Template talk:Middle East

Definition of Middle East
Hm. I don't think this is a good Mediawiki page - "Middle East" is an extremely ambiguous term. WhisperToMe 04:52, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think this template is a good idea. "Middle East" is a very loose definition. WhisperToMe 19:44, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dependent territories / special territories
There's currently a discussion at template talk:East Asia over whether the official name of territory, namely special administrative region, and which sovereign State the territories listed belong to, have to be specified in the East Asia template. Please feel free to join the discussion and express your opinion. &mdash; Instantnood 11:46, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Iraqi Kurdistan
We do not include every "autonomous region" on templates. As per Special administrative region (People's Republic of China) Hong Kong has a "High degree of autonomy" for the following 50 years. Hong Kong gave away soverinty which will go away in roughly 50 years (and will be removed from the template).

All autonomous regions and etc in various templates (such as Template:Europe) have a distinctive level of autonomy from the counties they depend on if they depend on them at all. Some are simply members with the condition of being able to be exploited (Svalbard).

Iraqi Kurdistan is just another member of the 3 state Iraqi federal structure. United States has 50 of those, we do not list all. Hence why Iraqi Kurdistan does not need to be in this template as it has no specialty.

-- Cat out 03:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Iraqi Kurdistan also has a high degree of autonomy, including self-governance (Kurdistan Regional Government ), local Legislation (Kurdistan Parliament) and local constitution. Hong Kong was never sovereign, it was part of the British Empire and then China. There is no 3 state structure in Iraq right now. People just talk about it, and there is some provisions in the Iraqi constitution providing such rights, but as of now there is no other autonomous region in Iraq, i.e., there is only one autonomous region in Iraq which is Iraqi Kurdistan, the rest of Iraq is governed by the central government in Baghdad.Heja Helweda 23:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Hong Kong was a Crown colony much like canada, australia etc. It was given the option of sovernty and it chose being a part of china... There is an entier article on the issue Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong. According to the article Hong Kong "retains its own legal system, currency, customs policy, cultural delegation, international sport teams, and immigration laws", can same be said about the iraqi kurdistan?
 * OK so people talk about it hence it aint even official... The Kurdish parliament is nothing any more special than your average U.S. states State governments. We do not list random autonomous regions unless there is a good reason. So far you haven't cited a good reason.
 * -- Cat out 02:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Iraqi Kurdistan situation is official, it is mentioned separately and specifically in the Iraq's constitution. As for the special circumstances, according to the Iraqi constitution, central (federal) government cannot send troops to Iraqi Kurdistan without prior permission from Kurdistan's parliament. This makes it different than the case of US states. Take a look here ...any future movement of Iraq's army into Kurdistan is conditioned on the consent of Kurdistan's president and parliament. and here ...Kurdistan law prohibits the Iraqi Army from coming into Kurdistan without permission from the Kurdistan parliament.Heja Helweda 03:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I am uninterested in discussing iraqi politics with you. Until kurdistan gains/claims its independence, I have no reason to let it stay on this template. US states have greater autonomy than "Iraqi Kurdistan" -- Cat out 23:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Palestinian territories also has a "High degree of autonomy". Either we include all autonomies or none... Amoruso 21:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I so far have removed numerous autonomous regions. So long as a region does not declare itself to be soverign (defacto or not) I remove them. So yes we should have none. -- Cat out 21:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Turkey really in Mideast?
It's disputed if Turkey is in middle east, Turkey's Asian lands also called as, "Minor Asia"

Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a region at the crossroads of Central Asia, Middle East, and South Asia. Also, linguastically, over half of the population speaks Farsi (which is a Middle Eastern language). And culturally (besides religion) they have many similiarties. Also, phenotypically, probably half of them are indistinguishable. And it is a part of the Iranian Plateau, which in this article is described as part of the Middle East. But the main point is the language and culture. With these factors in mind, can we consider Afghanistan at least PARTLY Middle East?? (personally, I consider it to be a part of all 3 of Central Asia, South Asia, and Middle East)

and please see the article Tajiks to learn about the ethnic group of Afghanistan that would be considered Middle Eastern.

Palestinian territories
I've reinstated the Palestinian Territories as they were in this template for a long time. Their situation is quite dissimilar from Iraqi Kurdistan, which is internationally recognised as part of a sovereign state and claimed by that state as its territory. The Palestinian Territories are not internationally recognised as part of any sovereign state and with the exception of East Jerusalem are not claimed by any sovereign state. Any arguments regarding the inclusion of Iraqi Kurdistan are not necessarily applicable to the OPT. Palmiro | Talk 23:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Now it is, need to change that! - Sam

Merge suggestion

 * It has been suggested that this page ... be merged with Southwest Asia

Seems a good idea to me, given the large overlap in content... Would Countries in the Middle East and/or Southwest Asia suffice as the merged template's name...? Regards, David Kernow (talk) 07:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Standardization suggestion - please contribute!
A suggestion for a standard approach to the naming, titling and sections of this and similar templates has been made here – please visit and share your thoughts! Thanks, David Kernow (talk) 03:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Pakistan
There seems to be a slow editwar going on with Pakistan being added and reverted as occasionally considered to be part of the middle east. I have never heard this apart from in this template. Does any one agree with Effer? GB 03:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

and now Kurdistan has appeared too! Isn't this part of Central Asia? GB 11:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Kurdistan doesn't claim to be a country nor is it recognized to be one. So I do not see any reason why we should claim it is. -- Cat chi? 14:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Greece
Why was Greece listed? As far as I know, Greece has never been considered part of the Middle East.Hajji Piruz 05:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC) Hey Greece Was added Beacause Culuturally and Historically Greece Is Closer To the East, and all of Greeces History and Empire and interactions were in the middle east, Long ago Greece , Egypt , Syria , Lebanon , Jordan were all Greek Speaking Orthodox Christian Countries United before the arab conquests.... and parts of Greece are in Asia So Greece is Considered Greater Middle Eastern Just like Our sister Greek Country Cyprus , Greece is involved with all the middle eastern affairs and the arab countries ask for our help all the time and alot of Christian Arabs are GREEK Orthodox like us so there our brothers .. we help out with everything we can and when ever they need our help ,WERE VERY REALLY CLOSE and Greece is the cross roads of 3 continents Asia, Europe , Africa , Only Politically Greece Is Western and By Religion ( Christian ) But everything else were are like you guys !! Greece has a culture similar to the Middle East for example foods, music and culture. To Clarify! There are no parts of Greece that are in Asia, they are not Muslim and Don't Speak Arabic like the Majority of the Middle east. Their Alphabet is Greek not Arabic Script, like most of the Middle East. Modern Greece cannot be compared to any country in the middle east as theses countries are dictatorships or influenced by Islam and are very conservative as opposed to Greece which is quite liberal in most aspects of life! Their Main link to the Middle east is from the Anatolian Greeks who were expelled from Turkey! If you start including Greece in the Middle east, you may as well include Italy as it was part of Rome that Controlled the Middle east for Centuries and France and Britain and the countries directly bordering Greece like Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia which were strongly influenced by Turkey and have greater Muslim populations! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.32.148.164 (talk) 09:13, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with this above! - Sam

Sometimes included
Well I've taken the bull by the horns and deleted the Sometime Included section. No way are Morrocco, Libya etc. in the Middle East by any definition. Yes, it is a common misconception to think they are, but we should not list common misconception as fact. Anjouli (talk) 08:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Good for you. It needed doing.Halfmast (talk) 08:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit request
Hi. Please remove the category "Navigational templates by region" form the template code, as it is now deprecated. Sardanaphalus (talk) 13:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that seems to be correct. It looks like Category:Region templates is the correct tree, and this template is already in a subcategory of that tree. I've removed the category. Cool Hand Luke 15:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Sardanaphalus (talk) 18:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

TRNC
As a region unrecognised by the U.N., why should the TRNC be included on a template with fully recognised states? Placing it here would be the same as putting one of the break-away regions in Georgia on an Asia or European template because they are recognised by Russia. I think it should be removed in order to keep the template as a fair representation of what the UN considers to be recognised, legal states. 82.45.225.4 (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Deletion
This is unnecessary. Middle East is a controversial, ambiguous term. There should be Southwest/West Asian countries template separate from North African ones which in turn should be separated from Horn of Africa etc -- Mttll (talk) 05:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree and this template is original research, request deletion. Izzedine (talk) 03:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Centralised discussion
A discussion is taking place here on how best to incorporate unrecognised states into a navigation template listing sovereign states and other entities. Some editors have suggested that including such states at all is pushing an imbalanced point of view. Others have made the same argument for not including them. Various conciliatory methods have been proposed, but have not acheived consensus. Editors should note that the outcome of this discussion will most likely have implications on this template aswell. For more information, please have a look at this casefile, or see the before-mentioned discussion page. Night w (talk) 04:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger into template:Middle East topic
You are welcome to participate in discussion over merger of this template into template:Middle East topic; the reason is obviously dublicity.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:07, 21 September 2013 (UTC) Withdrawn.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

listgap
per WP:LISTGAP, the countries should be in a single list, with no arbitrary divisions into subgroups. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 23:08, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note that this template might soon be deleted per deletion of template:Countries in Western Asia.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:23, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, we should use one list here. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  01:20, 29 September 2013 (UTC)