1 It may also be likened to the shores of a desert-bay, upon which the mountains behind look down-a bay not of water but of sandy waste, some eight hundred kilometres across, forming a northern extension of the Arabian desert and sweeping as far north as the latitude of the northeast corner of the Mediterranean. This great semicircle, for lack of a name, may be called the Fertile Crescent. The end of the western wing is Palestine Assyria makes up a large part of the center while the end of the eastern wing is Babylonia. It lies like an army facing south, with one wing stretching along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the other reaching out to the Persian Gulf, while the center has its back against the northern mountains. This fertile crescent is approximately a semicircle, with the open side toward the south, having the west end at the southeast corner of the Mediterranean, the center directly north of Arabia, and the east end at the north end of the Persian Gulf (see map, p.
The term 'Fertile Crescent' was popularized by archaeologist James Henry Breasted in Outlines of European History (1914) and Ancient Times, A History of the Early World (1916).
1916 map of the Fertile Crescent by James Henry Breasted, who popularised usage of the phrase.