West Asian vs Middle Eastern naming controversy

[Zroota]

Some people use the term West Asian for people of Western Asia. I use both 'West Asian' and 'Middle Eastern' interchangeably. I was corrected a few times by a certain user when I used 'Middle Eastern'. Forgot what the reason was though. Another user also agreed that we should ditch 'Middle Eastern' and use 'West Asian' instead. The thing is, I have always used 'Middle Eastern' to address Western Asians. Only people in this forum made me reconsider it and use 'West Asian' instead.

What do you think? And which name do you prefer to use yourself?

[FinalFlash]

Between the two, I would prefer West Asia. I think the non-semetic speaking world(Greece Jr., Armenia, Turkey, Georgia, Iran, and Azerbaijan) of West Asia should get its own designation and the semitic-speaking world should only be referred to as Middle Eastern.

[lameduck]

Middle east is more of a geopolotical term
genetically two divisions of Western half of Asia is fine.

North West Asia is armenia/iran/turkey

south West asia is arabian peninsula

dont know about levant , I think they are east meds but closer to northern west asians.

[Zroota]

Middle east is more of a geopolotical term
genetically two divisions of Western half of Asia is fine.

North West Asia is armenia/iran/turkey

south West asia is arabian peninsula

dont know about levant , I think they are east meds but closer to northern west asians.

Northwest Asia is western Russia. But that's a nonexistent term. People just use "North Asia" to address the northern regions of Russia, but namely the east.

Southwest Asia is actually the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and Mesopotamia. In short, it is the Middle East or West Asia:




But that's just according to maps.

[Babak]

West asia def.

[Mingle]

Use Middle East for Egypt and the parts of Asia south of the Taurus. The term Middle East is mostly associated with that region.

I'd prefer to use Asia or West Asia since the term Asia originated there and I don't like how its being used exclusively for Mongoloids (or Mongoloids+South Asians in places like the UK) with West Asians excluded from that term when the term 'Asia' was originally used only for a part of West Asia before its definition expanded.

[21993]

AFAIK:
Near East: Anatolia, Caucasus and Levant
Middle East: Iran, Iraq and Arabian Peninsula
Far East: East Asia

[Bakha]

Northern and Southern West Asia

[Nazarene]

Middle Eastern is more broad imo, but West Asia is good

[Kyp]

West Asia: Turkey, Caucasus, Iran, Armenia
Near East: Levant
Middle east: Arab world

Some countries are borderline though: Turkey (Europe/Westasia), Iraq (Westasia/middleeast), Egypt (middleeast/northafrica), Afghanistan (Westasia, South asia, Central Asia)