Local patriotism centered on individual Arab countries was incorporated into the framework of Arab nationalism starting in the 1920s. This was done by positioning the Arabian Peninsula as the homeland of the Semitic peoples (the Canaanites and Arameans of the Levant and the Assyrians and Babylonians of Mesopotamia) who migrated throughout the Near East in ancient times or by associating the other pre-Islamic cultures, such as those of Egypt and North Africa and Horn of Africa, into an evolving Arab identity.