Glossary of Regions and States

Glossary of Regions and States

It is useful at the outset to clarify the regional terminology that will be used throughout this book. We have tried to limit the reader’s need to master a lot of geographic terminology. Readers should have a basic familiarity with a modern map of the world.

Continents

We will follow common boundaries here. The Panama Canal separates North and South America. The Suez Canal separates Africa from Asia. The boundary between Europe and Asia follows the Bosporus, Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea, and Ural Mountains.

At times it is useful to speak of combinations of continents: The Americas (North and South America), Eurasia (Europe and Asia), or the Eastern Hemisphere (Europe and Asia and Africa). We will not, though, use the phrases “New World,” and “Old World,” for these privilege the history of the Eastern Hemisphere over that of the Americas.

Regions

The United States government during the Cold War fostered “Area Studies” programs at American universities. It identified eight key regions: East Asia (originally called Far East), Southeast Asia, Africa, Middle East (originally Near East), Latin America, South Asia, Russia, and Europe. Russia would be expanded to include the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. These regions are now fairly widely accepted within World History and beyond, though world historians note that the borders are often fuzzy and change through time. But of course when we refer to any region in the text the reader should generally appreciate that whatever point we are making is unlikely to apply everywhere within that region and nowhere outside of it.

East Asia generally comprises China, Korea, and Japan. Note that the borders of China have changed a lot during recorded history.

Southeast Asia comprises the nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), stretching from Burma through Vietnam and including the island nations of Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Middle East has vaguer boundaries. We will generally mean this to include only the present-day states of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Iraq, but at times the region has been thought to include parts of present-day Turkey, Iran, and Egypt. We will often refer to Anatolia, a region that largely comprises the Asian territories of modern Turkey. We will occasionally refer to the Levant, the eastern coastal area of the Mediterranean. In early chapters we will refer to Mesopotamia, the region of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers which largely falls within the modern state of Iraq.

South Asia refers to the area comprising the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Note that the modern state of Iran falls between the regions of the Middle East and South Asia: the historical name of this region was Persia.

Latin America generally comprises all countries from Mexico to Argentina in the Americas – almost all of which have Spanish or Portuguese as national languages today. The Caribbean islands are usually not included, though political references to Latin America may well apply equally well to especially the former Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. Central America refers to the region between Mexico and Colombia. Mesoamerica refers to Mexico and the northern parts of Central America; this term is applied earlier in history to refer to a region of cities and states such as those of the Maya and Aztecs.

We will not often refer to Eastern Europe, but when we do we generally mean the region of mostly Slavic-speaking nations (today) stretching from Poland and the Baltic states south to Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia, and eastward to Russia and Belorussia.

We will often refer to North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, with the (shifting) area of the Sahara Desert serving as the boundary between them. We will occasionally occur to the Sahel, the region comprising the southern fringes of that desert. In early chapters we will refer to Nubia, a region along the Nile to the south of ancient Egypt which today would straddle the border between Egypt and Sudan. West Africa is bounded on the north by the Sahara and on the south by the Gulf of Guinea. East Africa refers to the coastal lands along the Indian Ocean.

One region that is missing from the government list but will figure often in these pages is Central Asia. This certainly comprises the area of the present-day “Stans”: Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. But in earlier times nomadic peoples ranged over large areas of what are now Russia, the Ukraine, and China, and thus early references to Central Asia as an area of nomadic activity include large areas of these three modern states. Mongolia should also be considered part of Central Asia. Since this earlier sense of Central Asia includes the region north of the Black Sea now thought to lie within Europe, some scholars have lately begun to refer to “Central Eurasia.” We will, though, maintain the more common terminology.

Central Asia is bounded on the north by Siberia. In this book we use the term to refer to lands north of the areas of agriculture or nomadism.

We will also often refer to the Pacific Islands. The Philippines are only included in this region if explicitly mentioned. All other islands east of New Guinea excepting those just off the coast of the Americas are included. Polynesia comprises the islands within a triangle extending from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island.

We will also refer often to the world’s oceans and some of the larger seas and rivers and lakes and mountain ranges.

States

We will often for convenience identify a place of historical significance in terms of which modern state that place now lies. The reader should of course remain cognizant that political boundaries have shifted often over time.

Note that we will occasionally clarify the boundaries of regions or states when these are quite different from contemporary usage and that difference is important for the point being made.