Hi David,

Hope this helps :-)
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/pia/notes_for_contributors....

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Note added at 6 mins (2004-09-28 11:18:39 GMT)
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• Geographical locations are capitalised when they refer to places, lower case when they refer to relative positions, e.g. South America, Northern Ireland, the West, western thought, western Europe.

Source: see link above


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Note added at 8 mins (2004-09-28 11:20:39 GMT)
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Use capitals for the West, the Chinese population, South Africa, West Africa, Northern Ireland, South-East Asia (hyphenated)
Do not use capitals for direction words in western literature, western populations, the south of England, northern France

Source: http://www.josonline.org/gi/joss13.html

I would like to respond to your Asker's note.

Having lived in the East as a Westerner and dealt with problems of the North and South for as long as I have I am very in tune with the need for a proper understanding with regard to your final choice in this matter. Let me state first that I have never come across a fixed rule on the matter that has not been arbitrary, and then offer my own rule of thumb.

The word pairs I have provided above represent more than mere topographical concepts. They include issues of geography in the broadest sense of the term geography, including other areas of scientific inquiry such as economics, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, literature, medicine, and many others. They are capitalised to stress the important conceptual and empirical divides to which they so obviously refer when interpreted by anyone who has experienced the implied differences as something more than abstract notions.

Those, who would habitually write them small, so as to diminish the differences which they so obviously represent, appear out of touch with reality. Nevertheless, there are times when writing them small could certainly be justified, such as in a poem, a personal correspondence with someone from the other side, or in an essay written by someone caught in between.

My recommendation would be to take a firm stance -- either hard (reality) or soft (a likely very distant achievable dream) -- and then only deviate from it in separate works by different authors, when you wish to soften or harden, respectively, your interpretation of what the author has written.

Your question may be simple, but the answer is likely far more difficult than the title of your source term suggests. Personally I no longer struggle with the issue.



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Note added at 2 hrs 19 mins (2004-09-28 13:31:52 GMT)
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As an example of the arbitrary way in which those who would make rules make them arbitrarily, consider Annika Light\'s example -- the West. I challenge anyone on this list to state in both a clear and convincing manner the geographical region implied by the term West.

I'd say it's up to the author (depends on hoe she treats the terms)

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Note added at 3 mins (2004-09-28 11:15:58 GMT)
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hoe>how, sorry

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Note added at 4 hrs 54 mins (2004-09-28 16:06:57 GMT)
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I\'d agree with Annika\'s formulation: \"Geographical locations are capitalised when they refer to places, lower case when they refer to relative positions, e.g. South America, Northern Ireland, the West, western thought, western Europe.\"