What is the difference between higashi (ひがし) and touyou (とうよう)?


It says that higashi is translated as "East" , and touyou is translated as
"the East". But since I can only find books with Japanese - English and I'm
not native English speaker, I still don't understand.




[東]{ひがし} (Higashi) is a general term for the direction east. It is also used
to refer to the eastern part of countries/areas, for example in:

  * [東日本]{ひがしにほん} (Higashi-Nihon) eastern Japan, a term often heard in weather forecasts
  * the country of East Timor: [東]{ひがし}ティモール.

[東洋]{とうよう} (Tōyō) refers to 'the East' as a part of the world / the eastern
part of Eurasia. According to
[Daijirin](https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E6%9D%B1%E6%B4%8B) this usually
means countries like Japan, Korea, China, India, Thailand etc. This is opposed
to 'the West' ([西洋]{せいよう}), which means Europe and America.

