Mildly interesting: according to the scientific publisher Elsevier, Poland is Eastern Europe and Greece is Western Europe

23 comments

  2. Geographically poland is eastern europe and greece is south.

    But culturally and geopolitically yes it is as Elsevier says.

  3. East vs West division in Europe is not purely about geography, this isn’t news. However, placing Greece in Western Europe is still wrong.

  4. Can we find a more western European country than the one where the philosophers who still influences our occidental way of thinking so strongly were born 🙂

  5. It’s kinda bad that subconscious dichotomy “Western Europe / Eastern Europe” works like halo effect

    W (and N) keeps being associated with prosperity and opportunities while E (and S after 2008) sounds somewhat backwater and less prestigious even if barely corresponds with national statistics. Central European is used as a new(mildly) geographical label with no shame behind it

    For instance, when talking about Estonia’s growth in recent decades it’s way more likely be framed as “Eastern Post-Soviet” rather than “Northern / Baltic”. Same for Czechia “Eastern Post-Socialist” vs “Central European, Višegrad group”. None of these characteristics is false geographically and historically but the narrative matters

  6. Only because the west borrowed from the Romans and Romans borrowed from the Greeks. Geopolitically and culturally, Greece was always middle-eastern.

  8. Yes, this has been talked about a million times. It’s a geopolitical split, not a purely geographical. Finland is also thrown in with the West despite being geographically East. Usually the people complaining are from the countries categorized as “East” because they don’t like it (they prefer “Central” or something like that).

  10. It’s simple: if it’s in the right side with respect to Italy, it’s east; otherwise its west. I tend to consider “Eastern” people also Slovenian and Croatian ones

  11. The first divide was on religion, 1000 years ago, Eastern being Orthodox and West being Catholic. So no way Hungary and Poland are east and Greece west.

  13. I also love the phrase “first originated” – suggests you had no ancestors before those people who appeared out of thin air in Western Europe

  14. Heard from a Balkan person that the west claim Greece because they like to trace back their history there but shun the rest of the balkans. Romanians have a better historical claim to being western. It’s all dumb.

  15. People who think this list is super random, it’s probably written by a boomer who remembers the Cold War map. Poland was in the Soviet sphere of influence and Greece in the western sphere.

  20. How are Greece and Sweden Western Europe and Hungary and Poland Eastern Europe? It literally doesn’t make sense. The direction between them is purely north to south.

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