Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. The term Western Asia is sometimes used in the United Nations subregion geoscheme and in writings about the archeology and the late prehistory of the region. Unlike the Middle East, which is broadly defined to include several North African countries such as Egypt, Southwestern Asia is a purely geographical term reserved for the southwestern extremities of the Asian continent.
Arabic Electronic Dictionary, Bosnian Electronic Dictionary, Hebrew Electronic Dictionary
Southwest Asia is partly coterminous with the traditional European names the Middle East and the Near East, both of which describe geographical position in relation to Europe rather than location within Asia. Because of this perceived Eurocentrism, international organizations such as the United Nations, have replaced Middle East and Near East with Western Asia.
Pakistan Electronic Dictionary,Turkish Electronic Dictionary
The United Nations considers Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan to be in Western Asia. However, these countries lie in regions that straddle both Asia and Europe and have sociopolitical ties to both.
The Asian part of the Arab world is called the Mashreq in Arabic.
