近世（英语：early modern period），又译近代早期，历史学上的一种分期法，指中世纪之后，现代（modern，又译近代）之前这个时期。起源于欧洲历史学界，将人类历史分为四阶段（古代，中世纪，近世，近代）的习惯分期法。这个概念盛行于欧洲史与日本史，但在中国史部份，其定义与适用则有所不同。

英语：early modern period有时也被译为近代；但是英语：Modern也可能被译为近代。这些译名并不统一，需要视上下文及历史学传统才能确定其意义。

In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the post-classical age (c. 1500), known as the Middle Ages, through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions (c. 1800) and is variously demarcated by historians as beginning with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the Renaissance period, and with the Age of Discovery (especially with the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492, but also with the discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.