changing after World War I, when the British started governing territories that were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire.

For British colonial administrators, the Middle East was the region that was crucial to the defense of India, while the Near East was largely under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

This all changed after the Ottoman Empire’s collapse a century ago. The Balkans and then modern Turkey began to seem more Western, while other parts of the Near East came under British control and fell victim to that empire’s bureaucratic reorganization. Winston Churchill, as secretary of state for the colonies, created a “Middle Eastern Department” covering the newly acquired territories of Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. Now this region, too, became part of Britain’s plans for defending its colonial holdings everywhere east of the Suez Canal.

Google Ngram of the phrases Near East and Middle East

During the Second world war, people starting using Middle East to refer due to the fighting the North Africa, as well as other countries in Southwestern Asia. The British imperial term became popularized in the English language.

Thus the answer is a combination of British Imperialism and world events lead to the popularization of the term Middle East.

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