Third World is a name sometimes given to economically developing countries, particularly those in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The term Third World has also been used for politically neutral countries. Such countries have been called neutral nations or nonaligned nations because they did not regularly support either the First World or the Second World during the Cold War. The Cold War was a period of tension between non-Communist and Communist nations that began after World War II (1939-1945). The term First World referred to several non-Communist countries, including the United States, other Western industrial nations, and Japan. The term Second World referred to the Soviet Union and a number of other nations--especially in Eastern Europe--that had Communist governments during the Cold War. Some political experts considered China a Third World country, but others disagreed. The references to First World, Second World, and Third World began to lose their political meaning when Cold War tensions began to decrease sharply in the late 1980's.