The Peace on The Horizon - 75 Years after The World War 2 in the Middle East(4)

 

(Japanese Version)

(Arabic Version)

 

(contents)

 

Prologue (4)

 

004. Middle East connecting Europe and Asia (2/3)

 Asia occupies a large part of the Eurasian Continent. The Eurasian continents extends from the east longitude 10 degrees, where the Portugal is, and 180 degrees of the Bering Strait. Istanbul, the east end of Europe, is located at 30 degrees east longitude. This means that five-sixth of the Eurasian continent is Asia and Europe occupies only one sixth.

 

Asia is so wide that Europeans could not bundle Asia as one region, They, therefore, divided Asia into several regions. It was a very simple and unilateral division from the viewpoint of their geographical perspective. They named each region as the Near East, Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia and Far East. Far East means the end of the east. It is a very rude naming for the people living in that region. (Suppose that If the history was reversed, Britain, France might have been called "Far West" at the end of the west!)

 

Anyway, when crossing the Bosporus Strait, you are now in "Near East". It covers the Anatolian peninsula. And the eastern Levant (nowadays Syria and Lebanon), Israel, Iraq and Iran consist "Middle East". In modern history, however, "Near East" and "Middle East" are united and called "Middle East". India and Pakistan are called South Asia.

 

(To be continued ----)

 

Areha Kazuya

(From an ordinary citizen in the cloud)