N. Africa/SW Asia:
Defining the Realm

• Where?
• Regional Criteria
• Other Names

Where?

The authors of our textbook define this realm [nwrealmp.htm] differently than most other authors of world regional geography textbooks. Although most include north Africa and southwest Asia in the same realm, I have not seen another that includes the region of Turkestan in this realm. The five countries that comprise Turkestan were, until 1990, part of the former Soviet Union.

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Regional Criteria [Where]

Study can the maps below and see which criteria our authors are using when they include Turkestan with the other countries of North Africa and Southwest Asia. Use this exercise to study the realm boundaries and to learn the basic characteristics of the realm.

• physical geography [wwclimat] [wwprec] [precip] [climate] [veget] [phys]
• cultural geography [lang] [relig]
• economic geography [oil] [wbgnpmap] [wwtrans] [wrpopgr]
• historical geography [wwhearth] [nwmslwor] [nwottom]
• population clusters [wwecumen] [nwecumen]

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Other Commonly Used Names [Where]

There are several other names that are often used for this realm. Each is somewhat accurate, but each one has a problem. See if you can find the problem associated with each name.

• "The Dry World"? [wwclimat] [precip]
  Yes, this realm is generally quite dry, but where do most people live [nwecumen]? Although drier than neighboring realms, should we consider "dryness" to be the primary criterion to define this realm when most of the people of the realm live in wetter areas?
• "An Arab Realm"? [lang]
  Arabic is a language spoken in much of this realm, but not all. Some geographers divide the realm into two sets of regions [nw2regs] with a line running from the northeast corner of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. To the north and east of this line we find that Arabic is NOT the primary language [lang]. Turkish is the major language in Turkey. And Arabic is not the primary language in Iran and Afghanistan. Also there are areas within the primarily Arabic speaking areas of the realm where other languages dominate. Israel is the primary example.
• "An Islamic Realm? [relig] [nwmslwor]
  There are several problems with this title for the realm. First, there are several countries with large Muslim populations that are not included in this realm [nwmslwor] (especially Pakistan which borders the realm, Bangladesh [ssrelig], and Indonesia [serelig] - the country with the largest Islamic population)

  Also, there are several areas within the realm that are not Islamic [relig]: Israel is primarily Jewish, and Christianity is a significant religion in Lebanon and Egypt.

• "Middle East'? [Where]
  Many people, and some geographers, refer to this realm as the "Middle East". The Middle East is in the middle of what? This term is Eurocentric, referring to east of Europe (Europe is in the "West"). Europeans sometimes refer to the "near east" (Turkey), the "middle east" (Egypt, Arabian Peninsula, Iran), and the "far east" (China, Japan). The authors of our textbook use the term Middle East for one REGION of the realm [nwmidea].

  Therefore, we will reserve the term "middle east" for the five countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Iraq.

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