Chaldea or Chaldæa (/kælˈdiːə/), from Greek Χαλδαία, Chaldaia; Akkadian: māt Ḫaldu; Hebrew: כשדים‎, Kaśdim;[1] Aramaic: ܟܠܕܘ‎, Kaldo) was a nation extant between the 10th and 6th centuries BC, located in the marshy land of the far south eastern corner of Mesopotamia which came to rule Babylon briefly.
Tribes of Semitic migrants who arrived in the region from The Levant during the 10th century BC became known as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Septuagint.
The short-lived 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty, although only the first four rulers of this dynasty were positively known to be Chaldeans, and the last ruler, Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar, were known to be from Assyria.[2] The region in which the Chaldeans settled was in the south eastern portion of Babylonia, lying chiefly on the right bank of the Euphrates. Though the name later came to be commonly used to refer to the whole of southern Mesopotamia for a time, Chaldea proper was in fact only the vast plain in the far south east formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending to about four hundred miles along the course of these rivers, and about a hundred miles in average width.