Asian Cup Football Geography: 4 teams in the Asian Cup, 3 from Old Persian, with the exception of Palestine

In the 2023 Asian Cup, there are four countries with stan behind their names: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Palestine.

One of these stans is in the same group as the Chinese team and is also the opponent of the Chinese team in the first match of the Asian Cup - Tajikistan.

So, why does the Asian Cup have four teams, all with the suffix Stan?

Three stans in Central Asia: from Old Persian

Three of the four teams participating in the Asian Cup are located in Central Asia – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Let's start with the history of Central Asia. There are five stans in Central Asia, and the word stan is derived from the ancient Persian language. "-stan" is the root of a place name used to denote a relatively large area, which later evolved to refer to a place inhabited by a certain ethnic group, and is used to this day.

This category of words is also found in other parts of Central Asia and South Asia. For example, Afghanistan, whose name is Afghanistan and ends in stan, comes from the ancient Persian word that translates to people in the mountains.

The same is true of the South Asian nation of Pakistan, which translates to holy land.

In the 10th century BC, the Aryans living on the shores of the Caspian Sea migrated to the Iranian plateau. Ancient Persian is an Indo-European language family that closely resembles many of today's European languages (excluding Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and Basque).

In 2000 B.C., some of them migrated to the Indian subcontinent, five Central Asian countries, and present-day Xinjiang in China. Their distant branches included the Sogdians, the Usun, and others.

During the Han Dynasty in China, when the Central Plains civilization in the East and the Roman civilization in the West flourished at the same time, Central Asia was the hub of the convergence of the two civilizations.

Silk, papermaking, and porcelain from the East were introduced from Central Asia to the West. Wines, tulips, and brass from the West were also introduced to the East through Central Asia.

After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, its control over Central Asia gradually weakened. The state founded by the ancient Persians faced a new threat - the Turkic people from the Mongolian plateau.

The primitive Turkic people belonged to the yellow race and spoke the Turkic language. In the 7th century AD, the Turks were defeated in battles with the Sui and Tang dynasties of the Central Plains Dynasty and continued to migrate westward. occupies the most fertile Fergana Basin.

In the process of continuous expansion and migration, it gradually merged with the local Indo-European peoples of Central Asia and became a yellow-white mestizo. These mestizos, by virtue of their strength, occupied the most fertile land in the Ferghana Basin, squeezing the Tajiks, the only descendants of the Persians, into the mountains.

Although the land was mainly occupied by the Turks. But they more or less accepted the influence of Persian culture. One of them is the use of "-stan" that was accepted by the Turks.

Later, these Turkic-speaking peoples divided into four major branches: Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz (the ethnic minority in China is called the Kyrgyz), and Turkmen, whose settlements are the source of the four Central Asian stans.

Tajikistan, which is in the same group as the Chinese team, is an exception. This is because the official languages of the other stans are all Turkic languages. The Tajik language spoken in Tajikistan belongs to the East Iranian language family of the Indo-European language family. History and culture are closely linked to Persia (Iran).

Tajik

Palestinian stans come from a different source

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are all located in Central Asia, and their name suffix stan comes from the Old Persian language. Palestine from Western Asia is named Palestine, ending with stine instead of stan in Persian.

Thus, the name Palestine and several other stans (including Pakistan), although they all end in stan, have very different origins.

The word Palestine comes from many sources. The generally accepted theory comes from the documents of the ancient Assyrian Empire. In the ancient Assyrian Empire, the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea was called Pilaschtu. Later, it was transformed into Palestine by ancient Greek and Roman cultures. i.e. the land of the Phoenicians.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus used the name "Palestine in Syria" to describe the coast from present-day Lebanon to Egypt. The name was introduced into Latin by the ancient Romans.

On the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea at that time, there were also states founded by the Jews - Judea and Israel. The Jews referred to this region as Canaan.

Between the 1st and 1st centuries BC, the Romans occupied the land. In 73 C.E., the Jews in Canaan staged a great revolt against the Romans. The revolt was suppressed by the Romans, and the Jews were forced into exile.

In an effort to eliminate Jewish influence, the Roman Empire began to use the term Palestine to refer to the region in general, but the definition of the region was vague, and at least ten or more names were used at the same time. As a result, the extent of the Palestinian areas has historically become a confusing account.

In the 7th century, the Arab Empire occupied the area, and a large number of Arabs moved to Palestine, where they became the main ethnic group. In the late period of the Arab Empire and after its demise, Palestine was occupied by the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire for a long time.

The establishment of the modern Palestinian sphere began after World War I. After World War I, the British occupied Jordan. It is bounded by the Jordan River, the eastern part of the Jordan River is called Jordan, and the western part of the Jordan River is called Palestine.

At this time, the Zionist wave was rising and rising, and in order to achieve the goal of occupying the area, the Jews were encouraged to return to the Palestinian areas. In 1919, Jews made up about 9 percent of the Palestinian population and held 2.5 percent of the total land area of Palestine.

When the British occupied it, it was still called Palestine. In 1928, the region joined FIFA under the name "Eretz Israel/Palestine Football Association".

After World War II, the land conflict between Jews and Arabs was referred to the United Nations for discussion. In accordance with General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, Palestine was divided into Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish state is Israel, and the Arab state is the Palestinian state.

Thus, Palestine today is divided into two main concepts. The Palestinian region refers to the sum of the areas of West Jordan, including present-day Israel and Palestine.

The state of Palestine participating in the Asian Cup (initially denied recognition until 1988) refers mainly to Arab countries located in the Middle East region of West Asia. The territory originally allocated by the United Nations to the Palestinian State has been encroached upon by Israel, and only two parts remain: Gaza and the West Bank.

Of these, the Gaza Strip occupies only 6 per cent of the area and 50 per cent of the population. The West Bank covers 94 percent of the country's area and 50 percent of its population.

The Gaza Strip is under the de facto control of Hamas and is an entire area. The actual control of the Palestinian Government is not the entire West Bank. According to the Oslo II Agreement signed by Israel and Palestine in 1995, the West Bank was divided into three zones.

Zones A and B (to Palestine) account for only about 39 per cent of the West Bank. The rest of Area C, which accounts for 61 percent of the West Bank, belongs to Israel.

Moreover, Palestinian-controlled areas A and B have been cut into 165 enclaves by Israel, which are not contiguous like Swiss cheese. For this reason, the West Bank region of Palestine is also known as the "cheese map".