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Eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe is a term that applies to the geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. In some definitions its borders are defined more by culture than by clear and precise geography[citation needed]. Throughout history and to a lesser extent today Eastern Europe has been distinguishable from Western Europe and other regions due to cultural, religious, economic, and historical reasons[citation needed]. Although the term Eastern Europe was largely defined during the Cold War, it still remains much in use.[1] The term is commonly used in the media and in "eastern" and other regions of Europe.
Definitions
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Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision or are extremely general. Definitions vary both across cultures and among experts and political scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise [3]. Usually, the term is understood as a region lying between Central Europe and the Ural mountains, or as European countries of the former "Eastern Bloc" - western borders of Western Europe depend on the approach.
UN
The United Nations Statistics Division considers Eastern Europe to consist of the following ten countries[4][5]: Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine. The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations[6].
The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) was set up to consider the technical problems of domestic standardization of geographical names[7]. The Group is composed of experts from various linguistic/geographical divisions that have been established at the UN Conferences on the Standardization of Geographical Names.
- Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Asia Division[8]: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan.
- East Central and South-East Europe Division[8]:Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine.
- Romano-Hellenic Division[8]: Fourteen countries[9] including Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Holy See, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, Moldova and Turkey.
- Baltic Division[8]: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
Other agencies of the United Nations (like UNAIDS[10], UNHCR[11], ILO[12] or UNICEF[13]) divide Europe into different regions and variously assign various states to those regions.
CIA
The CIA World Factbook[14] describes the following countries as located in:
- Central Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
- Eastern Europe: Belarus, Estonia[15], Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine
- Southeastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia and part of Turkey
- Russia is defined as a transcontinental country.
Geographical
The Ural Mountains are the geographical border on the eastern edge of Europe. In the west, however, the cultural and religious boundaries are subject to considerable overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which make a precise definition of the western boundaries of Eastern Europe somewhat difficult.
Soviet era
One view of the present boundaries of Eastern Europe came into being during the final stages of World War II. The area eventually came to encompass all the European countries which were under Soviet influence or control. These countries had communist regimes imposed upon them, and neutral countries were classified by the nature of their political regimes. The Cold War increased the number of reasons for the division of Europe into two parts along the borders of NATO and Warsaw Pact states.
Post-Soviet
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, other definitions of Eastern Europe have emerged.
The Baltic states
The Baltic states were Soviet republics and currently EU members that can be included in definitions of both Eastern and Northern Europe.[16][17]
The Balkans
Balkan states can be considered as being in Southern Europe[18] and Eastern Europe.
