The Third World: Its Origin, Meaning, Definition and Its Problems. "Third World" are all the other countries, today often used to roughly describe the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The term Third World includes as well capitalist (e.g., Venezuela) and communist (e.g., North Korea) countries, as very rich (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and very poor (e.g., Mali) countries. Third World Countries classified by various indices: their Political Rights and Civil Liberties, the Gross National Income (GNI) and Poverty of countries, the Human Development of countries (HDI), and the Freedom of Information within a country. What makes a nation third world? Despite ever revolving definitions, the concept of the third world serves to identify countries that suffer from high infant mortality, low economic development, high levels of poverty, low utilization of natural resources, and heavy dependence on industrialized nations. These are the developing and technologically less advanced nations of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. Third world nations tend to have economies dependent on the developed countries and are generally characterized as poor with unstable governments and having high rates of population growth, illiteracy, and disease. A key factor is the lack of a middle class — with impoverished millions in a vast lower economic class and a very small elite upper class controlling the country's wealth and resources. Most third world nations also have a very large foreign debt. What does ‘Third World’ mean: "Third World" is a phrase commonly used to describe a developing nation, but actually started as term used to describe a country's allegiance. A Third World country is a country whose views are not aligned with NATO and capitalism or the Soviet Union and communism. The use of the term "Third World" started during the Cold War and was used to identify which of three categories the countries of the world aligned with. The First World meant that you aligned with NATO and capitalism, and the Second World meant you supported Communism and the Soviet Union. BREAKING DOWN 'Third World”: The original definition for a Third World country, which referred to a country's allegiance, was straightforward, but now that definition is archaic. Third World countries were labeled during the Cold War to reference those nations that were not aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, the term Third World is still used, but the definition is not as precise and is open to some interpretation. Developing Nations and Third World Countries: Third World countries are for the most part poor and underdeveloped. In these countries, low levels of education, poor infrastructure, improper sanitation and poor