ABSTRACT
Geographical identities are notoriously elusive: difficult to delimit and even more difficult to portray and to understand. The Mediterranean is no exception. The very term itself contains an underlying ambiguity which at once invites and denies straightforward analysis. The physical definition of the Mediterranean Basin perhaps poses the fewest problems, although it is still far from easy to achieve. The littoral regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea itself; the catchments draining into it; or even the regions characterised by the ‘Mediterranean Climate’ beloved of past school textbooks: all conjure up a widely recognisable – and to a great extent mutually reinforcing – picture of what ‘the Mediterranean’ as a physical entity might be.
