…What about Pakistan and Afghanistan? Do they count as “Middle East” in your mind?
Where is Central Asia, Alex?
I’ll take impotent portholes for $1000!
[sub]Um, so I think “no” is the answer.[/sub]
None of those places are typically considered part of the Middle East. Iran is as far east as it goes.
India and Pakistan, no.
Afghanistan…sorta? I definitely consider it part of the Middle East now, but before 9/11, I would have said that it was kinda in between.
Mid East = southwest Asia. India is considered southern Asia. Map here. Some folk classify Egypt as Middle East too.
-meanie
Well, I know what I mean by the Middle East, but the fact is, is that the definition is a little variable. I usually think of the Egypt to Iran version. This description agrees with that:
http://www2.uta.edu/stillwell/notes-file/define.htm
However here’s a map I just looked up that includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, western Central Asia:
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/me.htm
I think the map above is just plain wrong ;). However far as I know, nobody includes India, which is considered part of Southern Asia.
A better term perhaps, for cultural reasons, is MENA - Middle East-North Africa. Among other things, it includes all Arabic speaking countries under its umbrella.
- Tamerlane
Actually, as it was originally used, the term Middle East did include India. From the Britannica:
Before and during World War II, Middle East replaced Near East as the name for the region stretching from Turkey to Arabia and from Iran to North Africa (sometimes all the way to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean). Near East still crops up as a synonym for Middle East (as in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs), but I don’t think Middle East would be used to refer to India much these days; the preferred term for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other nearby countries would be “South Asia”.
The Britannica does go on to note that “geographic factors often require statesmen and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East”. With the separation of the Central Asian countries of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan from the European-centered Soviet Union, the same geographic and cultural factors may lead to those areas being lumped in with the Middle East to some extent as well. The “Area of Responsibility” of the U.S military’s Central Command includes the entire Arabian Peninsula and Iraq and Jordan (though not Syria, Lebanon, Israel, or Turkey, which fall under the European Command), Egypt and the Sudan in North Africa and the countries of the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia, as well as Kenya), Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the states of the former Soviet Central Asia.
Huh - India as part of the ME. Learn something new every day ( or something ). Thanks MEBuckner :).
- Tamerlane
Well, I’m a geographer and we often can’t agree on which countries are considered part of the Middle East. Tamerlane is right - in general, a good way to define the Middle East is along cultural lines - hence North Africa/Southwest Asia is characterized by Arabs (dominant ethnicity), Arabic (dominant language), and Islam (dominant religion).
Since cultural boundaries and political boundaries don’t necessarily coincide, Sudan and Mauritania are sometimes excluded (from North Africa). Likewise for Pakistan and Afghanistan (from Southwest Asia).
To counter this, quite a few geographers (and others) sometimes consider Central Asia a distinct region that includes Afghanistan (but excludes Pakistan) as well as the former Soviet Republics (Kazakhstan, etc.).
To complicate matters, some geographers identify an “Islamic Realm”, a contiguous region that includes North Africa, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia. This Islamic Realm sometimes includes Pakistan, sometimes it doesn’t - depends on the source.
Many geographers (and geography texts) consider India part of South Asia (along with Pakistan). Afghanistan is kind of funny - it is sometimes placed in South Asia, sometimes in North Africa/Southwest Asia, and sometimes in Central Asia.
Myself, I generally consider Afghanistan a part of Central Asia (and also part of a larger, contiguous “Islamic Realm”).
Also, people sometimes say “the subcontinent”, meaning the Indian subcontinent comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal.