Socio-Historical/Cultural major Subdivisions of Europe

[Cail]

The never-ending topic of what country belongs to which part of Europe. This is meant from a historical point of view, not just XXth (or even XIXth) century.
Shared cultural, political developments, areas of political influence et cetera.
My own idea of it (if a border runs through a state, it can either mean actual differences between given state's subregions, or that the state itself is on the edge, belonging to both "worlds". In most cases it's obvious):



The borders, obviously, are not meant to be precise, or clear-cut, they're very blurry. Discuss.

[Rouxinol]

Well, the last thread on this matter ended up like a battlefield...

[Cail]

Even the flamewars that can arise in such threads do give plenty of information, both objective and subjective. "Subjective" information is also very important btw - how do people, and whole ethnoses perceive themselves, and how they want to be perceived by others.

[Lucretius]

Cail you put northern Italy togheter with Central Europe and the rest of the country to South Europe,I've always believed that foreigners watched us as southerners with no differences between north/south. I was wrong.

[Oreka Bailoak]

I don't see why you would include half of Scotland in Northern Europe and the other half of Scotland in Western Europe. If you want to make a differentiation in Scotland the line should be between the Orkney islands and mainland Scotland based on genetic studies showing huge Scandinavian influence similar to the other islands in the north Atlantic.

Maybe even the British Isles (except Orkney islands) can be considered it's own group called north-western Europe. Separate from Western Europe (France).

[Cail]

Cail you put northern Italy togheter with Central Europe and the rest of the country to South Europe,I've always believed that foreigners watched us as southerners with no differences between north/south. I was wrong.

I might be not the good example of "proper" foreigner, since i 1)am a linguist focusing on Indoeuropean languages 2)currently live in Italy.

I guess any, even amateur, anthropologist interested in Europe knows at least something about differences between Italies.

Even the languages of the peninsula are pretty different historically (though a lot of convergent evolution happened later). Ligurian subgroup has origins in common with Occitaine-Catalan (transitional dialects in the Provence-Nice-Genoa line), Lombardy speaks Gallo-Italic (somewhat closer related too langues-de-oil), and the center and south speaks Italo-Dalmatian dialects (of different degrees of closeness).

[Lucretius]

I might be not the good example of "proper" foreigner, since i 1)am a linguist focusing on Indoeuropean languages 2)currently live in Italy.

I guess any, even amateur, anthropologist interested in Europe knows at least something about differences between Italies.

Even the languages of the peninsula are pretty different historically (though a lot of convergent evolution happened later). Ligurian subgroup has origins in common with Occitaine-Catalan (transitional dialects in the Provence-Nice-Genoa line), Lombardy speaks Gallo-Italic (somewhat closer related too langues-de-oil), and the center and south speaks Italo-Dalmatian dialects (of different degrees of closeness).

That's all true what you're saying but I can't still find any heavy reasons to put north italy with central europe.

[Talvi]

So what makes you think that half of Estonia is East and the other half is North?

[Cail]

So what makes you think that half of Estonia is East and the other half is North?

It's on the crossroads, historically and culturally connected to both. Obviously can't be considered purely Northern or Eastern.

[Talvi]

It's on the crossroads, historically and culturally connected to both. Obviously can't be considered purely Northern or Eastern.

So now I have a new question.

What do you define as "East"?