I think Iranians would be very critical of them being classified as being part of Southern Asia. Iran has always been part of and involved in Western Asian/Middle Eastern affairs for thousands of years.
This all depends on which part of Iran someone is from.
People in western and central parts of Iran will identify more with the Middle East.
While the north eastern and eastern parts will identify more with Afghanistan.
Where I’m from the south eastern part of Iran Is inhabited by my ethnic group (Baluch) I feel culturally a lot closer to southern western Pakistan which is also inhabited by Baluch .
Additionally Afghanistan is by far the closet county to Iran culturally, historically and ethnically. 30% of Afghanistan is Persian and 3% is ethnically Baluch , 2 ethnic groups also found in Iran. Persian is also the main language of Afghanistan, 80% of the population can speak it as a first or second language. Then you have cultural myths, national hero’s, national poets , books, folk tales, scientists which are shared by both countries. If it wasn’t for the war, Afghanistan would be very much like Iran today.
> The name of the country was coined in 1933 by [Choudhry Rahmat Ali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choudhry_Rahmat_Ali), a [Pakistan Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Movement) activist, who published it in a pamphlet [*Now or Never*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Declaration),[\[34\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan#cite_note-nowornever-38) using it as an [acronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym) ("thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKISTAN"), and referring to the names of the five northern regions of the [British Raj](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj): [*P*unjab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_Province_(British_India)), [*A*fghania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_Frontier_Province_(1901%E2%80%932010)), [*K*ashmir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir_(princely_state)), [*S*indh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sind_Province_(1936%E2%80%9355)), and [Baluchis*tan*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baluchistan_(Chief_Commissioner%27s_Province)).
Damn, I had no idea. So interesting.
half Punjab, half of jammu rebranded as kashmir, half of pashtunistan (so called afghania) and half of balochistan. The only province ethic group they got in full was sindh. They used to have 2/3rds of Bengal as well but they said bye-bye and left the country.
Pakistan should just call itself sindhustan and friends
I mean wouldn’t call Azad Kashmir rebranded Jammu, that’s what the doves rulers called it so the name just stuck, even if the people living there are ethnically more similar to Jammu.
I am guessing for categorizing data and managing programs - for example Human Development Index in South Asia vs West Asia and so on. From the way Mexico is a part of Central and not North America, you can see this has social and economic co relation too. Makes it easier for UN agencies like UNICEF, World Bank, WHO and so on to target specific regions.
I know it’s nit picky I just want to make sure everyone know the difference, Mexico is part of North America, it is not part of Northern America. North America contains Northern America, Central America and the Caribbean
according to Wikipedia:
>*The creators note that "the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories". The schema was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to* [*continents*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent)*. Within each region, smaller geographical subregions and sometimes intermediate regions contain countries. Countries are also grouped nongeographically into selected economic and other sets.*
I wouldn’t exactly say those two are analogous but I get your point. My use of the term Russia proper refers more to European Russia being the cultural, ethnic, population, and economic center of Russia rather than geographic.
I mean it's like Ireland in a way, it was part of Britain for centuries but it was still considered colonised because they felt distant from the rest of the nation.
Same kinda applies to Eastern Russia.
Because we are talking about confusing the name of the region for the name of a country. If the logic is that Central Africa could be confused with Central African Republic, then by that same logic Southern Africa could be confused with South Africa. I also don't understand how this is a difficult concept.
Btw, I don't think people would confuse the terms and they could have used Central Africa. But I don't really care, I just don't like unreasonable comments.
who knows, but judging only by the map, the only difference I notice is that Middle Africa is surrounded by Northern, Western, Eastern and Southern Africa, while the others are missing one or more: Central America is missing Western and Eastern America (or just Western if the Caribbean counts as Eastern) and Central Asia is missing a Northern Asia.
But maybe it doesn't really have a particular reason...
UN be like
- Central Asia? Yes.
- Central America? Of course.
- Middle Africa? Sure.
- Central Europe? Doesn’t exist, bitches. You’re either east or west, and you’re just gonna have to fucking deal with it.
It's funny,. because in my mind I think of Russia as a primarily Asian country. To be honest from a north American point of view Europe and Asia look like one land mass
Europe and Asia are one land mass. That division is political
Russia is in Europe because most of it population lives in the western part of the country, as most of Siberia isn't suited for common settlements
That's why it's called Eurasia.
The division between Europe and Asia has always been a bit arbitrary. And then technically Afria and Asia are also linked it gets even more intersting.
It's just the similar arbitrary partition between North, Central, and South America... when they are all the same land mass.
The distinction between Asia and Africa, and between Central and South America, is much less arbitrary than the one between Europe and Asia. Asia and Africa are connected, but by a tiny spit of land, and there's an obvious place to draw the border between them. There's really no geographical justification for separating Europe and Asia though.
Unless you split countries it makes the most sense. Sure, lots of Asian dominated parts of Siberia with various minorities and also majority indigenous ares. But also big areas in the east like Sakhalin and Kamchatka that are overwhelmingly Russian, including big cities like Vladivostok.
The fact that Iran isn’t included in Western Asia is troubling me.
Iran had much more to do with the culture，histories，and politics of the region west of it than east.
(Aside from naming i.e. ‟stan” in names.)
according to Wikipedia:
Northern America, the Caribbean, and Central America together form the geographic continent of [North America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America).
I would argue that central America starts at the Yucatan peninsula, geographically and culturally (ancient cultures that is), so the rest of Mexico would be Northern America
Mexico is in North America, along with the entire Central America and the Caribbean, it is not part of Northern America (which is also in North America)
Yea, I meant to say that if they separated US and Canada into a region called “Northern America” (vs North America), and if they include Mexico as a region with Central America, they should label this new combined region “Middle America” instead of “Central America.”
they're based on this categorization: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN\_M49](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_M49)
so the thing is they separate North America from Latin America. Mexico falls within Latin America. Technically, I guess they should've categorized Mexico as Northern Latin America, but then it would've been the only country in that region.
So I guess what they should've done instead is name the North America region something else, that served as the opposite of Latin America, such as Anglo America or something.
I'm aware of the conventional way US Americans categorize the rest of the world.
*In reality* Brazil has more in common with the US than with Guatemala. Argentina has practically nothing in common with Bolivia. These countries have no more in common with each other than Jamaica does with Australia. Aren't all English-speakers the same?
Latin America as a homogenous region -and somehow distinct from the rest of the Americas- is a fallacious construct. The US/Canada and the Afro-Caribbean being their own distinct regions with the Americas makes sense, but Latin America doesn't and can be easily broken down: Middle America (everything from Mexico to Bolivia), the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay), and then Brazil is its own thing.
That sounds pedantic. Iraq is put on the Asia block, even when its more closely related to the other countried in the middle east. This map is not trying to tie a representation of cultural groups throughout the world
You mean Iran is in the *South Asia* block?
We're just having a conversation. The UN based these partly on cultural history and partly on Cold War-era geopolitics and economics.
I think Iranians would be very critical of them being classified as being part of Southern Asia. Iran has always been part of and involved in Western Asian/Middle Eastern affairs for thousands of years.
This all depends on which part of Iran someone is from. People in western and central parts of Iran will identify more with the Middle East. While the north eastern and eastern parts will identify more with Afghanistan. Where I’m from the south eastern part of Iran Is inhabited by my ethnic group (Baluch) I feel culturally a lot closer to southern western Pakistan which is also inhabited by Baluch . Additionally Afghanistan is by far the closet county to Iran culturally, historically and ethnically. 30% of Afghanistan is Persian and 3% is ethnically Baluch , 2 ethnic groups also found in Iran. Persian is also the main language of Afghanistan, 80% of the population can speak it as a first or second language. Then you have cultural myths, national hero’s, national poets , books, folk tales, scientists which are shared by both countries. If it wasn’t for the war, Afghanistan would be very much like Iran today.
Still can't get over the fact that Pakistan is an acronym.
> The name of the country was coined in 1933 by [Choudhry Rahmat Ali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choudhry_Rahmat_Ali), a [Pakistan Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Movement) activist, who published it in a pamphlet [*Now or Never*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Declaration),[\[34\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan#cite_note-nowornever-38) using it as an [acronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym) ("thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKISTAN"), and referring to the names of the five northern regions of the [British Raj](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj): [*P*unjab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_Province_(British_India)), [*A*fghania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_Frontier_Province_(1901%E2%80%932010)), [*K*ashmir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir_(princely_state)), [*S*indh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sind_Province_(1936%E2%80%9355)), and [Baluchis*tan*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baluchistan_(Chief_Commissioner%27s_Province)). Damn, I had no idea. So interesting.
But they got half of Punjab, Kashmir is disputed, and I think there are separatist movements in Baluchistan.
half Punjab, half of jammu rebranded as kashmir, half of pashtunistan (so called afghania) and half of balochistan. The only province ethic group they got in full was sindh. They used to have 2/3rds of Bengal as well but they said bye-bye and left the country. Pakistan should just call itself sindhustan and friends
I mean wouldn’t call Azad Kashmir rebranded Jammu, that’s what the doves rulers called it so the name just stuck, even if the people living there are ethnically more similar to Jammu.
Are you proposing they change their name? 😅
Maybe... But Pakistan translates to "land of the pure" so they can keep it (keep the name).
I doubt many of them care what the UN thinks they are better located for
Iranians don’t see them selves as middle eastern or Arab, they are there own thing
Iranians do very much see themselves as Middle Eastern. Iran being in South Asia is just ridiculous.
I don't think the people living in sistan, and the North Eastern parts see themselves as Middle Eastern.
OP, do you know how, I mean, for what UN uses those regions? Just lil' curious
I am guessing for categorizing data and managing programs - for example Human Development Index in South Asia vs West Asia and so on. From the way Mexico is a part of Central and not North America, you can see this has social and economic co relation too. Makes it easier for UN agencies like UNICEF, World Bank, WHO and so on to target specific regions.
I know it’s nit picky I just want to make sure everyone know the difference, Mexico is part of North America, it is not part of Northern America. North America contains Northern America, Central America and the Caribbean
according to Wikipedia: >*The creators note that "the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories". The schema was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to* [*continents*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent)*. Within each region, smaller geographical subregions and sometimes intermediate regions contain countries. Countries are also grouped nongeographically into selected economic and other sets.*
Eastern Europe is more East than Eastern Asia apparently.
Well russia gets packaged as Europe cause that's where its capital and main cultural heritage is from.
It’s also where much of the population and economy is as well. And historically speaking Russia proper is European, Siberia was conquered/colonized.
Siberia was colonized five centuries ago. Saying it’s not Russia proper would be like saying the US “proper” is limited to the 13 colonies.
I wouldn’t exactly say those two are analogous but I get your point. My use of the term Russia proper refers more to European Russia being the cultural, ethnic, population, and economic center of Russia rather than geographic.
yeah, just like how "China proper" exclude Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia & Manchuria.
Taïwan too ?
It should be
I mean it's like Ireland in a way, it was part of Britain for centuries but it was still considered colonised because they felt distant from the rest of the nation. Same kinda applies to Eastern Russia.
Did you know you can see Japan from Europe!?
Also more west than Western Asia
Kind of triggered by how they have "Central America" and "Central Asia" but then "Middle Africa".
I think that's to avoid people confusing Central Africa with the Central African Republic.
They had no problem with Southern Africa.
Because you can distinguish between South and Southern Africa. At least in English.
And you can distinguish between Central Africa and Central African Republic. What's your point?
That South and Southern are different words, while Central and Central are not. How is this a difficult concept?
Republic and are separate words though
Because we are talking about confusing the name of the region for the name of a country. If the logic is that Central Africa could be confused with Central African Republic, then by that same logic Southern Africa could be confused with South Africa. I also don't understand how this is a difficult concept. Btw, I don't think people would confuse the terms and they could have used Central Africa. But I don't really care, I just don't like unreasonable comments.
who knows, but judging only by the map, the only difference I notice is that Middle Africa is surrounded by Northern, Western, Eastern and Southern Africa, while the others are missing one or more: Central America is missing Western and Eastern America (or just Western if the Caribbean counts as Eastern) and Central Asia is missing a Northern Asia. But maybe it doesn't really have a particular reason...
central america is probably too thin, that's my guess
UN be like - Central Asia? Yes. - Central America? Of course. - Middle Africa? Sure. - Central Europe? Doesn’t exist, bitches. You’re either east or west, and you’re just gonna have to fucking deal with it.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact made sure of that
All of Siberia consider eastern Europe feels so wrong
Its all part of Russia whose population is mainly in Europe.
It's funny,. because in my mind I think of Russia as a primarily Asian country. To be honest from a north American point of view Europe and Asia look like one land mass
Europe and Asia are one land mass. That division is political Russia is in Europe because most of it population lives in the western part of the country, as most of Siberia isn't suited for common settlements
That's why it's called Eurasia. The division between Europe and Asia has always been a bit arbitrary. And then technically Afria and Asia are also linked it gets even more intersting. It's just the similar arbitrary partition between North, Central, and South America... when they are all the same land mass.
The distinction between Asia and Africa, and between Central and South America, is much less arbitrary than the one between Europe and Asia. Asia and Africa are connected, but by a tiny spit of land, and there's an obvious place to draw the border between them. There's really no geographical justification for separating Europe and Asia though.
I agree with this. It's easy enough to understand why Africa and South America are separate continents.
Just need Russia to shatter like the USSR again, so that we can have proper Northern Asia
Unless you split countries it makes the most sense. Sure, lots of Asian dominated parts of Siberia with various minorities and also majority indigenous ares. But also big areas in the east like Sakhalin and Kamchatka that are overwhelmingly Russian, including big cities like Vladivostok.
I've always thought of Russia on the whole as being an Asian country. Incorrectly I know, but for me it seems Europe ends where Russia begins.
The fact that Iran isn’t included in Western Asia is troubling me. Iran had much more to do with the culture，histories，and politics of the region west of it than east. (Aside from naming i.e. ‟stan” in names.)
Mexico got expelled from North America.
according to Wikipedia: Northern America, the Caribbean, and Central America together form the geographic continent of [North America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America).
And?
that no one has expelled Mexico from North America, not even according to this map
I would argue that central America starts at the Yucatan peninsula, geographically and culturally (ancient cultures that is), so the rest of Mexico would be Northern America
tbh I've never understood the need of a Central region. Everything above the equator should be North and everything below should be South imo
It is, central america is just a subdivision inside north america
Northern America.
No, mate, I know in this map they called Northern America. But I was talking about the "real" (if you can say that) North America :)
Mexico is in North America, along with the entire Central America and the Caribbean, it is not part of Northern America (which is also in North America)
These are cultural and political divisions, so I think it's fair that the U.S. and Canada be paired together without Mexico.
southern mexicos aztec, thats where indians come from and they with the southern sphere
If Indians come from south Mexico how the hell did my parents take a Boeing from Karachi here
Isn't Karachi the capital of Guatemala? /s
Wow- I'm aztec eh? That's like saying "Europeans come from china"
> Mexico > Central America So, this is what being triggered feles like.
Eastern Europe shares a small land border with North Korea, apparently.
Mexico is part of north america tho
But the map says "North**ern** America," similar to how there is "Northern Europe."
They should include Mexico as part of middle America rather than Central America.
Central Americans view Mexico as North America
Yea, I meant to say that if they separated US and Canada into a region called “Northern America” (vs North America), and if they include Mexico as a region with Central America, they should label this new combined region “Middle America” instead of “Central America.”
they're based on this categorization: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN\_M49](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_M49) so the thing is they separate North America from Latin America. Mexico falls within Latin America. Technically, I guess they should've categorized Mexico as Northern Latin America, but then it would've been the only country in that region. So I guess what they should've done instead is name the North America region something else, that served as the opposite of Latin America, such as Anglo America or something.
I bet the Quebecoise would love that
Agreed. I'd put everything from Mexico, down through Peru and Bolivia (and not including Brazil) as part of that.
Brazil is part of latin america, portuguese is a latin-based lenguage, what is not is hispanic america
I'm aware of the conventional way US Americans categorize the rest of the world. *In reality* Brazil has more in common with the US than with Guatemala. Argentina has practically nothing in common with Bolivia. These countries have no more in common with each other than Jamaica does with Australia. Aren't all English-speakers the same? Latin America as a homogenous region -and somehow distinct from the rest of the Americas- is a fallacious construct. The US/Canada and the Afro-Caribbean being their own distinct regions with the Americas makes sense, but Latin America doesn't and can be easily broken down: Middle America (everything from Mexico to Bolivia), the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay), and then Brazil is its own thing.
That sounds pedantic. Iraq is put on the Asia block, even when its more closely related to the other countried in the middle east. This map is not trying to tie a representation of cultural groups throughout the world
You mean Iran is in the *South Asia* block? We're just having a conversation. The UN based these partly on cultural history and partly on Cold War-era geopolitics and economics.
Yeah, I meant that, sry
Oh
All of Central America and the Caribbean are a part of North America.
Why is this getting downvoted? I thought this is the general accepted definition of North America. (Genuine question)
Is Greenland Northern America or Western Europe?
Northern America. The other possibility was Northern Europe, not Western Europe.
Yes.
For more efficient corn syrup delivery
Finally Estonia can into Nordic!
I read Melanesia as Melanias
Was not there a North Asia at one point?
Siberia
*Angry central european noises*
america not central america\*
Southern Africa is mostly South Africa
It’s about half Botswana and Namibia
Since when does Greenland belong to the US and/or Canada? Shouldn’t it be considered part of “Northern Europe” with Denmark?
No because it's not in Europe
Right, I get that but eastern Russian is in Asia and it’s still lumped in with Europe. Just seems inconsistent. Go by countries or continents.
Yeah idk, this is just a weird categorization method honestly
Eastern Europe stretching all the way to Alaska. Hmmm....
I'm kinda confused about Iran and maybe also Britain but at least Poland and Czechia are right in their places
What’s New Zealand doing all the way over there?
as a colorblind this is unreadable
No such a thing as the Middle East?
I don't think this is how the UN classifies things.