Far East includes Central Asia, China, Japan, etc.
Accordingly, the history of the Near East encompasses a vast array of temporally overlapping cultures. The dominant politico-cultural groups of ancient Near Eastern history are the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The Byzantine Empire, at various times during its millenium-long lifespan, from the 4th to the 15th centures A.C., controlled or influenced much of the Near East as well as Greece, Serbia and the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. Control over much of this territory was taken, first, by the Arab dynasties, and ultimately, in the 15th century, by the Ottoman Empire. The Great War, World War I, set in motion the modern history of Europe and the Near East as new borders came to be drawn on all sides of the Mediterranean.