Listening to an Iranian official describe his region as “West Asia” got me wondering if the word “Middle East” is on the outs and why. I suspect Middle East is eurocentric for some reason, but West Asia also preserves Europe as a continent, which is Eurocentric in its own way because Europe is not a continent and never was. If we’re calling anything West Asia, it should be Spain and Portugal.
I’m Iranian and can confirm that it’s terminology that is being pushed in the general resistance to the West, as the ‘Middle East’ is seen as a colonial term. It describes the region’s relationhip to Britain. So the term West Asia appeals to lots of people in China, India, Pakistan and former colonies in general.
I personally don’t like it. If we’re scrapping the term ‘Middle East’, I’d like to emphasize how the region does in fact sit in the middle between Europe, Africa and Asia. It’s at the center of this supercontinent (and it’s strategic geography is making itself known at the moment). It’s the middle of the ‘World Island’ so to speak, but I have trouble coming up with a catchy phrase for it.
Middle East and West Asia are both terms that can be used kind of interchangeably, it just depends on the context. And yes, Europe is a glorified peninsula of the continent of “Eurasia”. Interestingly, Russia and a few other countries that straddle the boundary of Europe and Asia teach it as one continent.
In my opinion, the idea of “continents” is ambiguous if we define it as no sea in between, Afro-Eurasia is a monster that isn’t helpful to categorise the world. There’s good videos on the topic by CGP Grey and Map Men (previously Jay Foreman), you should go look at that I think!
I would rather divide the world based on the geological definition of continents, about the major tectonic plates! But even that can be difficult since what constitutes as a “major” tectonic plate? It’s still better in my opinion, since it’s something that can be discussed by geologists rather than politicians.
According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tectonic_plates
Under this definition, the continents are (if we only consider major plates as defined by Wikipedia):
- Eurasia
- Africa
- North America
- South America
- Australia
- Antarctica
- Pacific (mostly ocean)
if we include the some of the larger minor plates (I feel like we should):
- Carribean
- Arabia
- India (subcontinent has levelled up!)
- Somali
- Nazca (again, mostly ocean)
- Philippines (another ocean one)
There are lots of smaller ones but those are mostly ocean too
I think it would be neat if the world was divided to have India, Arabia, the Carribean, and Eastern Africa to have the Europe sort of treatment! India alone has more people than the whole of Europe combined (I think you could throw North America too and the Indian region, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc., will still be more populous!)
The Middle East is in the middle of the Eastern hemisphere.
That’s not where the name comes from. It comes from the distinction of the “far east” (China, Japan, etc) vs. the “middle east” or the “near east.” Which is why many people think it’s Eurocentric, it literally treates Europe as the center.
