Southwestern Asia (also called the "Middle East") is home to some of the oldest civilizations in the world. An incredible amount of recorded world history concerns this area. Though recorded history goes back millennia, Southwestern Asia is known more recently for being the birthplace of three major historic world religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and many others like Zoroastrianism and Bahá'í (mainly in Persia), Yazdânism (mainly in Kurdistan and Turkey). Southwestern Asia is still a very variegated place.