The concept of the Middle East as a region was created by European imperialists after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire fell and the "Near East" term became obsolete. The term "Middle East" was first used in the late 19th century by British imperialists to describe the area between the "Near East" (the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire) and the "Far East" (countries of eastern Asia). The term was used to describe an area that extended from the Red Sea to the British Empire in India, which the British wanted to link to their European borders.