Understanding 'East' vs 'West' on a sphere.
 

Green = East

Blue = West

http://img431.imageshack.us/img431/72/worldcolor3yv.jpg

Simple concept:

I'm drawing a map with all of the countries in the 'West' coloured in blue; all of the countries in the 'East' will be coloured green.

...but I'm stuck. :confused:

In particular, I'm not sure which colour I should use for:

Russia
China
Australia
Africa
Eastern Europe
India
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc...

I consider Austrailia and Argentina to be West.

China, Japan, Thailand all that should be east.

Most all asian countries are considered "east."

Russia is going to be west there.. mostly because of culture and places in WW2 etc.

india is also east.

I don't know about africa.. it isn't really west or east.. you might need another direction :P

Are you sure about India, haven't they been moving West for a few years.

Are they here yet?


http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/6...ldcolor6hz.jpg

"East" and "West" are largely political and cultural distinctions. The geography has little to do with it. Note, also, that distinguishing eastern and western countries is not exactly politically correct these days--it smacks of colonialism and a lack of a sense of multiculturalism, and it doesn't include the "south": Africa and South America. Referring to "third world" countries provokes the same sort of reaction among contemporary social thinkers. The preferred distinction is Developed vs Developing Countries.

Nonetheless, from your list:

Russia is divided. The western part is west, the extreme eastern part is east.
China is east.
Australia is west.
Africa doesn't factor into the east-west equasion.
Eastern Europe is West
India is East
South America largely doesn't factor either.

I put India as West nowadays.

I would say India was East, but Japan is definately West from a Socio-Economic standpoint

I think you're right about India, they can be East for now.

I've decided that South Africa (the country) is West.

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/3...ldcolor1nu.jpg

Ok, well looking at the map now. NewZealand is West. Mongolia and Uzbekistan and the rest of the breakaway republics are East. What happened to Japan? Iceland is West. I think that Greece and Turkey can be West as well as the Czeck and Slovak Republics, but the former Yugoslavia is East.

Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are definately "west leaning". I would have put Hong Kong in there as well, except it's now officially part of China.

Also Greenland and Iceland belong in the west.

Central Asia (the bunch of white just south of Russia is eastern)... all the "stans" that make up the Silk Road.

The Islands above Canada that you haven't coloured are part of Canada.

The ones above Russia and Scandinavia belong to those western nations as well.

Old cartography based the terms Middle East and Far East from centered Europe (on the maps) being considered the West.

What's your definitions of East and West? basing it on cultures and ideology?

What are your criteria? Are you talking politics, social structure or economics? I don't east and west cuts it - Africa, as has been pointed out, belongs to neither, nor does the middle east with the exception of Israel.

BTW, what we call the Southern Cone of South America - Argentina, Uruguay, Chile - are all western in terms of economics, politics and social aspects and history.

If you're going to call Russia even partially Western, wouldn't the former Eastern Bloc be Western now as well?

As far as Russia goes, I would put it firmly into the Western camp regardless. Moscow is definitely more interested in dealing with Europe than they are with China (the other dominant Eastern nation) unless they see that they have direct interests in the area. The Russian Federation focuses little to no energy on Pacific Rim issues, even though they have more Pacific coastline than the US, who focuses quite a bit of diplomatic energy in that direction.

If you talk to most of the people in the large Siberian cities - Irkukst, Novosibersk, Ekaterinburg, Barnaul - they are going to indentify Russia as a European country, not Asian. Most of the population are ethnic Russians, and the traditional boundaries of ethnic Russia is a rough circle about 500km from Moscow with a lobe going down into Ukraine centered around Kiev.

Knowing what criteria you want to use would help all of us help you. Otherwise we're all going to use whichever seems most important to us. If you use straight trade numbers, then China is a part of the West.

You colored Uganda as "East" although it was considered "East Africa" -Uganda is a former British Colony and they-themselves consider themselves as a poor western nation. I know this primarily because I know about 12 Ugandans mostly from Kampala.

Japan and India are still east, they will not just become west one day. The culture etc is 'eastern.'

Japan's economy is west though. They are part of the G8, which in my opinion, makes you part of the "west".

Hence my request for clarification on whether this is an economic, political, social or historical map.

So far it's shaping up along Socio-economic lines

jwoody: Just curious; what is this map for? Why are you compiling it?

As a social scientist, I can say that the whole West-East distinction lost its literal descriptive value a while ago. I don't think it's very helpful in distinguishing socioeconomic lines, since the so-called "East" (mentioned above) is pretty heterogeneous and not one mass of similar countries.

The West is more homogeneous, both socially and economically, so we do still use that distinction when talking about Western Europe, North America, Australia, maybe white South AFrica... but the G8 is probably more effective for economic labeling purposes.

West vs. East in terms of occidental vs. oriental ideology/philosophy/culture is still relevant, however. In that sense, I think the East is mostly composed of China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

I don't have a definition. That's what I hope to find out.
(don't refer me to Wikipedia. I'm not interested)

1) I love maps.

2) I enjoy colouring in.

3) Personally, I think trying to divide the world into East and West is a completely pointless excercise but it can't hurt to fully understand the pointlessness of it.

I'd compare it to dividing politics into left and right. It's a binary way of thinking and very divisive.

You're right, I'm going to divide the East into two categories. Middle East and Far East.

Now there are three kinds of people in the world.

http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/3975/worldcolor3ss.jpg

Being one from South Africa, I have to ask what pushed you towards this decision?

Using the simplified terminology of my mission (to colour in the map) at the time I coloured it, I was unsure about which colour to use for the entire continent of Africa.

I've never been to South Africa but, based on a short surfing film I watched, I've decided that it's Western.

If you disagree then I'll gladly change it's colour.

So, are you West, Middle East, Far East or.... something else?

I suppose it is more Wetern than anything else, so I don't have a problem with you seeing it in that light. It's a bit of a compliment actually.

Besides, blue's my favourite colour :)

You're calling Russia "west" but not Eastern Europe? Eastern Europe is about 10x more western than the Russkies.

Not necessarily, I just haven't gotten around to colouring that part yet.

I'm undecided about Turkey and a few of the Balkan states.

What makes it 10x more Western?

If you are using philosophy and religion and world view then I think the Middle East is actually quite Western. Remember that Judism, Christianity, and Islam are all part of the same tradition and in fact have relatively similar understandings on the nature of God and man's role on the planet when you compare them to Eastern philosophy. You will come up with very different maps if you make distinctions based on ancestry or economics.

For one, they are virtually all EU nations now, which makes them both economically and politically part of Western Europe. Russia is the nation that is remaining aloof from integration into the western sphere and indeed, appear determined to remain (or regain) a power unto itself. Russia's future, economically, will likely lie with supplying the far east (China, Japan, etc) with raw materials more so than Europe.

Only Belarus, of the former "Eastern Bloc", seems to retain strong eastern (ie Russian) orientation.

Actually so does Ukraine at least the eastern part(if you'll remember recent events). As for Eastern Europe there are a lot of states that have joined the EU from that part of the world so they would be west. The one's that haven't, major exception being Belarus as was stated, usually have a culture that is most similar to western Europeans but an economy that is below par, the one thing I can say is that they definitely wouldn't be east, at least the way you have defined your map, they have no relation to most of the eastern countries. Let’s make it clearer countries in Eastern Europe are: Albania, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia.

Some people have suggested that Russia is part of the West... yet here is one of many articles which appear to be blaming a Western media bias for Russia's image problem.

That rules Russia out of the West.

I think it's all coming together now.

I think I know. I think I need to smoke a cigarette and think about this.

I would position the muslim nations of Malaysia and Indonesia under the sphere of the Middle East in some things and the Far East in Others...

I still think it is difficult to say Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are, strictly speaking, eastern. Their economics are decidedly western.

Singapore is definately western.

I've had my moment of clarity and it's all exactly as I originally thought.

We (Westerners) accept that we are in the West but, when push comes to shove, nobody has a fucking clue what it means... and nobody ever questions it.

There are Western nations who don't even know they're in the West. Parts of the Middle East are actually in the Far East... and there are Far Eastern nations who don't realise that they're actually in the Middle East.... and vice versa.

And that's clarity?! I'm more confused than ever!

What far eastern nations are actually in the Middle East? The Asian continent encompasses the Middle Eastern countries...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...q/asnewzzz.gif

Even that map has some issues - it's divisions are more geographic than political or cultural. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are not Arabic countries, though they are included in the middle east. The inclusion of Pakistan in the middle east (with Arab and non-Arab countries that practice Islam) and India in the Southeast suggests a division based on cultural identity or religion. But by that logic, Malaysia might be considered a middle eastern country as well, which this map doesn't show. Not to mention any division that seriously places western Russia in the same category as Japan... Well, let's just say that this whole exercise is probably one in frustration.

By the way Cyn, how do I win $100 there? That sounds pretty good! (refers to map)

LOL this was the best representation of the Asian continent that I could find, as far as the $100 I haven't the foggiest idea!

I'll bow to your superior knowledge of the East but I'm standing firm on my theory that the term 'The West' either has a very fuzzy definition or, my second theory, that when people say 'Western Media' they're actually talking about Fox and BBC.

ubertuber and cyn..

i recognised the map immediately..im a regular visitor to the website www.worldatlas.com where you can find that map. they also have daily quizes where you can win $100 for answering the right geographocal question, though its not as easy as you think it is.
my two cents...

jwoody - things change over time, nations, their boundaries and their relative locations all shift as the world changes around them. Russia, when St. Petersburg was made the capital, looked west - it would have been fair to label them "European" (as many did for a long time). Then they turned inwards. Now, their future is tied increasingly to the east.

The former eastern bloc is now very integrated into the Western european sphere - 20 years ago, this was not the case.

China is now part of the Pacific Rim economies - until Deng Xiaoping came along, that was not so.

Hence, you are correct - definitions of "east" and "west" etc are fuzzy as they change constantly.

Many geographers break the world into 12 seperate parts or realms to recognize a degree of homogeneity and linked or similar economies and politics, and then further break those realms down into regions to better define things.

Those realms are:

North America
Central America/Caribean
South America
Europe
SW Asia/North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
South Asia
East Asia
Russia
Australia
SE Asia
Pacific Islands

what are you basing your east/west assumptions on?

how developed the countries are? their mentalities? their culture? wth?
how globalized they are?? what?

I know how to solve all of this.

Go get a boardgame called RISK...They have already colored in all the countries.


Besides I always thought Russia and China were red, Europe was blue, and Africa was tan.

Just kidding.

If you are talking Western Civilization, all of Middle and South America should be west.

To answer your question, everything to the left of England will be blue and everything right of England will be green.
On a sphere (earth), the Prime Meridian run through Greenwich England (0° longitude). Everything from 0° longitude to 180° W longitude is west. Everything from from 0° longitude to 180° E longitude is east.
Any other "East/West" notation would be strictly political and can change overnight.
http://wwp.greenwichmeridian.com/

Well - in terms of society, you'd better colour Australia and New Zealand as "west".

That one is as clear as mud. Australia and NZ were settled by the brits, so our culture and population (ethnicity) is strongly biased in that direction.

Singapore is east, in my view. Ditto Hong Kong I think.