Phoenicia (UK /fᵻˈnɪʃə/ or US /fəˈniːʃə/; from the Greek: Φοινίκη, Phoiníkē; Arabic: فينيقية‎‎, Fīnīqīyah) was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization of an unknown origin situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centred on the coastline of what is now Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria, though some colonies reached the Western Mediterranean and even the Atlantic Ocean. It was an enterprising sea-based civilization and spread across the Mediterranean from 1500 BC to 300 BC. Phoenicia is really a Classical Greek term used to refer to the region of the major Canaanite port towns, and it does not correspond exactly to a cultural identity that would have been recognised by the Phoenicians themselves, vaguely comparable to the Hanseatic League. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to Ancient Greece, perhaps the most notable of which was Carthage. Each city-state was a politically independent unit, and it is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single ethnicity and nationality. In terms of archaeology, language, lifestyle, and religion there was little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic cultures of Canaan. The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of alphabets. The Phoenician alphabet is generally held to be one of the major ancestors of all modern alphabets. By their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to Anatolia, North Africa, and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks, who in turn transmitted it to the Romans.

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