A 16-pointcompass rose withwest highlighted in black
West is one of the four cardinal directions orpoints of the compass. It is the opposite direction fromeast and is the direction in which theSun sets on theEarth.
The word "west" is aGermanic word passed into someRomance languages (ouest in French,oest in Catalan,ovest in Italian,oeste in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root*wes reduced from*wes-pero 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπεροςhesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'.[1] Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latinoccidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב (maarav) 'west' from עֶרֶב (erev) 'evening'.
To go west using a compass fornavigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same direction as true north) one needs to set abearing orazimuth of 270°.
West is the direction opposite that of theEarth's rotation on its axis, and is therefore the general direction towards which theSun appears to constantly progress and eventually set. This is not true on the planetVenus, which rotates in the opposite direction from the Earth (retrograde rotation). To an observer on the surface of Venus, the Sun would rise inthe west and set in the east[2] although Venus's opaque clouds prevent observing the Sun from the planet's surface.[3]
In a map with north at the top, west is on the left.
Due to the direction of the Earth's rotation, the prevailing wind in many places in themiddle latitudes (i.e. between 35 and 65 degreeslatitude) is from the west, known as thewesterlies.[4][5]
The phrase "the West" is often spoken in reference to theWestern world, which includes theEuropean Union (also theEFTA countries), the United Kingdom, the Americas, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and (in part) South Africa.
In ChineseBuddhism, the West represents movement toward theBuddha or enlightenment (seeJourney to the West). The ancientAztecs believed that the West was the realm of the great goddess ofwater, mist, andmaize. InAncient Egypt, the West was considered to be the portal to thenetherworld, and is the cardinal direction regarded in connection withdeath, though not always with a negative connotation. Ancient Egyptians also believed that theGoddessAmunet was a personification of the West.[6] TheCelts believed that beyond the western sea off the edges of all maps lay theOtherworld, or Afterlife.
