Talk:Southwest Asia

Borders

According to www.worldatlas.com, Most of what we call "Central Asia" is considered to be Middle Eastern. Is this because the culture is very alike or something?

To Cantus: In my edit that you have reverted, I have made two changes; let me try to substantiate them.

1. "usually the term Middle East includes North African countries and the part of Egypt in North Africa" doesn't make any logical sense to me. Isn't Egypt a North African country? From Egypt, "Egypt is the most populous nation of northeastern Africa ...". Although Egypt includes Sinai, which is purportedly in Asia, Egypt is still in North Africa. This is akin to the following: Alaska is to the North-West of Canada, but that doesn't stop us from saying that the US is South of Canada.

Now that Egypt is in North Africa, the sentence has to be re-worded; otherwise it makes no logical sense. I'll be happy to work with you and others to achieve logical correctness.

2. 'The term "West Asia" has become the preferred term of use in countries such as India, possibly because of the perceived Euro-centrism of the term "Middle East".'

Why has this been removed? It's a logical continuation of the previous sentence, and it's fact. It seems relevant to me in the context of the previous sentence about the popularity of the term. Note that although the article lives at Southwest Asia, it talks also about West Asia. Ambarish 12:16, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ambarish, the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt IS in Southwest Asia. WhisperToMe 04:00, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Definitely. That's why the statement refers "the part of Egypt in Africa"; in other words, the part of Egypt in Asia is *obviously* in the Middle East as it's also in West Asia - it's only the part of Egypt in Africa that has to be explicitly mentioned as being part of the Middle East (acc. to some). My above complaint was about the phrase "North African countries and the part of Egypt in North Africa". Egypt is an African country; it's in the North; it's thus a North African country (notwithstanding a part of it being in Asia). Am I off-base here? Ambarish | Talk 12:37, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Less ambiguous?

The article claims this as a less ambiguous alternative to Middle East, yet India is said to use "west asia" as a preferred term, despite not appearing on our map or list of countries in this article. Is India part of this grouping or not? If not, is "West Asia" a separate thing that should be split out to another article, or is the usage simply ambiguous and inconsistent? --Delirium 06:52, May 22, 2004 (UTC)

We (Wikipedia) seem to use the terms SW Asia and West Asia synonymously; West Asia redirects to Southwest Asia. India was never a part of SW Asia/West Asia nor of Middle East. The Indian government and the Indian media (upon instructions) refer to the Middle East as West Asia. I've rewritten the paragraph a bit to address the above issue. Ambarish | Talk 12:37, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

• The term "Middle East" isn't just "Eurocentric" it's meaning varies even within Europe depending on the position of the reader: in continental Europe people would not consider Israel to be middle eastern; I wonder if they do so in Brittain. ("Middle East" might be "America-centric".) In France Israel, Syria et c. is called near east and the middle east starts east of Syria. However, in Germany (which is east of France) Saudi Arabia and Iraq are considered near east too and India is middle eastern.
  
  The problem with the term is, that its semantics depend on the position; it is not just ambiguous but arbitrary. Since the position of the readers/writers vary and english is spoken in many different geographical regions, we should be careful when using relative positions! --Hokanomono 09:05, 2004 Jun 2 (UTC)

Armenia, Georgia and - to lesser degree - Azerbaijan are European countries and not Asian countries. Refdoc 15:42, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)