What do you think are the main factors we use to classify the globe's regions? (Climate, language, race, religion etc.)? (vs.)

[markovian process]

There are many ways to classify the regions of the globe.
People often use continents like Africa, North America etc. but not everyone agrees on it.

Generally people will classify the globe into regions that are somewhat continental-scale but consider cultural, ethnic, or historical ties (eg. Latin America, the Middle East) or within a "continent" (eg. sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent).

What do you think generally are the most important ones? I'll name a few that come to mind.

Religion seems to be a major one in say the divide between Europe and the Middle East/Asia. Europe was defined really strongly as a civilization by the influence of the Church since the early Middle Ages and since the Middle East became mainly Islamic. So much so that being a Muslim country, like Turkey is seen at odds with being "European".

Language can be a divider, for instance, Latin America, in its very name is a region based on speakers of a language family, mainly Spanish and Portuguese. However, Asia shares not really much in common language-wise and neither does Africa, where individual villages can speak languages more different than Spanish or Portuguese within a small area across a hill or river from another.

Race can be used as a way of dividing regions so a term like sub-Saharan Africa is really only united by people who superficially seem alike by appearance (though it is supposed to be the genetically most diverse area since humans originated there) but language, culture etc. doesn't necessarily unify it.

Wealth or level of development is sometimes used, as attested by first world vs. third world, developed vs. developing nations. However, countries obviously have shifted categories quite a while even within a human lifetime. For instance, North Korea was once richer than South Korea but obviously look what it's like now.

Geopolitical reasons can also be used to divide regions of the globe. Such as the two sides of the Cold War, which were sometimes called the West vs. the East. However, these don't always match civilization or culture at all. Japan is more aligned with Americans politically than China but that doesn't negate the fact that East Asia is still a region of the globe united by culture. Cuba isn't non-Western by culture obviously just because it was on the other side of the Cold War's definition of Western.

Natural features like climate, animals, vegetation, continental plates, mountain ranges etc. be used as justifications for regions (eg. Australasia has a unique flora and fauna dominated by eucalyptus trees and marsupial animals) but they usually take a back seat to human factors since after all, it is us human beings that make the maps and humans care about dividing other humans!



Which ways of classifying the globe into regions do you think are the strongest factors?