Middle East

Middle East is a geographical term not clearly defined. In English it refers to the southern areas of Asia from Iran, South Asia and Myanmar. The country thus lie between the Middle East ( the former Ottoman Empire ) and the Far East ( East Indies, China, Japan).

Conceptual delimitation in international usage

In Arabic, is meant by the term Middle East (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط ash- Sharq al - Awsat, DMG aš šarqu - l - Awsat ) the institution designated in German as the Middle East region.

In English, the German Middle East is under Middle East in the narrower sense also understood. In the wider, cultural and geographical sense, the English Greater Middle East North Africa comprises to the southern edge of the Sahara, from Mauritania in the west to Sudan in the east, and also in Asia, the entire area of the Arabian Peninsula in the south and from Asia Minor in the north to the Iranian Highlands up to and including Pakistan.

In Spanish, however, we find the term Middle East with the usual definition in German (according to RAE: el Oriente Medio ).