格鲁吉亚

欧洲阳台

Regardless of its small “European” segment, Georgia is conventionally classified as an Asian country. Most Georgians, however, resent this designation, cogently arguing on cultural, historical, and geopolitical grounds that Georgia should be classified as part of Europe. The National Atlas of Georgia (2018) evocatively describes Georgia as “the balcony of Europe” (p. X). As noted in a Wikipedia article, “Despite its geography, Georgia is considered a European country geopolitically because of its historical, cultural, ethnical, and political ties to the continent.”

In my own view, “Asia” is an essentially meaningless category, and I therefore use the term only in regard to geographical discourse, rather than in regard to geography itself. Southwest Asia, on the other hand, is a serviceable regional designation–but it does not include Georgia (or Armenia). In what world region should these countries therefore be placed? Europe does seem to be the only realistic choice. For historical discussions, however, it might be best to consider the Caucasus as a world region in its own right, one that includes not just Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, but also the greater north Caucasus and perhaps even Iranian Azerbaijan and northeastern Turkey. The final map posted here, by Georgian cartographer Manana Kurtubadze, nicely captures the physical geography of this expanded Caucasus region.

尽管格鲁吉亚的“欧洲”部分很小，但通常被归类为亚洲国家。然而，大多数格鲁吉亚人对这一称呼深恶痛绝，他们以文化、历史和地缘政治为由，认为格鲁吉亚应该被归类为欧洲的一部分。《格鲁吉亚国家地图集》（2018年）令人回味地将格鲁吉亚描述为“欧洲的阳台”（第 X 页）。正如维基百科文章中所指出的，“尽管格鲁吉亚具有地理特征，但由于其与欧洲大陆的历史，文化，种族和政治联系，格鲁吉亚在地缘政治上被认为是欧洲国家。

在我自己看来，“亚洲”本质上是一个毫无意义的范畴，因此我只在地理话语中使用这个词，而不是地理本身。另一方面，西南亚是一个可用的区域名称 - 但它不包括格鲁吉亚（或亚美尼亚）。因此，这些国家应该放在世界哪个区域？欧洲似乎是唯一现实的选择。然而，对于历史讨论，最好将高加索视为一个独立的世界区域，不仅包括格鲁吉亚，亚美尼亚和阿塞拜疆，还包括大北高加索，甚至伊朗阿塞拜疆和土耳其东北部。格鲁吉亚制图师马纳纳·库尔图巴泽（Manana Kurtubadze）在这里发布的最终地图很好地捕捉了这个扩大的高加索地区的自然地理。^[1]

高加索的概念独立是解构亚洲的一步，格鲁吉亚作为「欧洲阳台」，一直被放在亚洲室内。