Talk:Europe/Hierarchy/Archive

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Talk:Eastern Europe

Moved from Talk:Eastern Europe

I disagree with Professorbiscuit's move to squish the Baltic countries and Central Europe into "Eastern Europe", and I suspect many inhabitants of those countries would do so well. The definition of the term has changed since the wall came down: these days "Central Europe" is the countries that have joined the EU, and "Eastern Europe" is the bit that hasn't. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:44, 16 Oct 2004 (EDT)

That's not necessarily the best definition, and possibly a bit confusing for the traveller (ie Italy="Western Europe", Slovenia ="Central Europe", Croatia="Eastern Europe", despite the fact that they almost have a common border). No geographical division of Europe is going to be perfect, but at least there are now maps up to give a rough idea. I had the new proposed ideas for the new Europe regions up on Talk:Europe for a while, and nobody objected. Also, a similar division of Europe is used by another famous of brand of travel guide. Not that I'm saying we should copy them, but it seems to serve them very well. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 09:23, 16 Oct 2004 (EDT)
I second (WT-en) Jpatokal on that this division is incorrect. To me it smells political section into "east block" and "west block" from the cold war and has not much to do with tourism. Why not simply use the division adopted in Wikipedia ? (WT-en) Wojsyl 16:30, 27 Dec 2004 (EST)

Talk:Western Europe

Moved from Talk:Western Europe

Hi, Cyprus is not in Western Europe ! (WT-en) Yann 18:14, 22 Mar 2004 (EST)

Yes, I agree. I am changing the list of countries now because there are two major flaws: one - neither Cyrpus nor Malta are Western European, two - they are countries, not just islands. Putting them under islands and not under countries is insulting ;-) (WT-en) Ronline 02:59, 23 Mar 2004 (EST)

Talk:Central Europe

Moved from Talk:Central Europe

This should be called Estern Europe. Central Europe usually also includes Autria, Germany and Switzerland. (WT-en) Yann 18:57, 22 Mar 2004 (EST)

I see a big mistake being made here with the European hierarchy. Central Europe is a legitimate region of Europe and not a euphemism. The Visegrad 4 countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) are more often than not considered part of Central Europe. Eastern Europe is actually, I believe, not a region of Europe in the sense of it being comparable to Central Europe. Eastern Europe is the broad (very broad) definition given to all former-Communist European countries, including Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Czechia, Hungary, Albania, etc. However, these countries have now been divided into regions: Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States (if we consider that a region) and the former Soviet Union (this can sometimes be called Eastern Europe, in the same way that Serbia and Montenegro used to be called Yugoslavia). Therefore we get:
Central Europe: for sure Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Also frequently includes Slovenia and Romania - Transylvania makes up the majority of Romania and is part of Central Europe. Slovenia is culturally part of Central Europe more than the Balkans.
Balkans: former Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, etc.
Former Soviet Union (can be called Eastern Europe): Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, European Russia
Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lithunia
There remain two problems: the Baltic States and Germany/Austria, etc. The Baltic States can be split up, with Estonia being part of Northern Europe, with Finland and Sweden, and the rest being part of Central Europe. Now, with Germany and Austria, these are NOWADAYS not regarded as Central European countries, even though making them part of Central Europe is a fair defintion. However, people have this fear of grouping Germany together with Poland, Czechia, etc. This is possible. Why not?. These countries are in fact part of the same region.
Therefore, we can have:
Central Europe: Austria, Germany, perhaps Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Visegrad 4. Slovenia and Romania could be included, but it would be too many countries in one region.
Therefore, in my opinion, the best proposal would be to place Germany and Austria/Switzerland either in a separate region called "the Alps" for example, or even better, group them with Western Europe. OK, now probably Western Europe will seem to large a region, but this is not the case, because we can have:
Western Europe: DE, FR, Switzerland, Austria, Benelux, Italy and maybe Spain, maybe UK and Ireland
Mediterranean: Maybe Spain, definitely Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, maybe Turkey
Northern Europe: Scandinavia, Faeroes, Iceland, Finland, maybe Estonia.
Therefore, the hierarchy problem is solved. Europe is divided into groups that are both politically fair and forward-looking, and more important, relevant to tourists. Tourists do visit Germany and Belgium together. They do visit Cyprus, Turkey and Greece together. They do visit

Romania, Hungary and Czechia together. And, arguably, they visit Estonia, Sweden and Finland together. (WT-en) Ronline 02:58, 23 Mar 2004 (EST)

So this is the conversation that needs to be happening on Talk:Europe/Hierarchy. There's no point reasoning it out on each of the sub-pages (Central, Wester, etc), so could we move it over there where it can get hashed out and then have everyone working on it? thanks (WT-en) Majnoona 09:23, 23 Mar 2004 (EST)

Talk:Europe

Moved from Talk:Europe

Hierarchy

Hmm, what continental sections could we use


Can somebody give me a good reason why each country should only appear once? Example: Estonia is a Baltic state sometimes regarded as lying in Scandinavia and is a former Soviet republic, so not adding it under those three makes this list quite arbitrary. (WT-en) DhDh 13:50, 1 Jan 2004 (PST)

I see your point, and the fact that Wikivoyage isn't paper-based means there can be multiple ways to get to a country article. On the other hand, I imagine we would have an overview map with the continental sections marked, and it would therefore make sense to be able to draw dividing lines. (WT-en) Matthewmayer 15:03, 1 Jan 2004 (PST)
A couple of things: Wikivoyage is paper-based. OK, not -based, but we do want things to work on paper as well as on-line.
Second: I agree about maps. --(WT-en) Evan 15:23, 1 Jan 2004 (PST)

I agree with Dhum Dhum about the issues with Estonia and similar countries. I think we shouldn't really double up any countries, but if necessary, we should do so. Really, I think Estonia shouldn't be doubled up. I still have something against the name Scandinavia as a category - Scandinavia really only contains Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and maybe Iceland, but in no way really Finland and the rest of the countries listed there. I know Northern Europe probably sounds worse, but it's better in terms of category. In Northern Europe, we could list Estonia as well, and Finland, etc, because when people go to these places, they are more likely to couple these countries together (a lot of people visit Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland together, and then make two-day trips to Estonia, or maybe to the Faeroe Islands, but you can't really make all these countries Scandinavian). Anyway, I've sorted out the countries an alternative way at the Romanian Wikivoyage, which is similar in terms of structure but just a bit different in terms of which countries go where (you can see it at ro:Europa. -- (WT-en) Ronline 17:17, 1 Jan 2004 (PST)

The problem with divisions like these is that they are based on different criteria: geological (eg. the Alps), political/cultural/geographical (eg. Western Europe) and historical (eg. the former Soviet Union), all heaped together. You are bound to get overlaps this way. I think there are two solutions to this problem: we either choose only one way to split up Europe -- but that will be a difficult choice, or we accept that there is overlap. I see no problem with applying the latter in the Europe article: we can have more than one map where regional borders are drawn following different criteria. I am convinced that an article about the Alps needs to have information on the French Alps, the Slovenian Alps and everything in between (because that's what I, as a traveller, would expect), otherwise you should just call it the Swiss Alps or something. The same goes for the former Soviet Union which by all means must include the Baltic States. Etc... DhDh.

Yes, I agree with overlap - it's a good thing sometimes. But, I think we should just sort out the categories in blocks of countries that tourists are bound to visit together (i.e. Central Europe, with Hungary, Poland, Czechia, etc. and Northern Europe, with Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc.). The only place where overlap would really occur is concerning the Baltic States, Northern Europe and the former USSR. So, it could be sorted out the following way:
I think the Baltic States category is unnecessary. With all respects for the Baltics, few people would actually visit these states alone, and they are too small a region to be classified alone. They are, however, very different from the former USSR - politically, economically and most of all culturally, which impacts on tourism. The Baltic States are very rarely classified as the former Soviet Union today - they will soon be part of the EU, they've moved past that stage. Among themselves, they're also very different, meaning that they can be broken up among other regions - Estonia could go with Northern Europe (it classifies itself as a Northern European country, and the vast majority of people visiting it actually make side trips from Finland, not from Russia or from Latvia, Poland, etc). Latvia and Lithuania could go in Central Europe - they're more likely to be in the same travel itinerary as Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, etc. So, finally, I think the categories should be arranged touristically (if that's a word ;-), which after all, shouldn't be hard to do.
Concerning the Alps region, I think it's also an unnecessary category - all those countries (except Slovenia) should go in Western Europe, since they're bound to be visited together (i.e. a lot of people visit France, Austria, Germany, Spain, etc in a Grand Tour of Europe). I think the Alps just further complicates the structure, also since a lot of the countries there aren't really Apline countries. France and Germany, for example, are mainly visited for other destinations than the Alps - it's really only Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein who are renowned for their Alpine destinations. (WT-en) Ronline 18:44, 2 Jan 2004 (EST)
I have no problem with overlap, but I would disagree with the claim that few people would visit Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia alone. There are several travel companies based in the United Kingdom which offer trips through these three countries alone - and I would argue that the majority of British people (possibly Western Europeans) think of them as the Baltic states. (WT-en) MykReeve 01:12, 03 Jan 2004 (GMT)
I visited (just) the three Baltic States last summer, and I had a Lonely Planet guidebook covering all three. I'd suggest keeping that category, they are different from many Eastern European countries and the former USSR. We could rename Scandinavia to 'Nordic countries' be be less ambiguous [1]. I think the aim with the categories should be to have categories narrow enough so that sensible generalisations can be made in the guidebook sections of the category page, but wide enough so that we're not just duplicating stuff in the country articles. 81.131.154.109 07:45, 3 Jan 2004 (EST)

Turkey and Russia really should not be in the Europe section. Russia is really an asian nation (even if parts west of the Urals get lumped in with Europe now and then); and while I know that Turkey technically has a tiny bit that's European, it really is a mid-eastern country. If anything, include them in the special note at the end. But they're really not European nations. -(WT-en) nils 23:20, 8 JAN 2004 (CET)

Russia spans two continents. St Petersburg and Moscow are European cities really, not Asian. Anyway, we can link through both from the Europe and Asia articles. (WT-en) Matthewmayer 17:48, 8 Jan 2004 (EST)

The British Isles

I think this page would be more userfriendly if the Irish page was separate from the British isles; for Irish users at least. Whatever about the political history of the names we just do not view ourselves as being part of the British isles -rather we see ourselves part of Europe.

Actually, the United Kingdom is a political area but the British Isles is a geographic area which does include Ireland. The Irish users can probably go directly to the Ireland page, but other users are going to expect to be able to navigate to it from British Isles.

[2]. (WT-en) Majnoona


The British Isles is the name we use for the cluster of islands off the northwest edge of Europe. No matter some Irish people's distaste for any meager association with the UK, Ireland just isn't tucked somewhere between Austria and Switzerland. It's in this island group.
The traveller comes first on Wikivoyage. We need to call a spade a spade. We're not going to make a map that shows Ireland anchored off the coast of France, and we're not going to bowlderize the geographical hierarchy just so two countries who don't like each other don't get mentioned on the same page. This isn't kindergarten -- it's a travel guide. --(WT-en) Evan 11:01, 19 Jan 2004 (EST)

Well it just goes to show how stupid people who contribute to this site are.Again i see people excusing the incorrect interpretation of the term "British Isles".If Ireland is not part of Britain including Northern Ireland how the hell can it be part of the "British Isles"It has never been part of Britain see Act of Union 1800.N Ireland is not part of Britain either.From a factual point of view you are all wrong.

Hierarchy (2)

I am more than unhappy with this seemingly random division of Europe. Just to give one example: Belgium is not considered part of Western Europe, while Cyprus, lying in the extreme Southeast is. If I'm a traveller and the traveller comes first, I would be more than confused with this kind of hierarchy. In the next few days I'll try to work out an alternative proposal. (WT-en) Dhum Dhum Akubra 12:03, 21 Mar 2004 (EST)

I agree, go for it.-- maybe create Talk:Europe/Hierarchy? I know we'll always have more than one index to European countries, which is a good thing, but I'd like to see at least one "common sense" traveller-oriented version-- ie where Cyprus is not west of Belgium. (WT-en) Majnoona 13:28, 21 Mar 2004 (EST)
So, I agree about the hierarchy. I'll do another pass on Talk:Europe/Hierarchy. --(WT-en) Evan 15:30, 21 Mar 2004 (EST)~
Hey, so I've noticed Yann and maybe others doing a lot of moving, reorging the Europe pages. Could we maybe hash it out on the

Talk:Europe/Hierarchy page before doing stuff? I just dont want it to turn to edit wars and rollbacks. Maybe just agree on round of changes and then makes them go... otherwise it seems like duplicate work (WT-en) Majnoona 20:32, 22 Mar 2004 (EST)

New continent format

I threw together a new Europe page in my sandbox, http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/article/User:Professorbiscuit/Sandbox/Europe Would anyone be opposed to adopting this style for continents? (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 17:23, 11 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Cities! I want cities.  ;) -- (WT-en) Mark 17:49, 11 Sep 2004 (EDT)
I know Greece is part of the European Union, but since when has it ever been considered part of Western Europe, rather than a part of the Balkans? I don't understand its inclusion with Western European states on the Europe page at all. Does that make Cyprus part of Western Europe on the same reasoning? I think not. While I'm on this, the Eastern Europe division is way too large and unwieldy - I think we should divide it into Eastern Europe (Hungary northwards to the Baltic) and the Balkans (south of Hungary down to Greece.... Any comments? (WT-en) Pjamescowie 12:16, 4 Nov 2004 (EST)
I agree completely! Divide Eastern Europe into the Balkans and (possibly) the Baltic States. Anybody else? -(WT-en) nick 23:11, 11 Nov 2004 (EST)

I'm a bit confuzed with the current division. Where's the Central Europe? Wouldn't it be easier and more logic to use the official Regions of Europe?

I agree that a Central Europe region needs to be created. My proposal, following Wikipedia, is to move Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary into this. (WT-en) Jpatokal 05:57, 16 Nov 2004 (EST)
Agree with (WT-en) Jpatokal. Use Wikipedia and don't invent new artificial divisions. (WT-en) Wojsyl 16:35, 27 Dec 2004 (EST)
I too Agree with (WT-en) Jpatokal. (WT-en) Fido 15:07, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)
Take a look at Talk:Europe/Hierarchy#Proposed_solution, where I posted a map proposing to divide Europe into 5 intuitive regions: Western, Northern, Central, Southern and Eastern. Comments Welcome. (WT-en) Wojsyl 14:13, 2 Jan 2005 (EST)
The problem, of course, with all divisions of Europe is that they are arbitary and a bit confusing. There are no "official regions of Europe", and I feel that adding too many more regions will merely cause difficulty. I suggested the current five divisions for several reasons.
  • They are similar to the divisions used by a well-known brand of travel book (cough <<lonely planet>> cough). Not that we have to copy them, but the average traveller in Europe is familiar with these books, and will recognise the divisions.
I assume you are referring to the Western Europe guide. [3]. However Lonley planet also publishes a guide called Central Europe. [4] In it it lists the countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland. But as you said we should not copy them. (WT-en) Fido 15:07, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)
  • The 7 plus or minus 2 rule. Five categories make more sense than 9.
I can agree with you on this one. But the Wikipedia article mentions only five regions. If we only want five regions I would preferr we scrape the British Isles instead of central Europe. (WT-en) Fido 15:07, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)
  • Having travelled a lot in Europe, I believe that the "Eastern" countries do have many in common; they are generally cheaper to travel in and are post-communist societies. The other regions do have things in common, as well.
While for example Vienna may have some things in common with Paris, it has a lot more in common with Prague or Budapest. Central Europe as proposed by Jpatokal has a common heritage that can be felt everywhere. Architecture, traditions, food, words, ... (WT-en) Fido 15:07, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)
  • It saves us from pointless arguments as "Is Hungary a part of the Balkans? How about Romania? And so on.
I personally think that the way Wikipedia categorizes the regions of Europe is a quite good one. If you we don't want to argue about to whom Hungary belongs we would have to remove all destinctions. But that's probably not what we want. As far as Hungary is concerned, both Wikipedia (w:Hungary) as well as Britannica define it as a central European Country. As far as Romania is concerned Wikipedia (w:Romania) defines it as a southeastern european country and the Britannica defines it as belonging to the Balkan.(WT-en) Fido 15:07, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)
  • Most importantly, they are the easiest for the traveller, for a combination of the reasons above. I strongly believe that the European regional divisions be left as they are. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 14:11, 16 Nov 2004 (EST)
While less regions are a good thing, they have to be devided up if parts of a region are just too different. This is the case with Europe as a whole. That's why we are having this discussion. However as mentioned earlier by myself, Vienna is different from Paris, but very similar to Prague. Therefore we must have a region called central Europe. (WT-en) Fido 15:07, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)

annoying - unaware of facts

It is indeed annoying to see that a country like Slovenia, between Vienna and Venice, is categorised as "eastern Europe". Meanwhile a Balkan state like Greece is categorised as part of Western Europe. Which cold war muppet is acting without any awareness of historical and political contexts?

The muppet you're looking for is User:(WT-en) Professorbiscuit. (WT-en) Jpatokal 20:17, 11 Jan 2005 (EST)
Whilst "cold war muppet" is certainly amongst my favourite insults I've heard in a while, I'm beginning to get sick of people whingeing about the Europe divisions. For the slow learners amongst you, this site is called "WikiTravel". Note the "wiki" bit. It's not called "Professor Biscuit's Travel", so if you hate it so much then edit the damn page. Call the area from Vladivostok to Geneva "Central Europe" if you feel so inclined.
Perhaps if even half the amount of time that's been spent complaining on the pointless subject of how to divide best Europe into a bunch of pretty colours had been spent writing actual destination guides, the whole site would be a lot better. To the above Mr. Anonymous, if you feel the need to insult people because they think Slovenia is in eastern rather than central Europe, you should perhaps grow up a little. If you feel a desperate need to discuss geopolitics with me, leave it on my talk page or email me. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 19:32, 19 Jan 2005 (EST)
The reason so much ink is being spilled on this is that it's a controversial topic and it would be nice to come to a compromise that most people can agree on. Such consensus was not achieved before the current division was implemented... (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:40, 19 Jan 2005 (EST)
Oh, come on. I left around a month for people to raise objections before I plunged forward and made the changes. To be honest, I'm beginning to take the continual insults and insinuations personally, especially when I have not done a thing wrong. Calling me a muppet is out of line, Jpatokal, especially since you are an admin. You should apologise. I'm washing my hands of this godforsaken Europe page, and it is a shame that people that people should be hounded for such ridiculous reasons. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 13:39, 20 Jan 2005 (EST)
The "muppet" thing was Mr. Anonymous's wording, not mine, and I was just pointing to you as the author of the current layout — so sorry if I caused offence. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:29, 23 Jan 2005 (EST)

Obviously it is quite controversial if it heats things up almost to a flame war. To put stop to this, I'm going to edit the related pages to reflect what I've proposed at Talk:Europe/Hierarchy#Proposed_solution if no one objects. (WT-en) Wojsyl 18:24, 23 Jan 2005 (EST)

Talk:Europe/Hierarchy

Moved from Talk:Europe/Hierarchy

Hierarchy

This is a proposed hierarchy for the countries in Europe. Feel free to edit.

  • British Isles (section)
    • United Kingdom (country)
    • Ireland (country)
    • Channel Islands, Isle of Man (territories)
  • Iberian Peninsula (section)
    • Portugal (country)
    • Spain (country)
    • Andorra (country)
    • Gibraltar (territory)
  • France (country and section!)
  • Benelux (section)
    • Belgium (country)
    • The Netherlands (country)
    • Luxembourg (country)
  • Scandinavia (section)
    • Norway (country)
    • Denmark (country)
    • Sweden (country)
    • Finland (country)
    • Iceland (country)
    • Faroe Islands (territory)
  • Central Europe (section)
    • Germany (country)
    • Switzerland (country)
    • Austria (country)
    • Liechtenstein (country)
    • Italy [+ Vatican City] (countries)
    • San Marino (country)
    • Malta (country)
  • Eastern Europe (section)
    • Poland (country)
    • Hungary (country)
    • Czech Republic (country)
    • Slovakia (country)
    • Russia (country)
    • Belarus (country)
    • Ukraine (country)
    • Moldova (country)
  • Baltic states (section)
    • Estonia (country)
    • Latvia (country)
    • Lithuania (country)
  • Balkans (section)
    • Slovenia (country)
    • Croatia (country)
    • Bosnia & Herzegovina (country)
    • Serbia & Montenegro (country)
    • Albania (country)
    • Bulgaria (country)
    • Romania (country)
    • FYRO Macedonia (country)
  • Eastern Mediterranean (section)
    • Greece (country)
    • Turkey (country)
    • Cyprus (country)

Important info about hierarchy of Europe

I see a big mistake being made here with the European hierarchy. Central Europe is a legitimate region of Europe and not a euphemism. The Visegrad 4 countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) are more often than not considered part of Central Europe. Eastern Europe is actually, I believe, not a region of Europe in the sense of it being comparable to Central Europe. Eastern Europe is the broad (very broad) definition given to all former-Communist European countries, including Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Czechia, Hungary, Albania, etc. However, these countries have now been divided into regions: Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States (if we consider that a region) and the former Soviet Union (this can sometimes be called Eastern Europe, in the same way that Serbia and Montenegro used to be called Yugoslavia). Therefore we get:

Central Europe: for sure Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Also frequently includes Slovenia and Romania - Transylvania makes up the majority of Romania and is part of Central Europe. Slovenia is culturally part of Central Europe more than the Balkans.

Balkans: former Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, etc.

Former Soviet Union (can be called Eastern Europe): Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, European Russia

Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lithunia

There remain two problems: the Baltic States and Germany/Austria, etc. The Baltic States can be split up, with Estonia being part of Northern Europe, with Finland and Sweden, and the rest being part of Central Europe. Now, with Germany and Austria, these are NOWADAYS not regarded as Central European countries, even though making them part of Central Europe is a fair defintion. However, people have this fear of grouping Germany together with Poland, Czechia, etc. This is possible. Why not?. These countries are in fact part of the same region.

Therefore, we can have:

Central Europe: Austria, Germany, perhaps Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Visegrad 4. Slovenia and Romania could be included, but it would be too many countries in one region.

Therefore, in my opinion, the best proposal would be to place Germany and Austria/Switzerland either in a separate region called "the Alps" for example, or even better, group them with Western Europe. OK, now probably Western Europe will seem to large a region, but this is not the case, because we can have:

Western Europe: DE, FR, Switzerland, Austria, Benelux, Italy and maybe Spain, maybe UK and Ireland
Mediterranean: Maybe Spain, definitely Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, maybe Turkey
Northern Europe: Scandinavia, Faeroes, Iceland, Finland, maybe Estonia.

Therefore, the hierarchy problem is solved. Europe is divided into groups that are both politically fair and forward-looking, and more important, relevant to tourists. Tourists do visit Germany and Belgium together. They do visit Cyprus, Turkey and Greece together. They do visit Romania, Hungary and Czechia together. And, arguably, they visit Estonia, Sweden and Finland together. (WT-en) Ronline 02:58, 23 Mar 2004 (EST)

We need a Mediterranean Europe page. From climate, food and culture point of view, this makes sense. Putting Italy in Central Europe doesn't. It would also include Spain, Portugal, Malta, maybe Greece. (WT-en) Yann 08:30, 24 Mar 2004 (EST)
Yeah, I would tend to think that that might be useful. The main thing of course is helping travlers find the article about their destination. -- (WT-en) Mark 09:11, 24 Mar 2004 (EST)
Exactly! Wikivoyage is supposed to be for travellers. But the more I look at this discussion and the previous one at Talk:Europe, I get the feeling that we're more or less talking alongside each other. We cannot ignore the fact that Europe, being a patchwork of countries, cultures and peoples, is very hard to divide in regions.
Can we divide Europe along political lines? I don't think so. During the last 10-15 years we have seen major shifts in politics - simply said: a substantial number of countries have gone from communism to capitalism. And even now political borders are changing (cfr. the EU).
Along cultural lines then? Maybe a little bit easier, but not much. We have seen a lot of cultural exchanges in the past years. Speaking for my home country, I wonder if there still is a Belgian identity. The larger cities resemble the towers of Babel, with all those different languages you hear. (And these people are not only tourists. They live here.)
So what can we use? As said before, Wikivoyage is for travellers, and we should group countries that people tend to visit together. The main "problem" (at least, some view it as such) is that in this respect, quite a few countries belong to different "groups". Speaking again for Belgium, it is true that people who visit us also visit the Netherlands. Or Germany. Or France. The point I'm making is that, if we want to make it easy for travellers to find the article(s) of their destination, we will have to make overlaps.
I realize some people around here are a bit afraid of that. I don't understand why. A region is a container for subjects on a lower level (be it countries, other regions, whatever...). If a given country is contained within a region, it means that it has affinities with the other countries within that region (which can and should be explained in that article). And if that same country is contained within another region, it simply means that it has (other) affinities with the countries in that region (which can and should be explained in that article). To me, creating "exclusive" regions (containig countries belonging exclusively to that region) is creating problems.
So, I have made a hierarchy of Europe, based on ("inclusive") regions which can be defined as broadly as wanted. I'd be glad to know what you think of them:
  • Northern Europe (section)
    • Iceland (country)
    • Faroe Islands (territory)
    • Scandinavia (region)
      • Norway (country)
      • Sweden (country)
      • Finland (country)
      • Denmark (country)
    • Estonia (country)
  • Northwestern Europe (section)
    • British Isles (region)
      • Ireland (country)
      • United Kingdom (country)
      • Channel Islands (territory)
      • etc...
    • Denmark (country)
    • Germany (country)
    • Benelux (region)
      • Netherlands (country)
      • Belgium (country)
      • Luxembourg (country)
    • Switzerland (country)
    • Liechtenstein (country)
    • Austria (country)
  • Central Europe (section)
    • Germany (country)
    • Poland (country)
    • Czech Republic (country)
    • Slovakia (country)
    • Switzerland (country)
    • Liechtenstein (country)
    • Austria (country)
    • Slovenia (country)
    • Hungary (country)
    • Romania (country)
  • Eastern Europe (section)
    • Russia (country)
    • Baltic States (region)
      • Estonia (country)
      • Latvia (country)
      • Lithuania (country)
    • Belarus (country)
    • Ukraine (country)
    • Moldova (country)
    • Romania (country)
  • Southwestern Europe (section)
    • Belgium (country)
    • Luxembourg (country)
    • France (country)
    • Switzerland (country)
    • Iberian Peninsula (region)
      • Andorra (country)
      • Portugal (country)
      • Spain (country)
      • Gibraltar (territory)
    • Monaco (country)
    • Italy (country)
    • San Marino (country)
    • Vatican City (country)
  • Balkans (section)
    • Hungary (country)
    • Romania (country)
    • Slovenia (country)
    • Croatia (country)
    • Bosnia and Herzegovina (country)
    • Serbia and Montenegro (country)
    • Albania (country)
    • Macedonia (country)
    • Bulgaria (country)
    • Greece (country)
    • Turkey (country)
  • Mediterranean Europe (section)
    • Portugal (country)
    • Spain (country)
    • Gibraltar (territory)
    • France (country)
    • Monaco (country)
    • Italy (country)
    • Greece (country)
    • Turkey (country)
    • Malta (country)
    • Cyprus (country)
(WT-en) Dhum Dhum Akubra 10:31, 24 Mar 2004 (EST)
The overlaps work fine for me! What are the arguments against them? Like I said this is about helping the traveler find the destination page that he or she wants right? -- (WT-en) Mark 12:15, 24 Mar 2004 (EST)
Overlaps are definitely a good idea as it will help people find the destination they're looking for. That said, I think it would be good for each country to have a primary section for two reasons - 1. so that (when it gets implemented) each page can have a breadcrumb navigation bar (eg Europe > Mediterranean Europe > Spain), and 2. so that we can have a clickable map of Europe with the sections highlighted, so a visitor can easily visualise the hierarchy we have developed.
Overlaps make it hard for us to make maps. They make it hard to know where to put information, and they cause duplicate information. I'd prefer to avoid them when possible. --(WT-en) Evan 21:14, 24 Mar 2004 (EST)
I almost hate to point this out, but all of these arguments sound like they favor contributors over travelers. -- (WT-en) Mark 03:12, 25 Mar 2004 (EST)
I'd like to have traditional English names for sections of Europe wherever possible. I don't think there's much of a point to Northwestern Europe or Southwestern Europe. I've never heard of these things. They're made up, and they don't help travelers find what they're looking for. --(WT-en) Evan 21:14, 24 Mar 2004 (EST)
OK, this makes sense to me. Since the hireachy is about helping travelers find information about their destinations, then perhaps areas that travelers won't recognize aren't all that useful. -- (WT-en) Mark 03:12, 25 Mar 2004 (EST)
Some remarks/questions:
Breadcrumb navigation: unless my understanding of this is completely wrong I suppose this gives readers an easy way to move up to the previous level or down to the next level. If this gets automated, is there anything against having, say "Europe -> Balkans -> Greece -> Athens" (if you followed the Balkans link) and "Europe -> Mediterranean Europe -> Greece -> Athens" (if you followed the Mediterranean Europe link)?
Clickable maps: I see the problem with these. But if we are going to have them, at least something needs to be changed in the software. I don't have an immediate answer to it right now, but at this point I think we shouldn't rule out a complete incompatibility with overlaps. Every problem should have its solution, right?
Duplicate information: I don't really see the problem. Let's take the example of Greece again (Balkans and Mediterranean Europe). The Balkans article talks about the countries belonging to that region and what binds them together. In it can be explained why Greece, following a certain number of criteria, belongs to that region. On the other hand, and following other criteria, Greece belongs to Mediterranean Europe. Part of that article can explain why. To me, that is not duplicate information.
Northwestern/Southwestern Europe: Yes, it's true that these names are not widespread. I split them up because otherwise "Western Europe" would have become too heavy. And I more or less did it along linguistic lines (Latin vs. Germanic languages). On the other hand, and referring again to the clickable maps, they would show immediately what is meant by these names.
(WT-en) Dhum Dhum Akubra 12:40, 25 Mar 2004 (EST)

My suggestion is to use the KISS system. Keep it simple, stupid. Forget a hundred artificial sections. There are so many definitions, none set in stone and some that keep changing around depending on who uses them and what for. For example, Western Europe was everything west of the iron curtain - nowadays it's harder to make the distinction. Where does it start? East of Germany? West of Germany? You're bound to have many, many overlaps - Central Europe definitely includes Germany, for example; but what else. Poland? France? We will never find a "perfect definition".

Hence let's just use "travel"-like destinations:

  • British Isles (easily defined, and have a common "theme/culture")
  • Scnadinavia (dito)
  • Continental Europe (everything on the "mainland", ie. excluding Scandinavia and British Isles but including denmark)
  • Alpine Nations (everything that touches the Alps)
  • North Sea states (everything that touches the North Sea)
  • Baltic Sea states (same, for baltic sea)
  • Mediterranean states (same, for mediterranean sea)

That's it. Plain, simple, straight forward. We also have a "European countries by alphabet", and hoepfully maybe some day a map (clickable or not doesn't matter, as long as it's labelled) and a "European Union" page. (The is very important because it's relevant to travellers; but I seem to remember we had that discussion before and agreed it's OK.)

A traveller goes either to one country (then sections aren't needed, just pick the country by alphabet) or he will make a tour of nearby countries (then a map is needed). And for those who are looking for a "regional feel" or "topic", we have the sections I list above. Alpine for those who want skiing/mountains, for example. This could be augmented by articles about regions or multi-country vacations (similar to the one about the landroute from Europe to Asia).

If "Continental Europe" is too big, divide it between "East" and "West" (use the eastern border of Germany as the divide). I do not like this, however; I feel it's a "cold war" leftover more than anything and it introduces too much complexity.

List special cases under the appropriate countries (Example: Gibraltar in the article for UK/England, but maybe link it from Spain as well). Don't list them all in the lists. Nobody really cares that, for example, Vatican City is a sovereign nation. People will look for the pope under "italy -> rome". Likewise, I seriously doubt anybody says "Hey let's make a vacation in the Balkans". They want Greece, or (former) Yusgoslavia, or maybe "any country at the Adriatic sea". Travel guide - not an encyclopedia. Leave that to our buddies at wikipedia.org.

And a final note about breadcrumb navigation: Simply do it like so: "Europe > Germany > Frankfurt". No further abstraction is needed.

--(WT-en) Nils 20:15, 25 Mar 2004 (EST)

Do you think 5 sections would be too few?

  • British Isles
  • Scandinavia and Northern Europe
  • Western Europe
  • Central and Eastern Europe
  • Southern and Mediterranean Europe

(WT-en) Matthewmayer 21:11, 25 Mar 2004 (EST)

Five sections seem fair, but ...
Just keep it in line with wikipedia's grouping, which is correct, moreover keeps it simple and away of cold war political and regional divisions:
  • Western Europe
  • Eastern Europe
  • Northern Europe
  • Southern Europe
  • Central Europe
Why would anyone want to reinvent the division here ?
(WT-en) Wojsyl 16:24, 27 Dec 2004 (EST)
Seriously, there is nothing 'official' about Wikipedia's Europe divisions. They were arbitrarily made-up. There is no argument in saying that we have to do things the way they do. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 09:37, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)
Not at all. And being 'not official' does not mean that they're not good. And we are free to use the divisions worked out there. They are simple, clear, non controversial, not biased, well explained, historically and culturally correct and above all: easy to understand and accept. What do we need more. Does anyone object against using it here ? (WT-en) Wojsyl 10:38, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)


Well, I do, obviously. Firstly, the maps of the regions took a long time to make, and noone objected to the new divisions before they were put up. Most importantly, the current distinctions make more sense to the the traveller. The countries "Eastern Europe" (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, etc.) make much more sense of a traveller's destination than a "Central European" tour comprising Switzerland and Slovakia. Wikipedia may have the more politically correct distinctions, but they make no sense here. This is not the place for political point-scoring for Irish people who object to the term "British Isles" and Polish people who don't want to be in "Eastern Europe". (WT-en) Professorbiscuit 13:58, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)


No, sorry, they do not make more sense to the traveller. On the contrary, they are misguiding but what's even worse, they show arogance and no respect to people living there. Very much unlike a real traveller's attitude and certainly not something we should be promoting.
The argument about the effort put into making the map is fair and I understand that you can be emotionally tied to it, but hey, the sooner we correct it the less work will be involved in future corrections. I would suggest using the map from Wikipedia. It shows the division quite clearly. (WT-en) Wojsyl 15:45, 28 Dec 2004 (EST)

Talk:Poland

Moved from Talk:Poland

Poland lays in Central Europe

AFAIK Poland was always considered as being in Central Europe, not in Eastern. Just look at the map (and do not forget about European part of Russia) Also Poland is in Central European time zone (same as Paris) -- oposed to Ukraine which is in Eastern European TZ.

Also see here:

(WT-en) JanSlupski 14:51, 17 Dec 2004 (EST)

Ok, found the discussion in the Talk:Europe now. Polish people rather would say that Poland is in Central Europe. But if rest of the world name it Eastern, I have to accept ;) (WT-en) JanSlupski 16:17, 17 Dec 2004 (EST)

Not really, I think this is a major mistake with division of Europe (and particularly definition of Eastern Europe) here on WikiT and needs to be corrected asap. (WT-en) Wojsyl 02:46, 8 Jan 2005 (EST)

Idetrorce

very interesting, but I don't agree with you Idetrorce

Also it could be useful to archive lare parts of hierarchy discussion from Talk:Europe and top of this page to something like Talk:Europe/Hierarchy/Archive, and add there links to 1) Talk:Europe/Hierarchy#Proposed_solution, 2) Archive to make navigation easier. Currently it's very long, and distributed. -- (WT-en) Jan Słupski 17:30, 24 Jan 2005 (EST)

No votes against (no votes of support as well), so just did that. -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 15:45, 5 Feb 2005 (EST)

Please someone edit this map division, clearly everyone who reads it from Europe will see that the divisions are wrong and will give visitors the wrong idea about the culture of Europe, par example: Britain, France, Germany and Spain are all Cultulrly part of western euirope as well as politically. YOu only have to go on Google images and then type in divisions of Europe to see the true Cutural Divions. thank you

Proposed solution

Guys, here's the the proposal for division of Europe that hopefully will satisfy everyone (... OK, I know I'm being so naive here). I admit this is mostly addressing the Central Europe controversy. Let's keep it simple and keep Europe divided into Western, Northern, Central, Southern and Eastern. I've rearranged the colours on (WT-en) Professorbiscuit's map to better illustrate this:

I believe this division satisfies the following criteria:

  • Up-to date - it's 2005 and wikivoyage is supposed to be futureproof for the next several years and it's important not to use archaic/outdated systematisation. We have no more Austrohungarian empire, no more Czechoslovakia and no more "two Europes".
  • Simple and intuitive - keeps the number of regions down to 5. As a traveller pick any European country, look at the 5 regions and think where would your particular country best fit ?
  • Politically neutral - the cold war and iron curtain is over for several years already. There's no reason to artificially divide Europe in line with military or other political pacts. It's much better to have the division based on geography, not politics.
  • Not confusing for the traveller - we're not calling regions what they're not and avoiding unnecessary further confusion.
  • Correct, and as an extra bonus in line with Wikipedia ;-) (yes, I remember the argument that we don't have to do it the same way, but it does not mean we cannot ?)
  • NPOV - I know that historically for the Brits Europe consisted of "UK + the continent", while many Americans still believe there is "East" and "West" and the Berlin wall in between. Wikivoyage however is for global audience and NPOV should be respected with this in mind.
  • Respect - does not ignore what local people call themselves. Respect is an important quality for any traveller and I strongly believe should be promoted on wikivoyage.

What do you think ? (WT-en) Wojsyl 14:07, 2 Jan 2005 (EST)

nice (WT-en) Tobias Conradi 22:50, 3 Jan 2005 (EST)
I like this too. I'm tempted to shift Germany and Switzerland over to Western Europe, and the Baltics to Northern though -- but I could be argued the other way too, as this is admittedly more political than geographical. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:33, 3 Jan 2005 (EST)
As for Germany, for most Germans it's quite obvious that they are in the heart of "Mitteleuropa". It seems both historically and geographically justified to have German speaking countries in Central Europe. In fact they have coined the term in the first place.
For the Baltics, I'm not sure. Again, politcally I'd gladly see them in Northern, however if you're going to Lithuania, do you think you're going to Northern Europe or rather Eastern ? Certainly they would deserve their separate small group of the Baltics, but this is sacrified here for the sake of simplicity. So here "Northern" equals Scandinavian, which again is a simplification of course. This is like asking whether Italy is an Alpine or Mediterrenean country. No good answer. (WT-en) Wojsyl 04:10, 4 Jan 2005 (EST)
I like this solution also. Much better than what we have now. Only Lithuania, Latavia and Estonia were always Baltic States for me, no Eastern or Northern. -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 20:19, 23 Jan 2005 (EST)
Having not really participated in the conversation before I feel I can say as a neutral party that I like the proposed solution as well. -- (WT-en) Mark 03:40, 24 Jan 2005 (EST)
Can I echo that last assessment please? The reasons outlined make a very good case for a compass-point division.... Everything else is just outdated politics and cultural cringe. The only variations I would suggest to the scheme is that Romania and Bulgaria might be moved into Eastern Europe to better reflect their geographical position (NOT their cultural affiliation! - about to join the EU....) - that way nearly 'all the countries in Southern Europe would basically be those with a Mediterranean coastline, providing a useful alternative designation / characterisation for the region as "Mediterranean Europe". What do others think about this proposal? (WT-en) Pjamescowie 06:30, 24 Jan 2005 (EST)
I like it, and would in fact suggest we use the term Mediterranean Europe only. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:31, 24 Jan 2005 (EST)


Mediterranean is quite tempting, even if it destroys the simplicity of compass-point, but seems more intuitive indeed. As for the Baltics, I think we should not attempt to list all the smaller regions like Benelux, the Balkans etc. and keep the division general at this level, instead. I've also moved Romania and Bulgaria as (WT-en) Pjamescowie suggests. So here we are:

  • Western Europe = the British Isles, France and Benelux.
  • Northern Europe = Scandinavia, Island and Finland
  • Central Europe = Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia
  • Eastern Europe = Baltic countries, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.
  • Mediterranean Europe - Portugal, Spain, Andorra, Italy, San Marino, Vatican, Monaco, Greece, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Cyprus, Turkey and Malta.

I'd leave it for a few more days here to see if there are still any strong opposing views around. Otherwise, I'll assume that the consensus has has been finally reached. (WT-en) Wojsyl 17:07, 24 Jan 2005 (EST)

Maybe for these last few days create announcement on main Europe page, to attract more attention, like: -- (WT-en) Jan Słupski 17:30, 24 Jan 2005 (EST)


  Europe Hierarchy is currently being reworked. You can add you comment on a discussion page

All right, no more voices, I assume the consensus has been reached. I have then implemented the division. (WT-en) Wojsyl 18:55, 5 Feb 2005 (EST)

I think the Baltic States belong rather to Nordic countries, Northern Europe I mean. Hope it's not too late. -- (WT-en) bujatt 06:13, 12 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I think the so called Baltic States should be replaces with the names of the countries. Estonia and Lithuania are very very different politically, culturally and historically. Also, being called an Eastern European country is pretty offensive, at least in Estonia.

True, it is offensive. According to Wikipedia at least, the Baltics do belong to Northern Europe. Why should Estonia, which practically shares its language and culture with Finland, be in the same group with Azerbaijan or Armenia. They are nothing alike. Estonians see themselves as part of Northern Europe, why can't everyone else see it too? 90.191.200.134 10:35, 2 July 2008 (EDT)
  • Why is the grouping as it is shown? I cannot find any source backing the proposed grouping. Am I right, when I assume that this map is original research? Otherwise, please provide a reference to a source that proposes exactly this grouping. We might still have an POV issue then, but at least have some backing to our claim, which is the less severe of the two options. If there exists no reference (perhaps Lonely Planet, I know that they do similar groupings) then, I am afraid we will have to remove the map. 82.210.100.28 18:40, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

European map colors

I really like design where not foucsed contries on the map are gray (like on Baltic states map).

Eventually it could be smart to show which country on the map is which. Maybe use different color for each country (like on Europe map)? I know it would be difficult for Mediterranean Europe, but should be possible for other European regions. What do you think?

Next, I would show where Europe ends (gray out Asiatic part of Russia and Turkey).

Also don't like yellow color on Europe map. It's to bright (may on LCD?).

-- (WT-en) JanSlupski 10:10, 6 Feb 2005 (EST)

I agree grey seems better. That's why I'm experimenting with vaious colours and that's why the Baltics map has grey for "inactive" areas. I'm not sure about more colours on a single map though. (WT-en) Wojsyl 10:46, 6 Feb 2005 (EST)
Please see my try of coloring/list design of Mediterranean Europe at User:(WT-en) JanSlupski/Projects/Europe. -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 11:39, 6 Feb 2005 (EST)


Bulgaria and reorganization.

With all do respect here, this map uses a quite wrongful division of Europe. First thing that comes to my mind - Bulgaria is not in Eastern Europe in the sence you present here. East and West are not what they used to be. East used to mean communist, and West democratic. Even Greece was labled Western Europe under that criteria. But it's time to categorize Europe within cultural and historical limits. If you follow the old criteria then you should put Serbia, Macedonia and all the other ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe too. Historically, culturally and geographically Bulgaria is in Southeastern Europe a.k.a. the Balkans. Serbia and Macedonia don't even have a coastline, they are landlocked!!! Not to mention the Med sea. Bulgaria had Med sea coastline to the south, before it lost it to Greece in WWI. Now the Med is only 30 km away from the south border with Greece. Second of all, I think the whole map needs to be reorganized. You can not group East and West Med together! They are very different. We need a Balkans or Southeast Europe category (or east Med if you will). Then you also need to put a Baltics cetegory - also different from Eastern Europe in a sence.

Please read Talk:Europe/Hierarchy. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:48, 7 Feb 2006 (EST)

I read it so what? You proposed it...but it makes no sence. Bulgaria has very little in common with the East European states. Geographically it is in South Europe. Med sea is like 30 km way from the south border. Used to have Med sea coast till WW1. South Bulgaria has Med climate. Culturally and traditionaly a South Europen state. Part of the Ottoman Empire and so on...name something in favor of placing it as E Europ.

If you drew a line down the middle of Europe, Bulgaria would be in the East. Bulgaria is a former communist country and shares economic, political, linguistic and historical ties with the other Eastern European countries.
If we were doing a travel guide for the 1890s, of course, we'd include Bulgaria in Mediterranean Europe. If we were going to work on some other imaginary travel guides, we could put Bulgaria on Neptune or in Mordor. But we're not doing imaginary what-if travel guides, and we're not here to rewrite history. Travelers are going to be looking for Bulgaria in Eastern Europe, and it should be there when they look. --(WT-en) Evan 15:39, 27 February 2006 (EST)
My friend I want you to tell me base on what do you group the countries here? Serbia and Macedonia have no Med coast and have the same culture and traditions and virtually the same language - Bulgarian and Macedonia are almost the same. Still SR and MK are put into the Med Europe. Following your logic, if we were to prepare a travel guide before 1991, they would be put in Med as part of Yugoslavia. It really makes no sence. I believe that the whole grouping is wrong. There should be a seperate Groups for Balkans and probably Baltics too. Med and East Europe are too broad entities.

History, tradition and culture should play the major role in grouping the states. Grouping a southern country like Bulgaria with a nothern country like Estonia is deceiving: far away, nothing in common, diff climate, tradition and culture. Oh yea they share the same time zone...but so do Egypt and South Africa...lets put them in E Europe too!

Maybe thats why the balkan became such a mess; because it is part of everything and yet of nothing - there are hungarians in Hungary, in Serbia and in Romania. Are you going to 'fix' this?. Boundary work is a sociological expertise, and I wish everyone with an opinion good luck (and good night:) 145.99.202.90 16:15, 27 February 2006 (EST)

Western Europe ?

France is not part of a so-called "western Europe" regions together with the UK and Netherlands. See the definition of western Europe in Wikipedia, it includes all the countries of western Europe. France doesn't share much with the UK or Netherlands on geographical points, and even less on cultural, linguistic, political system, religion or climate. can look the discussion in wikipedia about southern Europe and Western Europe. —The preceding comment was added by 82.224.59.166 (talk • contribs) 9 October 2006

Please understand that regions created for use in a travel guide are often much different than regions created for political purposes, since they each have very different goals; thus the discussion at Wikipedia may not be relevant. It could be argued that France straddles several European regions, but for the purposes of organization we need to choose one, and the current breakdown of European regions has been created based on the consensus reached through discussion (see above). Any changes should only be made if a new consensus is reached. -- (WT-en) Ryan 15:01, 9 October 2006 (EDT)
Agreed. The definitions of continental sections are arbitrary at best and of only very minor use to the traveler. --(WT-en) Evan 11:44, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

Ok, I may agree that it should be put arbitrary in one region. But I tend to think that linking France with UK+Netherlands is far to be the most appropriate grouping, especially when speaking about tourism. The "western Europe" group made of UK+France+Benelux is only an old-fashionned geo-political grouping, which has very few reason to be on a purely touristic point of view. Except for Paris, the majority of the tourism of France concerns the mediterranean regions, Côte d'Azur, Provence, Corsica, and also south-west, where millions of north-European come in summer for the beaches and the mediterranean way of live, as they would do in Spain or Italy. I don't see any reason to exclude France from the mediterranean countries, while it is ones of the most touristic places of the mediterranean are precisely situated in France. On the other way, Serbia, which has no coast on the med, and which is not a touristic destination of southern Europe has absolutly nothing to do in that category. We can keep France in the arbitrary of "western Europe", since it can be relevant for the celtic-influenced Atlantic region of Britanny. But to limit whole France in that category is just a deep misconception of what is mainly France in a touristic point of view. France canno't not being cited in the mediterranean countries.

Thank you for your comprehension, —The preceding comment was added by 82.224.59.166 (talk • contribs) 9 October 2006

I don't quite like the Mediterranean Europe division and pretty much agree with you about Serbia. I wouldn't say, however, that French tourism (business and leisure) concentrates mostly on its southern coast. Paris is the most visited city on earth, and I don't think people go there for the beaches. Anyway, I don't believe it's really a problem (except for breadcrumb navigation purposes, maybe) to have one country featured in two different regions. Turkey, for instance is on two continents, and nobody seems to be unhappy about that. --(WT-en) Ricardo (Rmx) 16:56, 9 October 2006 (EDT)

"I wouldn't say, however, that French tourism (business and leisure) concentrates mostly on its southern coast."... I personally live there, I can tell you that it is the case. In summer all the people I cross in my own city are north European tourists. A lot of the neighbouring houses are owned by Dutch, German or English people who come here for our climate. If France was in the same region of Europe than England and Netherlands, do you really think that so much people would move to a place that would be similar to their country? Of course not, for them, they were clearly looking for an "exotic" mediterranean place, very different from their own country, not even speaking of language, culture and mentalities. Excepted Paris, the north of France is mush less turistic than the south. The south concentrate the first touristic historic beaches places of southern Europe (+the beaches of south-west), the oldest constructions of France and the Alps and pyrenees which are the biggest winter sport domain of Europe. Thousands of Dutch, English, Belgians and other north Europeans come to ski in the south of France. Anyway, since nobody is supposed to be unhappy with integrating France in the mediterranean group, I'll add it once again and will hope it will not be removed once again. I'll open to discussion some modifications to the map:

Since this issue has already been hashed out at length among contributors, please ensure that you get some support and consensus for this change before making it. If you wish to upload sample maps to point at as part of the discussion process, by all means please do since it can only help clarify stuff. -- (WT-en) Colin 20:05, 9 October 2006 (EDT)
Labeling Serbia as part of 'Mediterranean' made more sense when it was together with Montenegro and still had a coastline. I'm tempted to suggest renaming "Mediterranean Europe" as "Southern Europe", but keeping this list of countries intact — which also means keeping France out of this grouping. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:14, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

What is basically you problem with grouping France within this group ? Could you prouve us that the French riviera, Corsica, the pyrenees, languedoc-roussillon, Landes, aquitains, basque country, etc. are not major touristic regions of southern Europe ? and why not accepting that ? The "western Europe" group as used here is completly imaginary and doesn't represent any reality on geographic, cultural, linguistic, economic, climatic or touristic criteriums. In all those points france have more common points with Italy and Spain than with Netherlands !

That's not the question. The problem is, each country has to be in one (1) main region, so the question is, "Is France more Western than Southern Europe?" The answer is, fairly obviously if you ask me, "yes". (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:18, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

This is a personal opinion, could you provide arguments? what makes France more similar to UK and than to Italy ? And what does it mean to be "western European". If it means being part a a region that would include only the UK and the Benelux it is obvious that France has nothing to see in that group; and it is clear that including France in that group would mean that this concept has absolutly no meaning and no unity. What is your definition of the conception of western Europe limited to UK+BENELUX+FRANCE ? I don't understand what it could mean ? How could you say that France is more "western" than "southern" since this concept of western has no criterium to define it ? What would define geographically, culturally, linguistically, touristically, economically or politically this restricted concept of "western Europe" ?? In this way of using "western Europe" what I don't understand is the opposition you make between "southern" and "western". Being western has never been a problem to be also southern or northern. UK for exemple is clearly at once part of northern Europe and western Europe. Spain is obviously as much western as southern. etc. Another exemple: Boston is obviously part od eastern USA. It doesn't mans that it is not also obviously a city of northern United States. LA is at the same time a city of southern USA and part of western United states in the same time...

Go look at Wikipedia. France (all of it) is definitely in Western Europe; but only southern France is commonly (not always) included in Southern Europe.

Only?! do you realise that you speak of the half of the country who count 60 million people! Do you think a guide can ignore the whole half of France as if France was not at all present in southern Europe ! What does it mean that France is culturally of western European culture ? and what makes Spain not of Western European culture to your eyes ?

I'm not going to oppose a pointer from "Southern Europe" (or Mediterranean Europe) to France (although given the mess to the east even this is opening a can of worms...), but for the isIn hierarchy and the map shading, France is west. (WT-en) Jpatokal 09:51, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

I completly agree that France is west, Of course, but west in the real meaning, the one that include also Spain and Portugal! By wikipedia, UK is considered north European, why does it not esclude it to western Europe ? This current classification is too much confusing and groups together countries taht are too much different to be included into the same label. After having read all the old discussions and unless there are some good reasons outside laziness to keep these classification I'll propose another grouping :

- Central Europe : Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czeck Republic, Slovaquia, Poland, maybe Slovenia.

- Northern Europe (or Scandinavia+Finland) : Sweden, Norway, Finland, and also Denmark due to cultural closeness. Maybe also Iceland for cultural reasons.

- North Western Europe : UK, Benelux, Ireland, and maybe iceland for geographic reasons.

- South Western Europe : Italy, Spain, Portugal (I would personally include France in that category, for clear cultural reasons, and because of the central position of this country in the middle of the mediterranean arch, but to avoid the allergic reaction of those who think that France is a copy and the UK and netherlands and can't stand the idea that France is a latin and mediterranean country I agree to create a own category for France. So I hope we could find a compromise: it would be not lump with the other latin countries of south Europe (Italy, Portugal and Spain), but also not with the northern countries of UK and Netherlands.

- Central Western Europe : France, Monaco, Andorre.

- Eastern Europe : Ukraine, Bielorussia, Russia

- South Eastern Europe (Balkans) : Greece, Ex-Yougoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania


[[image:Europe_3.jpg]]

This seems to be more realistic in terms of geographical closeness and cultural similarities. The former category of "southern Europe" that included countries such as Portugal and Albania, which don't share much together and are far away geographically is better under a division in south-west Europe (the unity with latin languages) and south-east (the region universally know as Balkans). I think we could keep the "mediterranean group", and use it as a specific additional group (and why not a "baltic group" or Alpine"). It would be thematic. It is logical since it correspond to a specific kind of journeys (cruises around mediterranean from one point to another is a reality - and France is not excluded from these cruises!). The Alpine region may be logical for who is searching a winter sport activity: Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, etc. The Baltic is also relevant for cruises, the region could include Poland, Germany, The Baltic states, Finland, Sweden.

There are so many problems with this that I'm not sure where to start...
  1. Regions should contain 5-9 countries (see Project:Geographical hierarchy).
  2. You're making up your own terms here. I'm a European and have lived and travelled in various parts of Europe for half my life, but I have no idea what "Central Western Europe" is supposed to be.
  3. Are you seriously saying that Belgium has more cultural similarity to Ireland or Iceland than to France? (Tip: French is an official language there.)
Start with those. (WT-en) Jpatokal 11:07, 10 October 2006 (EDT)

I'll take your comments : - Iceland. As I said I think it could be grouped with scandinavia, for obvious cultural similarities, even if Iceland could be geographically in North-western Europe. I clearly agree to include it in Northern Europe.. - Belgium, It is an ambigous country, with a double culture. Its francophone part has obviously strong links with France. But since it should be placed in one category, to be with Netherlands is a better choice, because it is usually refferd to be part of a same sub-regions call benelux. Added to this, Belgium is nowadays with a Flemish majority (60%), and its land have been under the sames influences than Netherlands for a long time. Not forget the geographical position; Belgium's center of gravity is clearly in the north of western Europe, closer to netherlands than to France, at close latitudes to the UK. The climatic similarities, traditions (beer), and architecture makes it more easily associate with Netherlands than France. Said that Belgium is clearly a discutable case. Switzerland is aslo in an ambiguous situation. Its position in central Europe is not clear due to the French and Italian parts of it. But since the majority of the country is german speaking, as a whole it can be associated easily with Austria and Germany. Its geographical position is also logical for this grouping. - Concerning the number of countries in each group; I personally would prefer to group France with Spain and Italy, because of the language, the mediterranean coast and the central position in the middle of the "latin arch". I just had so hard reactions when evoquing the idea of associating France with Italy or Spain (I still don't know why?), that I tried to find a compromise. For me there is no doubt that France is culturally a south western European country, even if it lies a bit more north than Italy (center of gravity at about 46°, while Italy is 43°, the difference is not so huge, especially when we compare it with the position of the UK or Benelux whose center of gravity lies clearly between 52 and 54°)

To me the best grouping would be this : But I'm sure some of you won't like to see France associated with Spain or Italy:

Those categories seems good to me, the association is made by area of cultural influence and also taking acount of geography. just Belgium and Switzerland are more ambigous because in area of double (or triple) influences. - central Europe: German speaking countries+ the wisegrad group which have been historically in the German-speaking area of influence. - Northern Europe: the area of Scandinavian cultural influence - North-Western Europe: the area of English and Dutch influences. - South-Western Europe: the area of Latin influence. - South-Eastern Europe: the balkans, historically a melting pot and influences by Greek, Turk and slavic influences. - Eastern Europe : The area under Russian influence.

  • I'd say this is the best grouping anyone has suggested. France, Italy, Spain & Portugal are a logical grouping, with related languages, religion, culture. The only quibble I might have is whether the Baltic states go in Northern or Eastern Europe. (WT-en) Pashley 00:05, 6 January 2009 (EST)

Inaccurate groups

(moved from Talk:Europe by (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:18, 10 October 2006 (EDT))

The whole way the groups are made in this article is wrong. The first error is to use the old pre WW2 geopolitical concept of "western Europe" to group together countries such as UK and Netherlands with France, who don't share not much more than having being democraties in the first half of the 20th century. France obviously share much more culturally with the other south-western European countries such as Spain and Italy, especially for its southern half. Due to the latin language, catholic heritage and of course its coastline on the mediterranean. UK and Netherlands on their side have germanic languages, important protestant influences a geographical position in the northern half of Europe and coastlines on the north sea. It is clear that netherlands are much more similar to Germany (with who they have their longest border), than with France !! (with who they don't even have a common border). The same way for UK, wich doesn't share any border with France. From a French point of view, being grouped in this limited "western Europe" concept has no meaning and seems completly arbitrary, since it is not justificated by geography, by language, by climate, by political system, or any other criterium.

This definition is outdated and inacurate, it should be removed. the definition of western Europe of Wikipedia is more accurate, it includes all western Europe and does not prevent the belonging to other groups such as northern or southern.

I tend to think that there are in reality 4 cardinal groupings defined by geography but also culture: north-west (Scandinavia, UK, Germany, Netherlands), south-west (Italy, Spain, Portugal France(with reserves for its northern part on a pure geographical way)), north-east (Poland, Russia, Baltic states, etc), south-east (balkanic states). and one overlaping region, central Europe, witch can include countries that can also be integrated in other groups (Germany, poland,Autria, Hungary, etc.)

I invite you to see the discussion in the article about southern Europe in wikipedia.

There already has been much discussion about this at Talk:Europe/Hierarchy. Have you seen it? Every division is arbitrary to some extent so the point here as I understand it is to provide one that is comprehensible for travellers previously unfamiliar with Europe. I'm afraid that allowing countries to appear in more than one group would only cause confusion. And if we allow only one group per country, I think France is classified properly here -- although the whole division could be improved (eg. Portugal is hardly Mediterranean).

"I think France is classified properly here"... Do you really think that Corsica, Provence, Côte d'Azur, Basque country, Aquitaine, Languedoc, etc. fit better with England, Scotland, Ireland and Netherlands better than with Spain or Italy ??! I'm sorry, but for who is unfamiliar with Europe this kind of classification will give him a wrong image the reality of the country. If you are afraid to put France in more than one category, It would be possible to cancel the current "western Europe" category, and using instead a north-west Europe, and south-west Europe categories. Which would be much more in relation with the cultural and geographical realities than the current groups. (especially because being western is very much more inclusive and doesn't exclude to be northern or southern European. For instance Spain, Itamy and portugal are always considered to be paret of western Europe as much as France.)

Please ensure that you gain some consensus on this issue before making any changes since the current state of division is the result of a significant amount of discussion and should therefore not be altered by a single individual. For example, while I would concur that the current Med region sucks, I disagree with removing France from Western Europe. When I think France, I think Paris. -- (WT-en) Colin 20:01, 9 October 2006 (EDT)

" When I think France, I think Paris. " I'm sorry to be so direct, but you have a very narrow-minded image of France-which leads you to misunderstand the reality of this country. This common stereotype of France limited to Paris is especially the reason why I think that France should be included in the mediterranean group. You canno't just ignore the main part of the country. 95% of french territory is situated south of Paris. 7 of the 10 biggest French cities are situated in the southern half, and 4 of them are directly on the mediterranean sea. One of them, Marseille, is the french second city and the biggest port of southern Europe. Another, Nice, is the center of the most well known touristic region of southern Europe; Corsica is one of the 5 great mediterranean islands, etc... It is just impossible to ignore this reality. More than this, as a whole, French culture is latin-based, and have its roots in the mediterranean area, its oldest cities there, etc. Even if the north of France has more "celtic" and "germanic" influence, it is very inapropriate to group it with countries of northern European culture such as the Netherlands and UK. Of course France is part of western Europe, but part of the large concept of western Europe, which includes of course also Italy, Spain or Germany, which are countries with France has more common points than UK and Netherlands. The concept of "western Europe" as it is used here is a old-fashionned concept from WWI/WWII times, used as a geopolitical (the democraties at that time) one which has lost its meaning nowadays: it is not a geographical region, has not a common climate, not the same linguistic group (romance/germanic), not the same religion (actholic/protestant), not the same kind of foods (wine/beer), etc. I'll make a new map which would use the "western Europe" in its modern international understanding, to open it to discussion. For the moment I think we can keep the current one, keeping France in the restricted "western Europe" group, but also including France in the list of the mediterranean countries in the same time canno't be avoided.


"For example, while I would concur that the current Med region sucks" I don't agree. The mediterranean is a good way to speak of countries, especially when speaking of tourism. As the introduction says it the mediterranean countries share common characteristics such as kind of food, landscapes and way of life. That's what the English and Dutch people who take their retirement to France are looking for. Touristically, the mediterranean countries share being the playgrounds of all Europe in summertime : Balearic islands, Costa del sol, Cote d'Azur, Corsica, etc. and also famous for old cities's urban tourism. France share those touristic characteristics with Italy and Spain.

" I disagree with removing France from Western Europe. When I think France, I think Paris" Yes, Paris is in western Europe, but Bordeaux is even more western. Not even speaking of Madrid, Sevilla or Lisbon... it is difficult to be more western...

"When I think France, I think Paris" If we apply this kind of thinking to other countries you should change other categories; Ex: "If I think Germany, I think Berlin", in this case Germany should'nt be considered as central European, geographically Berlin is clearly not in the central European area (which is more around Autria), but is much more in the Baltic sea area.

Eastern Europe Map

The current map for the Eastern Europe page does not respect what these maps here say, except for one. The current map is this:

I strongly suggest someone changes it to one of the maps here, I find the first one to be best honestly, but in any case I believe this definition of Eastern Europe is not accurate.

Andorran Pride!

The great nation of Andorra must never be confused with the lesser cultures of the Mediterranean!!! --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald Talk 20:52, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Eastern Europe subdivisions

On a more serious note, If we are going to have sub regions for Eastern Europe (and we should according to the 7±2 rule), we would best come up with two coherent subregions spanning all the countries in the region. The current Baltic + "Russia and the Caucasus" schematic leaves out five countries and the second region is an awkward "this and that" type, which indicates that it's more of a Frankenstein than a coherent region. The best organizing scheme I have come up with is a Northeastern Europe region, comprised of Belarus, the Baltic States, and Russia, and a Black Sea region including Ukraine, the Caucasus, Romania, and Bulgaria. That would break this region into 5 and 7 respectively.

Pros: Both regions are very coherent culturally and geographically.

  • Northeastern Europe is straightforward.
  • The Black Sea as a culturally coherent region is gaining a lot of academic traction (see Charles King's book).
  • Moreover, Romanians and Bulgarians affronted by the "Eastern Europe" designation might find solace in their additional "Black Sea region" status.

Cons:

  • Russia is technically in both regions
    • but Russia's center is around Moscow and St Petersburg, both lying in Northeastern Europe.
  • Armenia and Azerbaijan are not on the Black Sea.
    • but Armenia is a culturally and historically Black Sea country, only deprived of its coastline in the past 100 years.
    • but while Azerbaijan does not lie on the Black Sea, the Caucasus most certainly does, and Azerbaijan will remain under that direct subregion (i.e., breadcrumb = Eastern Europe : Black Sea Region : Caucasus : Azerbaijan)
  • Turkey is a very important part of the Black Sea region

I would really like to hear thoughts on this, but if no one takes interest, I'll just assume that's license to Plunge ahead. --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald Talk 21:58, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

The Northeast/Black-Sea division seems like a reasonable one. I'd like to toss one other thought into the ring, however: Dividing up the U.S., there were a few states that were simply left out of any regions, because they were too large, diverse, or unique. Russia arguably fits that description, and could be treated as its own region of Europe. For example, would it make sense to have A) Russia, B) the Caucasus, and C) Eastern Europe (i.e. Estonia thru Bulgaria)? If not, and no other good solutions come of omitting Russia, let's go with the Northeast/Black-Sea split. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 00:20, 18 April 2007 (EDT)
I initially was going for just two regions becasuse of the 7±2 rule, but if that rule is at it seems relaxed at the macro level, I would prefer your schematic. Another possibility would be to group Russia with its very closely related neighbors Belarus and Ukraine (other travel guides have used this grouping). Then we would have nice coherent regions for the Baltic States and the Caucasus, with a sort of leftover category (Southeastern Europe?) for Romania and Bulgaria. The advantage of this schematic is that it would preserve the Baltic grouping, which I think is worthwhile. But I'm not sure yet which of these proposals I would prefer; I'd like to hear more thoughts. --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald Talk 17:30, 21 April 2007 (EDT)
What about making an Eastern Europe group with Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and the Caucusus? The Baltic states could placed at Northern Europe and the Balkan states (Romania and Bulgaria) could be grouped in Southeastern Europe. For a traveller, it sounds more logical to get these western states out of the Russia group.
I like that suggestion. At the next level, Southeastern Europe then breaks down to Agean (Greece, Turkey, Cyprus) and Balkan. (WT-en) Pashley

Spain and Portugal ?

(copied from Talk:Western Europe)

Spain and Portugal not included ?? Those countries are included among the mediterranean countries only. Portugal is not technically a mediterranean country, and Spain had as much coast on the Atlantic ocean than on the mediterranean. If I look for informations about Porto, Santiago de compostella, , Santander or the Basque country, i find it strange to be obliged to look in the mediterranean sub-category. especially concerning Portugal.

Both countries are situated more western than France, (which in included in western Europe only).

I have difficulties to understand the logics of the classifications. "western Europe" is understood by everybody as a much wider group, which includes countries from Portugal to Norway. the selection made seems really arbitrary. —The preceding comment was added by 82.224.59.166 (talk • contribs)

Although yes this has already been discussed into the ground, I don't think we have come up with very good solutions to our Europe subdivisions because we have been approaching regions as a fairly arbitrary content organization tool. I think that the unsurprising result of not taking our regions seriously enough is that they look a bit sloppy and unprofessional. Someone who goes to a Western Europe article expects certain things because the term "Western Europe" means something (very amorphous and political) outside of this site. It is a loaded term and not a good title for this region, which would be better served by a move to "Northwestern Europe."
By the way, if you are reading this, I would really appreciate a comment above, on "Eastern Europe subdivisions." Thanks! --(WT-en) Peter Talk 15:40, 25 June 2007 (EDT)

I think "northwestern Europe" would be a good term for the region, at condition that, of course, France would be excluded from it. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg fit well in my opinion in that group. concerning eastern Europe, I think it could include all Balkan region (including Romania) - maybe in a sub-group "southeastern Europe".

See also Talk:Mediterranean Europe; that region now has 20 countries, which is kind of ridiculous. I've proposed "Southeastern Europe" to handle everything east of Slovenia, but the problem is coming up with some sort of sensible name to handle Italy, Spain and France... (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:52, 20 February 2008 (EST)

The UK, Ireland and the Baltics to North Europe

The present Europe map is very similar to the CIA map, and not to the more internationally accepted UN subregion map. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Location-Europe-UNsubregions.png From a geographical, political and economical point of view I believe therefore the UK, Ireland and the Baltics should be moved to North Europe. Poland should therefore also be moved to East Europe (as a Slavic country). (WT-en) Jakro64 16:22, 14 July 2008 (EDT)

I too would suggest moving the Baltic countries Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania into Northern Europe, while I understand this might be a bit controversial, today both politically, culturally and economically they are much closer linked with Scandinavia than the CIS countries. And due to the Visa restrictions of Russia - Sweden and Finland are much more common entry/exit points than Russia is. And my experience from traveling there, is that they tend to identify themselves as a Nordic country as well. Regarding UK and Ireland I have my doubts - for a travelers perspective i don't think they group together very well.

(WT-en) Sertmann 09:34, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

Below moved from User talk:(WT-en) Wrh2

Hi, I see your Europe's hierarchy page, but to me, and most other geographers that seem really naive. Latvia is lawfully and officially a part of Northern Europe and is been so since her independence proclamation; saying otherwise means you don't know much about its history. I would love you to read these facts which show just a little bit of the history, but there, of course, is much more than that: Before the Soviet occupation, Latvia had no bounds with Russia or any other eastern european country, but as early as 5th century Latvia has strong bounds with Sweden (read Curonians), being an important part of the Viking era. Since that time and being under Swedish rule for more than hundred years, latvians, especially courlanders are significantly influenced by Swedes. The strong bounds between south-eastern part of Sweden and especially, Gotland, and denmark died out only after the russian occupation. Ruhnu is geographically a Latvian island, oficially- Estonian, this island has been for centuries populated by pure Swedes, in fact, they had to flee to Sweden when the Soviets came in in 1941 and later 1944. So, clear Swedish island, with a significant, unique Swedish culture for centuries now..a part of Eastern europe? How comes? This is not the only island, of course. The rights for the land have been granted back to Swedish families. 2. Latvia was a part of the Hanseatic League. It was a strong, significant alliance upon which most of Latvia's cities and culture are even built, it had absolutely nothing to do with any of the East as it was strongly and an alliance of only the Northern Europe. 3. Latvia's TRUE indigenous people- livonians are hundred percent, full blooded finno-ugric, having a finno-ugric language and sharing extreme cultural similarities with Finns. Eastern european you say? 4. Latvia and Estonia share significant cultural similiarities with the rest of the Northern countries. You simply have to visit one of those countries and I'm sure, you won't be willing to call it Eastern europe. 5. Anthropoligacally, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania have nothing to do, whatsoever, with none of the Eastern countries. You should read more on this matter. Latvians, Estonians and Finns have split from the same branch, with Latvians picking up different language branch but having strong bonds with Estonians still to this day.

I ask you to do something in this matter, even the big wikipedia have got things right, and so do most of other encyclopedias, it would be wrong to have some self-made (and wrong made!) "hierarchy" on quite an important page, when Baltic countries are officially (and I repeat this- officially) a lawful part of the Northern europe. I'd love to see the truth on this page, one day. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) RonDivine‎ (talk • contribs)

Since this comment was originally addressed to me: I don't have any strong opinions on the matter, aside from making sure that any changes to the European regional hierarchy are discussed first and some consensus is reached to make changes. It took an extraordinarily long time to come up with a hierarchy on which people agreed (see discussions above and elsewhere), so it cannot be changed without similar agreement. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 03:48, 7 September 2008 (EDT)
Note that User:(WT-en) RonDivine uploaded the region map (to the right) showing a proposed breakdown. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 04:22, 7 September 2008 (EDT)
I'm not entirely opposed to changing this order, but it's a very controversial and weighty change. We should leave this discussion in place for a good month before moving forward. When/if we do, it will be necessary to change all relevant breadcrumbs. Also, I don't like the solid black lines dividing countries on that map — using the same border line for envisioned continental differences within countries as the border line for country borders looks wrong. Gradients would work, but we honestly don't need to show that level of detail, as the continental section maps are mostly just for illustrating our hierarchical navigation. I agree with the above opinion that including the UK/Ireland in Northern Europe with the Scandinavian and Baltic countries would not make sense; I think we should really ditch the Western Europe designation (since that's mostly a political distinction), and replace it with Northwestern Europe. Lastly, Ron, ditch the goofy pomposity — that's not a good way to build consensus. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 10:55, 7 September 2008 (EDT)
I agree that the Baltics sit better in Northern Europe, but I think that the UK & Ireland would be better sitting in the proposed North West Europe region. -- (WT-en) DanielC 15:39, 11 September 2008 (EDT)
I wouldn't mind adding the Baltics to Northern Europe, but I think UK/Ireland should definitely stay in the current Western Europe block — they have next to nothing in common with the Nordic countries. Poland should also stay in Central Europe. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:10, 12 September 2008 (EDT)
Maybe we should add Estonia and Latvia (which are more northerly, mostly Protestant like Scandinavia + linguistic link to Finland etc) to Northern Europe, and Lithuania, which has more in common with Poland than, say Sweden, to Central Europe. The only disadvantage of such an arrangement, as far as I can think of, is that we will no longer be able to have a common Baltic states grouping. --(WT-en) Vidimian 23:21, 21 September 2008 (EDT)
You're right that Lithuania is culturally more aligned with Poland than with the other baltic states. However, I still see a disadvantage for travellers by splitting these countries up. I think many travellers would combine a trip through all of these Baltic countries. It's more logical to combine a trip to Latvia and Lithuania, than through Lithuania and Poland. (Most would just visit Poland alone). And it can also be argued that the baltic states do have a lot of features in common (language, history) 77.250.22.126 07:37, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

Southeastern Europe

How come there is no group for the Balkans/Southeastern Europe? This would make more sense than making a random split-up of the former Yugoslavian countries through Eastern and Mediterranean Europe. I think Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, (Kosovo), Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria could be added to this subgroup. Slovenia and Greece probably better fit in the groups where they're located now. (WT-en) Globe-trotter 07:43, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

I made an image to show what I'm talking about:
(WT-en) Globe-trotter 09:04, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

Maps sure are useful. I don't know if we'll ever reach a new consensus to replace the old, since it's hard to agree on these things, but here's my take on your proposal:

  1. Kaliningrad is in E Europe, but is west of the Baltics--that seems odd. I think the desire to remove the Baltics from Eastern Europe has much less to do with travel and a lot more to do with politics.
  2. Mediterranean Europe now excludes countries for which Mediterranean resorts comprise nearly all tourism (like Croatia).
  3. The French Riviera is excluded from Mediterranean Europe. (I realize it is in the current version too—I'm no fan of the hierarchy as we have it either.)
  4. Moldova is separated from Romania, but the countries are similar enough where some people would like to see them amalgamated.
  5. Southeastern Europe seems incompatible with a hierarchy including "Mediterranean Europe"—Turkey and Greece are very clearly in Southeastern Europe.

On a different note, we should probably not discuss individual aspects of proposals under different sections; we should have one section for each new complete proposal. Otherwise this discussion will probably go nowhere. I'll toss together another proposal myself. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 14:01, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

2 proposals

I think the reason this topic keeps getting new proposals is because the original hierarchy is bad. I realize it took a lot of effort to build a rough consensus for the original hierarchy, but I feel as though people got frustrated with how hard it was, and settled for something that doesn't really work. Mediterranean Europe excludes France. Western Europe excludes the westernmost countries of Europe. Eastern Europe includes Serbia, but not Bosnia (which is in the Mediterranean despite not having a coast!). I think we can do better.

In clearing my throat I'd also like to note that it is not hard to change this—it should take all of 1/2 hour total to fix the breadcrumbs. The hard part is simply agreeing on a new proposal.

Proposal 1

Here is one proposal, which captures broad swathes of countries into a few fairly undisputable regions with directional names (the exception being Scandinavia, which has a universally accepted definition), and is pretty conventional by Wikivoyage standards.

  • Western Europe
  • Central Europe
  • Southeastern Europe
  • Eastern Europe
  • Scandinavia


Proposal 2

I like this second proposal better. It is more fine grained and moves distinctive regions to the top-level, as well as a few countries which simply do not fit into any good categories with other countries.

  • The British Isles
  • France and the Benelux
  • Central Europe
  • Italy
  • The Iberian Peninsula
  • Former Yugoslavia (this section of the world is notoriously difficult to sort out...)
  • Southeastern Europe (united pretty clearly by Greek and Ottoman history. Maybe Former Yugoslavia should be merged here?)
  • Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine (this is a standard grouping in travel guides)
  • The Baltic States
  • The Caucasus
  • Scandinavia

The second proposal more closely resembles what we did for another complex regional division, the USA, which I think we did quite well. It doesn't try to force countries into regions that don't fit, and keeps most all the most distinctive regions right at the top level. This should help eliminate wishy-washy region articles for places like "Western Europe," which has too many connotations of different country groupings to allow for a tight enjoyable (and writable) article like the British Isles or the Iberian Peninsula.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Hopefully no jaded cantankerous dead-ender comments about how we've already got a (shoddy) consensus and don't feel like changing it—no one's asking you to do the work! --(WT-en) Peter Talk 16:14, 23 September 2008 (EDT)

I really really like suggestion number 2, excellent work Peter! I'll support it avidly! and be glad to help sort out breadcrumbs etc. And if the US justifies 13 regions, Europe certainly merits 11, considering that unlike the case in the States, these regions have different languages, cultures, history and what not.
One thing of note (being Scandinavian myself) is that Scandinavia does not have an universally accepted definition, but two. The correct actually only encompasses Denmark, Norway and Sweden, while Iceland and Finland is included in the term 'The Nordic countries'. While I have no raving objections (I actually sort of prefer it) to calling it Scandinavia, i just thought I'd mention it.
/edit - oh and I'd support moving Fmr. Yugoslavia to Southeastern Europe (WT-en) Sertmann 16:37, 23 September 2008 (EDT)
I'd support proposal 2 ... but would suggest moving Slovenia to Central Europe, and the rest of former Yugoslavia to Southeastern Europe. Slovenia has much in common with its Alpine neighbour Austria and is already in the Eurozone.(WT-en) Jnich99 07:50, 24 September 2008 (EDT)
I guess that sort of makes since, as it's different from the rest since it's a EU member state, and more important for a travel site, it's a Schengen member. (WT-en) Sertmann 15:28, 24 September 2008 (EDT)
The second proposal is awesome work. It makes the regions smaller and therefore they make more sense. The only change I'd make is to switch Slovenia to Central Europe and place former-Yugoslavia in Southeastern Europe. And "Scandinavia" should be "Nordic countries", as Finland (and even Iceland) are not part of Scandinavia. (WT-en) Globe-trotter 22:42, 26 September 2008 (EDT)
The biggest problem is the Mediterranean: the region is by far too diverse and has 20 countries in it (way more than the maximum of nine). I think we should address this problem by separating the region in the three units mentioned before: Iberian Peninsula, Italy and Southeastern Europe. I think this is a great measure. However, according to textbook, Southeastern Europe would be too large. If we want to split it up, it could be done this way:

Western Balkans: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania Southeastern Europe: Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria

But I think the "big" Southeastern Europe would already be a big improvement.
(WT-en) Globe-trotter 09:20, 30 September 2008 (EDT)
I'm not concerned about Southeastern Europe going over the 9 per list requirement. I can't actually find the original discussion where we talked about this, but for regions we treat the limit of 9 rule as more of a guideline than a rule. This makes sense because it can sometimes be impossible to follow. For New York (state), for example, we kept the organization of counties to 9 regions, but that in some cases leaves more than 9 counties per region—mathematically it's not feasible to get around that problem, unless we do something that screws up the otherwise solid travel hierarchy. The American South is another great example of a region of 11 subregions that really doesn't merit being broken up. And we're already over 9 on the top-level regions here anyway—if we broke up Southeastern Europe, that would bring us way over the limit on these divisions.
I agree with moving Slovenia to Central Europe, since the country/former region has always had little in common with the rest of former Yugoslavia, except for their shared history over part of the 20th century. I would rather not rename Scandinavia the Nordic Countries. There are variations in usage, but I'm confident that the most common English-language usage includes the rest of the Nordic Countries. We try to avoid splitting hairs to much in our travel guides, and to simply go for most common usage.
In any rate, I think we've come up with a good hierarchy here, which to my delight gets rid of the very problematic Mediterranean Europe division. Provided there are no arguments raised in objection over the next two weeks, I say we go forward and implement this new hierarchy. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:50, 30 September 2008 (EDT)
I too like proposal 2. But there is a small problem. Because ‘Italy’ is considered a region on its own, we will have to list San Marino and Vatican City under it, so the isin tags for both countries will show up like this: Europe : Italy : San Marino. Which is not very bad from travellers’ point of view, as next to no one visit San Marino or Vatican City alone. But in the name of political correctness, I think we should somehow distinguish these two sovereign entities from, for example Naples or Venice, which ‘really’ are in Italy. So the region ‘Italy’ should be renamed something else. Italian Peninsula? Apenninia? The Boot? I don’t know… And what is more, none of these solve the problem of Malta, which is usually a destination on its own (not visited together with Italy). Maybe we should name the region ‘Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, and Malta’, but that’s too long. ‘Italy and its vicinity’? But it’s vague and it kinda sounds like as it should also include Corsica or even Switzerland. Or maybe we should split proposed ‘France and the Benelux’ region into a Benelux on its own, and merge France, Iberia, and Italy (with Vatican City, San Marino, and Malta) into a ‘Western Mediterranean’ or whatever name it gets. I’m not personally against a ‘France and the Benelux’ region (although I don’t insist on this, I’d prefer to see ‘Benelux’ and ‘France’ as seperate regions on their own, however, but a region named ‘France’ would cause the same problem with ‘Italy’: what shall we do about Monaco?) or to see ‘Iberia’ as a region on its own, I’m just looking for a container with a meaningful name to include Italy, VA, SM, and Malta.
What about a pseudo-region called ‘European microstates’ by the way? --(WT-en) Vidimian 09:33, 3 October 2008 (EDT)
I have thought for a second and I now realize that while the designation 'Southeastern Europe' works OK for Turkish Marmara Region or Greek Macedonia, it doesn't do that well in Crete, Mediterranean Turkey or Cyprus. Merging Moldova and Cyprus into one region is like, say merging Maine and Florida into one region.
So I say, what do you think about splitting 'Southeastern Europe' into two: A)'Balkans' (Ex-Yugoslavia except Slovenia, Albania, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria) and B)'Eastern Mediterranean' (Greece, Turkey, Cyprus). I know both names are a little problematic (for example, Moldova is hardly Balkanic, or Croatia is excluded from Eastern Mediterranean despite its long coastline) but I couldn't come up with better names. Maybe these two (Balkans and East Med) can be subregions of top level Southeastern Europe?--(WT-en) Vidimian 09:45, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to me to have a Balkans region. It's very distinct, recognizable, and works well as a travel region. I also really like the idea of having a European Micro States region, especially as that solves the problem of Italy as a top-level region.

I agree that Moldova and Cyprus don't go well together, but Cyprus fits obviously with Greece and Turkey, and Romania fits well with Greece and Turkey, and it would be silly to group Moldova apart from Romania. I guess I don't see the problem of including Cyprus in "Southeastern Europe," since it is arguably the Southeasternmost part of Europe. Having an Eastern Mediterranean + Balkans grouping would by necessity leave out Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova. So I see two options: 1) Balkans + Southeastern Europe, or 2) Southeastern Europe. Neither is perfect; we won't reach perfection. But these two option seem pretty good to me.

Lastly, the Southeastern Europe article is going to be the messiest article in the region. So I do think it would be nice to have good subregions for it, but lets keep that discussion to a future Talk:Southeastern Europe page. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 11:11, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

“Having an Eastern Mediterranean + Balkans grouping would by necessity leave out Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova.” Why is that? Bulgaria is and has always been considered a Balkan country. In fact, the whole region gets its name from a long mountain range running right through the middle of Bulgaria (Balkan Mountains). Romania is also (quite arguably) another Balkan country, as far as I know it’s always represented in, for example, pan-Balkanic sports competitions. Thus, ‘Balkans’ can only leave out Moldova, but even in Moldova, there is a growing sense of Balkan identity (for example, Moldova is included in ‘Balkan Flexi-Pass’ train pass scheme). And even if the situation isn’t like that, I totally agree that seperating Moldova and Romania into two different regions doesn’t make sense. So by virtue of Romania being a Balkan country, we can simply add Moldova into that group too (like the ‘Black Sea Region’ proposed earlier: “but while Azerbaijan does not lie on the Black Sea, the Caucasus most certainly does, and Azerbaijan will remain under that direct subregion (i.e., breadcrumb = Eastern Europe : Black Sea Region : Caucasus : Azerbaijan)”. Why wouldn’t it be the same for Moldova? We wouldn’t even be speaking about these if those two countries (RO and MD) had been reunited in early 1990s, which was a highly expected thing those times.
oh, I should also note that ‘Ex-Yugoslavia except Slovenia + Albania’ is not Balkans, it’s just Western Balkans, but the uproar they create (and the following headlines) make people think that Balkans region is consisted of only them and nowhere else.--(WT-en) Vidimian 08:37, 5 October 2008 (EDT)
Credit my ignorance then ;) If Bulgaria/Romania/Moldova can fit under the Balkans, then it may well bee useful to create a Balkans region page. But I don't like "Eastern Mediterranean" because the name would indicate countries beyond Europe (e.g., Lebanon, Syria, Israel). The only leftovers would be Greece-Turkey-Cyprus right? They go together nicely as a travel region, but I can't think of a good name. "Agean" would leave out Cyprus, for example. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 01:24, 6 October 2008 (EDT)
I’d prefer a proper name but the best I’ve got is ‘Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus’. It shouldn’t be a big problem since we’ll have region names like ‘France and the Benelux’ or ‘Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine’.--(WT-en) Vidimian 09:36, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

Agreed. Here is an updated map and the regions scheme as we have it. If there are no more suggestions/criticisms, lets wait 3 weeks and then implement this new hierarchy.

See also European Microstates.

Nice to see, too, that these region pages all already exist! My only lingering doubt is in applying the name Balkans to include Romania and Moldova—only the name, mind you—I do think the groupings are ideal. "Southeastern Europe" is the only other name I can think to apply to this region, but then you have the problem of explaining why Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus have been excluded from that region (the answer being, of course, that it makes sense from a travel perspective to make this division). --(WT-en) Peter Talk 14:08, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

Awesome work :) These regions make a lot more sense for the traveller. Instead of vague terms like 'Eastern Europe', these smaller subregions like Caucasus, Baltic States and Balkans are actually recognizable and logical regions to travel around in. Good work. (WT-en) Globe-trotter 08:40, 9 October 2008 (EDT)
  • BUMP* This proposal has been out there for a while and consensus seems to have been reached, so just bumping back onto the recent changes page to give anyone else who wants to contribute one more chance to do so. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 12:11, 1 November 2008 (EDT)
Well, that was a big change! Anyway, the new hierarchy is implemented. May it long have acceptance with the Wikivoyage community. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 13:38, 14 November 2008 (EST)
Nice! Could you have a look over at Montenegro, in the words of the current Californian Governor; "It's not werkeing, uu hav to slab it a lidle haarder!" --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) Talk 13:43, 14 November 2008 (EST)
There's something wrong with Montenegro—I can't get the crumbs to display. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 13:46, 14 November 2008 (EST)
Ah, always nice to know I'm not a complete idiot, tried purging the page, but that doesn't help either. The rest looks great though, the only thing we need is a better map (no offense) and some contributors to add some more content to some of the regions. Great work, and great proposal --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) Talk 13:53, 14 November 2008 (EST)

Greece in the new hierarchy

I wasn't aware of this discussion until just now after I saw the Balkan breadcrumb on the Greece page. I think there should have been pointers to it on the relevant country talk pages. I don't think it was at all reasonable to expect contributors like me, who like most contributors work with a small subset of countries, to have known about this discussion which affects the countries I'm interested in but is on a page that I never have any particular reason to check. Having seen the hierarchy change, I want to register my strong objection to including Greece in a Balkan hierarchy. The inclusion of Greece under the Mediterranean Europe area on this site is of long standing; the vast majority of travelers think of Greece as a Mediterranean country; and indeed in the minds of people in most English speaking countries Greece and Italy are the two Mediterranean countries par excellence -- "Greece and Italy" are practically synonymous with "Mediterranean." It should also be noted that changing the Greece page breadcrumb to Balkans means that the breadcrumbs on all Greece pages will lead back to Balkans -- for instance, Crete, Mykonos, and Rhodes would all have breadcrumbs leading back to Balkans, which is clearly misleading and inappropriate, (it's not particularly bad for parts of Northern Greece like Thessaly or Epiros to be "Mediterranean" since most of them have a Mediterranean coast and the few regions of Northern Greece that can really be considered inland are still close to the Mediterranean.) Listing Greece as a Balkan region also obscures the fact that the Greece has, especially from the viewpoint of travelers considering destinations, much more in common with Spain and Italy than it does with Serbia or Bulgaria or Montenegro. I changed the breadcrumb on the Greece page back to Mediterranean before I knew about the hierarchy change, which I wouldn't have done unilaterally if I'd known about the discussion, but I'll leave that change for now and I'll put a pointer from the Greece talk page to here. (WT-en) Sailsetter 18:38, 14 November 2008 (EST)

Could you propose a change that you would find acceptable? Should there be a separate region for Greece & Italy, and if so what should it be named? Do you have an alternative proposal? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 18:48, 14 November 2008 (EST)
We are in the process of phasing out that Mediterranean Europe page altogether, for numerous reasons discussed throughout this talk page. We actually don't include Greece in the Balkans region, but I left the breadcrumb to Balkans there, since Greece is unambiguously part of the Balkan Peninsula. It's not appropriate to leave the breadcrumb pointing to Mediterranean Europe (since that article is defunct per the above discussion), but I'm fine with just pointing straight to Europe, as I did for Cyprus and Turkey. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 19:38, 14 November 2008 (EST)
Having looked through the discussion above I don't find the arguments for eliminating the Mediterranean Europe region persuasive, and I would have argued against the proposal to do so if I'd known about it. As it is, I won't complain about putting Greece under either Europe or Southern Europe. I'll remark in passing though that I don't agree that Greece is unambiguously part of the Balkan peninsula: the fact that half the country's area consists of islands and seas which few people would refer to as "Balkan" (Crete, Rhodes, Santorini, Lesbos, Chios, Mykonos, Kos, etc. etc.) seems to me to introduce some ambiguity. And from a traveler's viewpoint (which is supposed to be Wikivoyage's viewpoint) consider which of these two statements a traveler is likely to make: 1) "I'm taking my vacation in Greece this year because I've always wanted to see the Mediterranean," or 2) "I'm taking my vacation in Greece this year because I've always wanted to see the Balkans." (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:59, 15 November 2008 (EST)
Well Sailsetter, as I understand the above suggestion, "...because I've always wanted to see the Balkans" is not a necessary argument, because it won't be a part of the Balkans - but a separate region with Turkey and Cyprus, which definitely makes sense for me as a travel region... Now if only we could find a good name. "Aegean countries" would work for me, but I guess someone passionate about Cyprus could object to that.

I think countries being top-level regions should be exceptions (as in the case of Italy), not the rule. At the moment, France, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Ukraine, and Russia are all shown as top-level regions at breadcumbs. So, if no one objects, I'll write some articles on Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus and Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus regions and change isIn tags towards them (rather than directly to Europe) soon.--(WT-en) Vidimian 07:44, 18 November 2008 (EST)

And also I'd like to see Monaco and San Marino as parts of European Microstates, not of France and Mediterranean Europe as how it is at the moment--(WT-en) Vidimian 07:47, 18 November 2008 (EST).

Do not change anything until there is clear consensus, please. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:28, 18 November 2008 (EST)
There are already country pages on Greece, etc. Why should there also be region pages? That seems terribly redundant and confusing. (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:17, 18 November 2008 (EST)
What is the problem? Greece is not part of "Balkans", it's part of a group with Greece, Turkey and Cyprus (the eastern mediterannean). (WT-en) Globe-trotter 18:02, 19 November 2008 (EST)

IRELAND IS NOT THE"BRITISH ISLES" IT IS A COUNTRY ON IT'S OWN!!!!! —The preceding comment was added by 83.70.237.84 (talk • contribs)

While it's true the Greek isles don't fit well with the Balkan label. The rump of the Greek state absolutely does. From a tourist standpoint, I can see why you don't include Greece in the Balkans, because the overwhelming majority of places tourists will be aren't in the Greek hinterland. As an equivalent example: Russia lies predominately in Asia, but no one is arguing for it to be included as such. —The preceding comment was added by 78.24.49.118 (talk • contribs)

More on European regions

I don't know if this topic is still considered open for discussion, but since my opinion was asked above, here is what I think. To back up to basics, a region hierarchy should reflect what travelers are interested in. This means that regions should be geographically contiguous areas with things very generally in common. Since modern travel, especially in Europe, usually is done by airplane and high speed train, it makes sense for the regions to be fairly large. And since travelers don't care much about strictly following what geographers say, neither should the Wikivoyage regions. In line with these principles, I think the best European region hierarchy would be a broad, simple one of Northern Europe, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe. Northern Europe would include Ireland, Iceland, the UK, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland, Southern Europe would include Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece, and Eastern Europe would include Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and all those other little countries around there, Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland. (If I've left any countries out, just put them in where they belong.) I'd leave the European bit of Turkey out, attaching it to the rest of Turkey. Personally, I'd put the former Soviet republics other than Russia in a separate region. It seems to me this hierarchy would best reflect the way travelers actually think about and plan their trips. Interesting to note in passing that these regions, generally and with exceptions, reflect an overall cultural contiguity based on the three great historic linguistic divisions of Europe: Germanic, Romance, and Slavic. (Sorry, Celts, you used to be the fourth, but eighteen centuries of getting invaded by everybody and their uncle ousted your languages from that position.) (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:40, 18 November 2008 (EST)

All very logical, but unfortunately that's going to fail when Poles, Slovenes etc start throwing hissy fits about being labeled "Eastern European". Plunking eg. Austria into "Northern Europe" is also a little contrived, to say the least... (WT-en) Jpatokal 11:01, 18 November 2008 (EST)
As for the first, I didn't realize Eastern Europe was a pejorative name; as for the second, whatever the compass says. Austria surely has a "look and feel" closer to its northern neighbors than its southern ones, and travelers are more likely to consider it part of a Northern Europe itinerary than a Southern Europe one. At any rate, names can be fiddled with to accommodate various hobby horses even if the regions remain the same. (Incidentally, Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, Berkeley Guides, National Geographic, Let's Go, Fodors, Rough Guides, and Frommers all have travel guides titled "Eastern Europe." The ones I've looked at include Poland and Slovenia, and probably all the rest do too.) (WT-en) Sailsetter 11:22, 18 November 2008 (EST)
I for one think the new heirachy is splendid because it fits with groups of countries travellers would visit together - while eastern europe, the balkans, and greece/turkey is almost impossible to construct in a way that satisfies everyone, i think this get's pretty damn close. Scandiavia, Baltics, British Isles, Benelux and the Iberian penisula - are all natural regions, that also get's grouped together in most guidebooks. Italy makes perfect sense as a region in it's own right - as it's north-south diversity makes it hard to group naturally with anything else. I also think Greece, Turkey & Cyprus fit well together. So I don't know, maybe it's the name that does it for you. But i would strongly oppose your suggestion - it doesn't make sense for me. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) Talk 14:11, 18 November 2008 (EST)
Your grouping is very problematic. Where would Belgium go? Luxembourg? Switzerland? The UK and Ireland? The barrier would also be a highly politicized grouping, showing the former western and eastern blocs. It's not needed because a central european group makes perfect sense. I like the new proposal, because it shows a lot of logical groupings. (WT-en) Globe-trotter 18:06, 19 November 2008 (EST)

I note by the way that Wikivoyage Shared in its photo hierarchy divides Europe into Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean Europe, Northern Europe, and Western Europe -- the countries under each can easily be checked there. This seems to me an eminently sensible hierarchy which should just have been adopted by Wikivoyage. (WT-en) Sailsetter 12:14, 1 December 2008 (EST)

Well, that's pretty much the old hierarchy, and I still find them arbitrary. Grouping Scandinavia and the British isles together in a region doesn't make sense for me, I've never met anyone who was going on a trip to the UK and Scandinavia, and in terms of organising content it doesn't make sense for me either. Except for some naming issues, which makes it look a bit odd, I find the new regions very logical. Only issue is I would like the map updated --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) Talk 18:59, 1 December 2008 (EST
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