So. Depending on where you are in the world there is a geologically direction. The Eastern Hemosphere. The Western Hemosphere. The middle east. So on so on. So what I wanna know is what exactly do these places start? Like where is the center? I know country to country it will be different. Like Texas is the Midwest in America but I’m sure it’s not the Midwest of the planet. Where do these places start geologically? Specifically for Earth and the US.
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It has nothing to do with geology (“study of the earth”) and everything to do with geography (“writing of the earth”). And quite usually refers to where the sun rises and where it sets, *from one’s perspective*. Simply put, , the names are just kept from the civilization that first named them and who defined places according to their own position.
For example, for the Romans, Rome was the middle of the planet, and that is why they called their east “Oriens”, literally rising sun, and their west “occidens”, also literally setting sun .
The Arabs called the eastern part of the empire Al-mashrik, also literally where the sun rises, and the western part al-maghrebi, where sun sets.
The Japanese literally called themselves rising sun, that is to the east, as they compared their position to China. China itself, in Chinese 中国, is literally the country in the middle (of the earth).
And so, for the midwest, Americans just named it according to their own geography. It is definitely west of the center of the US of the time (i.e the east coast), but not as western as California.
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