Listening to an Iranian official describe his region as “West Asia” got me wondering if the word “Middle East” is on the outs and why. I suspect Middle East is eurocentric for some reason, but West Asia also preserves Europe as a continent, which is Eurocentric in its own way because Europe is not a continent and never was. If we’re calling anything West Asia, it should be Spain and Portugal.
Where would this sub be without pedantry?
I like your answer the best–call it what people there want to be called.
But your solution raises a problem if there’s a disagreement in that region. Turkey can decide to call itself Türkiye, but a region with separate countries might have a disagreement on what to call their shared region. I bet Turkey would love to be in the region called, “The Former Ottoman Empire”, but Greece might not care for it.