First World
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The terms First World, Second World, and Third World were used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories. The three terms did not arise simultaneously. After World War II, people began to speak of the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries as two major blocs, often using such terms as the "Western bloc" and the "Eastern bloc." The two "worlds" were not numbered. It was eventually pointed out that there were a great many countries that fit into neither category, and in the 1950s this latter group came to be called the Third World. It then began to seem that there ought to be a "First World" and a "Second World" (see Third World for a fuller treatment of the history of the terms).
Eventually, it became common practice to refer to nations within the Western European and United States' sphere of influence (e.g., the NATO countries) as the First World. Besides North America (USA and Canada) and Western Europe, the First World also included other industrialized capitalist countries such as Japan and some of the former British colonies, particularly Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
There were a number of countries that did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, and the Republic of Ireland, who chose to be neutral. Finland was under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence but was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact. Austria was under the United States' sphere of influence, but in 1955, when the country became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral. Turkey, which joined NATO in 1952, was not predominantly in Western Europe and was not industrialized. Spain did not join NATO until 1982, towards the end of the Cold War and after the death of the authoritarian dictator Francisco Franco.
In modern usage, after the end of the Cold War, the term First World has come to denote the 'developed' Industrialized-Capitalistic nations that in 2000 had a higher GDP per capita than $15,000, as stated by the World Bank. This would include the United States, Canada, Japan, the countries of the European Union (in 2000), Taiwan, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Additionally, Singapore and Hong Kong may be described in these terms but they are exceptions as these have particular characteristics not representative of a country. The World Bank also denotes these as "High Income Economies."[1]
In recent years, as many "developing" countries have industrialized, the term Fourth World has been coined to refer to countries that have lagged behind and still lack industrial infrastructure.
See also
de:Erste Welt eo:Unua Mondo nl:Eerste Wereld pl:Pierwszy Świat pt:Primeiro mundo simple:First World sk:Prvý svet sv:Första världen zh:第一世界