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.
Well yeah, the Russians teach just one continent, Eurasia. A few other places do that too I think, mostly those who were influenced by the Russians in the past (i.e. were part of the Russian Empire and/or the USSR’s sphere of influence)
And I know many Latin American countries teach a unified continent of America rather than splitting it North and South.
Egpyt does not combine Asia and Africa despite having the Sinai peninsula in Asia (which is only split by a manmade canal)
Personally, I’m a fan of defining continents geologically, since it gets rid of all the politics