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.
Different parts of the world are going to look at geography differently. Different countries don’t even agree on the number of continents and what they are.
If an Iranian said West Asia, I probably wouldn’t disagree because that is them referring to their home country in a direct translation of how they see it. They don’t have the cultural baggage of English speakers, so they will look at themselves differently.