A composed satellite photograph of islands and continental areas in and surrounding theNorth Sea andBaltic Sea
The northern region ofEurope has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describenorthern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of theBaltic Sea, which is about54°N, or may be based on other geographical factors such asclimate andecology.
Northern Europe might be defined roughly to include some or all of the following areas:British Isles,Fennoscandia, the peninsula ofJutland, theBaltic plain that lies to the east, and the many islands that lie offshore from mainland northern Europe and the main European continent. In some cases,Greenland is also included, although it is only politically European, comprising part of theKingdom of Denmark, and not considered to be geographically in Europe.
The area is partly mountainous, including the northern volcanic islands ofIceland andJan Mayen, and the mountainous western seaboard,Scotland andScandinavia, and also often includes part of the large plain east of theBaltic Sea.
The entire region's climate is at least mildly affected by theGulf Stream. From the west climates vary frommaritime and maritime subarctic climates. In the north and central climates are generallysubarctic orArctic and to the east climates are mostlysubarctic andtemperate/continental.
The United Nations geoscheme is a system devised by theUnited Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) which divides the countries of the world intoregional andsubregional groups, based on theM49 coding classification. The partition is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories.[1]
In the UN geoscheme, the following countries are classified as being in northern Europe:[1]
EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by thePublications Office of the European Union, giving definitions of terms for official use. In the definition of "northern Europe", the following countries are included:[2]
In theCIA World Factbook, the description of each country includes information about "Location" under the heading "Geography", where the country is classified into a region. The following countries are included in their classification "northern Europe":[3]
Northern Europe, as defined by the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions
TheWorld Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions is a biogeographical system developed by the internationalBiodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, formerly the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases. The WGSRPD standards, like other standards for data fields in botanical databases, were developed to promote "the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the world's heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large". The system provides clear definitions and codes for recordingplant distributions at four scales or levels, from "botanical continents" down to parts of large countries. The following countries are included in their classification of "northern Europe":[4]
Map of Europe showing the largest religions by region. Islam is represented in green, Eastern Orthodox Christianity in blue, Roman Catholicism in purple, and the other colors represent branches of Protestantism.
Countries in northern Europe generally have developed economies and some of the highest standards of living in the world. They often score highly on surveys measuring quality of life, such as theHuman Development Index. Aside from the United Kingdom, they generally have a small population relative to their size, most of whom live in cities. The quality of education in much of Northern Europe is rated highly in international rankings, withEstonia andFinland topping the list among theOECD countries in Europe.[citation needed]
^"Act [No 61/2011] on the status of the Icelandic language and Icelandic sign language"(PDF).Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. p. 1.Archived(PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved15 November 2013.Article 1; National language – official language; Icelandic is the national language of the Icelandic people and the official language in Iceland. Article 2; The Icelandic language — The national language is the common language of the Icelandic general public. Public authorities shall ensure that its use is possible in all areas of Icelandic society. All persons residing in Iceland must be given the opportunity to learn Icelandic and to use it for their general participation in Icelandic society, as further provided in leges speciales.
^Parkvall, Mikael (2009)."Sveriges språk. Vem talar vad och var?"(PDF).RAPPLING 1. Rapporter Från Institutionen för Lingvistik Vid Stockholms Universitet: 24.Archived(PDF) from the original on 20 September 2014. Retrieved1 January 2023.
^Mackenzie, Donald W. (1990–92). "The Worthy Translator: How the Scottish Gaels got the Scriptures in their own Tongue".Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness.57:168–202.
^Watkins, T. Arwyn (1993) "Welsh" in Ball, Martin J. with Fife, James (Eds)The Celtic Languages. London/New York: Routledge: 289–348.
^Kenneth Scott Latourette,A history of expansion of Christianity. Vol 2. The thousand years of uncertainty: AD 500–AD 1500 (1938) pp. 106–43.
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