The Levant (; Arabic: المشرق ) is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the eastern Mediterranean. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the eastern Mediterranean with its islands, that is, it included all of the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica. The term Levant entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian Levante, meaning "rising", implying the rising of the sun in the east. As such, it is broadly equivalent to the Arabic term Mashriq, 'the land where the sun rises'. The western counterpart in Arabic is the Maghreb, and Ponente in Italian, meaning 'west, where the sun sets'.