Eastern world

The term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems of Asia or geographically the countries and cultures east of Europe, north of Oceania. The term is usually not used by non-Europeans since this Eastern world is a varied, complex and dynamic region, hard to generalize, and although these countries and regions have many common threads running through them, historically they never needed to define themselves collectively against another entity, real or superficial.

Traditionally, This includes Central Asia (comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), the Far East (comprising mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan in East Asia; Russian Far East in North Asia; plus Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in Southeast Asia), the Middle East (aka the Near East) or Western Asia (comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen), Siberia (aka North Asia), and South Asia (mainly the countries on the Indian subcontinent, comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, plus the British Indian Ocean Territory and the island countries of the Maldives and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean).