As the Middle East swallowed up the former Near East during the 1940s, the latter term fell into disuse in British government, although purists complained that it made no sense to speak of a Middle East without a Near East. In 1952, official British documents applied the term "Middle East" to all of southwest Asia west of Pakistan and India, plus Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Somalilands, and Malta, but minus Turkey.

Source: Leon E. Seltzer, ed., Columbia Lippincott Gazeteer of the World (New York: Columbia UP, 1952), 1198.