That extremely vaguely defined cultural, political and economic area, as in the phrases "Western democracy", "Western media" (including Western Animation on this very site), and "Western militaries". Traditionally, European nations and their former colonies have defined the world in terms of cardinal points as follows:
- The West: Essentially, Western nations are those founded on Greco-Roman philosophical and scientific traditions. At minimum it encompasses Western Europe, with Belgium, France and Germany at its core, plus the Anglosphere nations (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) except for those in The Caribbean, Belize and Guyana. Other European nations' status as being part of The West roughly correlates with their distance from Brussels — nearly everyone would consider countries like The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy to be Western while there might be just a tad more hesitancy for a country from Eastern Europe or the Balkans (i.e., countries of the former Soviet Bloc). If the context of the discussion is global, then the answer would still most likely be "yes". Greece and the Nordic countries, despite their distance from Brussels, are nearly always considered part of The West, the former due to their ancient forefathers laying the foundations of modern Western philosophy. Russia may or may not be included due to their sort-of-in-between position relative to The East; Turkey is in a similar spot as the historical bridge between Europe and The Middle East. Countries with extensive cultural influence from the "core" West may also be included, whether that influence came from direct colonial control (e.g., Latin America, the Caribbean, and South Africa) or just heavy influence and maintenance of a close affiliation (e.g., Japan, and South Korea).
- The East: Nowadays, the term usually means East Asia, North Asia (essentially Russia), and Southeast Asia. It sometimes also includes South Asia. In older times (The Middle Ages through about the 19th Century) its use in Europe denoted anywhere past the traditionally Christian areas of the Balkans, leading to two or three subdivisions (Eurocentric, since the "Near East", "Middle East", and "Far East" terms are in relation to their distance from Europe):
- The Near East/The Middle East: Depending on which Western country you were in and what year it was, one or both of these terms may have been used to maybe denote the same area or neighboring but distinct ones. The British Foreign Office in the 19th Century drew them up as two distinct (though possibly overlapping) areas, with Near East being whatever parts that were ruled by the Ottoman Empire (including its possessions in the Balkans, North Africa, and Mesopotamia); the term "Middle East" got greater attention in 1902 thanks to American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who defined it as between the Arabian Peninsula and India. This definition includes what is generally called Central Asia nowadays. At the time the British and Russian Empires were playing their Great Game for Afghanistan).
- The Far East: Pretty much always a distinct subset of the historical East, the term is at least as old as the 16th Century (King John III of Portugal used it to describe India). Almost always includes China and those areas heavily influenced by Chinese culture (aka, the Sinosphere). So, it definitely includes Japan and Korea, and frequently includes Mongolia and Vietnam. It usually also includes (the rest of) Southeast Asia as far south as Timor-Leste and the Russian Far East (though not all of Russia). It sometimes also includes South Asia.
As you can see with some countries being listed as both in The East and The West, demarcating the line between them is not clear-cut and will depend on the context of the discussion.
Of course, The West is not one uniform entity and there are considerable variations in world view and media within. The USA is notably different from many of the countries of Europe, with constitutional prohibitions on government interference in church operations rather than a state religion that no one pays attention to anymore. It also has the death penalty, along with other views that are seen as extremist in much of Europe and Canada (and vice-versa).
Modern scholars do use the East and West terms, but are just as likely to talk about "the North" and "the South," meaning what used to be called the "developed world" (the West, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc.) and the "developing world" (everything else) respectively. At the start of the Cold War, the whole "East vs. West" thing took on an ideological flavor, with the East being the communists (the Soviet Union and China following the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War) and the West being the capitalists (the United States and Western Europe). The Three Worlds Theory ("First World" the West(-aligned), "Second World" the communist countries, "Third World" everyone else and economically undeveloped) arose alongside it in academic circles, but as time went on following the collapse of the Soviet Union (and thus no more "Second World") a related but more cardinal-direction division of the world took hold with the idea of a "Global South" and "Global North".
- The South will usually mean at least Latin America (sometimes considered West due to its partially Western cultural heritage and its close ties with the United States); adding Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries in Asia (including those in the Middle East) is what makes this South Globalnote . Australia and New Zealand are not a part of the South. The "Global South" concept has had more use in practice (for instance "South-South cooperation" between two countries both considered developing economies rather than a developing country working with an already-developed one).
- There really isn't as much of a North in this parlance except as a contrast to whatever isn't considered South, whatever the Ninth Doctor may state.
Not to be confused with The Wild West.
