Eastern world

The Eastern world, also known as the East or historically the Orient, is an umbrella term for various cultures or social structures, nations and philosophical systems, which vary depending on the context. It most often includes Asia, the Mediterranean region and the Arab world, specifically in historical (pre-modern) contexts, and in modern times in the context of Orientalism. The Eastern world is often seen as a counterpart to the Western world.

The various regions included in the term are varied, hard to generalize, and do not have a single shared common heritage. Although the various parts of the Eastern world share many common threads, most notably being in the "Global South", they have never historically defined themselves collectively. The term originally had a literal geographic meaning, referring to the eastern part of the Old World, contrasting the cultures and civilizations of Asia with those of Western Europe (or the Western world).

Conceptually, the boundary between east and west is more cultural and historical, rather than geographical, as a result of which Australia and New Zealand, which were founded as British settler colonies, are typically grouped with the Western world despite being geographically closer to the Eastern world, while the Central Asian nations of the former Soviet Union are grouped in the East. Other than much of Asia and Africa, Western Europe has absorbed almost all of the societies of the Americas, and Oceania into the Western world because of settler colonialism.

Countries such as the Philippines, which are geographically located in the Eastern world, may be considered Western in some aspects of their society, culture and politics due to immigration and historical cultural influences from the United States and Western Europe.

Overview

As with other regions of the world, Asia consists of many different, extremely diverse countries, ethnic groups and cultures.