Is Canaan in the Middle East?

Answer 1

During the second millennium BCE, Canaan was the name often used for Palestine (the area west of the Jordan River), whose northern boundary fluctuated between southern and central Lebanon.

However, modern scholars generally use the term in referring to the wider region in Syria-Palestine where a substantial cultural continuum defined as Canaanite can be discerned. Encompassing western Palestine, most of Lebanon, and coastal Syria as far north as Ugarit, this more extensive area was never considered a political or cultural unit by its ancient inhabitants. The land of Canaan is never regarded as extending into Egypt.

Answer 2

There never really was a nation of Canaan, but rather a number of independent Canaanite city-states, each with its own king. They were joined by alliances and for many centuries by their allegiance to the dominant regional power, usually Egypt.

The region that included the Canaanite cities is now generally referred to as the Middle East, but scholars tend to refer to the same area as the Near East when referring to pre-Islamic times.