Western Europe is the western region ofEurope. The region's extent varies depending on context.The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean world, theLatin West of theRoman Empire, and "Western Christendom". Beginning with theRenaissance and theAge of Discovery, roughly from the 15th century, the concept ofEurope as "theWest" slowly became distinguished from and eventually replaced the dominant use of "Christendom" as the preferredendonym within the area.[1] By theAge of Enlightenment and theIndustrial Revolution, the concepts of "Eastern Europe" and "Western Europe" were more regularly used.[2] The distinctiveness of Western Europe became most apparent during theCold War, when Europe was divided for 40 years by theIron Curtain into theWestern Bloc andEastern Bloc, each characterised by distinct political and economical systems.[3]
Prior to theRoman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developedLa Tène culture. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainlyGreek-speaking eastern provinces, which had formed the highly urbanisedHellenistic civilisation, and the western territories, which in contrast largely adopted theLatin language. This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of theRoman Empire. TheWestern Roman Empire and theEastern Roman Empire controlled the two divergent regions between the 3rd and the 5th centuries.
InEast Asia, Western Europe was historically known astaixi in China andtaisei in Japan, which literally translates as the "Far West". The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during theMing dynasty. The Italian Jesuit priestMatteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of theFar East. In Ricci's writings, Ricci referred to himself as "Matteo of the Far West".[6] The term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Christianity is the largest religion in Western Europe. According to a 2018 study by thePew Research Center, 71.0% of Western Europeans identified as Christians.[7]
Political spheres of influence in Europe during theCold War; neutral countries (shaded grey or light blue) considered informally Western-oriented but not formally aligned to the West
During the fourdecades of theCold War, the definition of East and West was simplified by the existence of theEastern Bloc. A number of historians and social scientists view the Cold War definition of Western and Eastern Europe as outdated or relegating.[8][9][10]
FromStettin in theBaltic toTrieste in theAdriatic aniron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states ofCentral and Eastern Europe.Warsaw,Berlin,Prague,Vienna,Budapest,Belgrade,Bucharest andSofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
Although some countries were officiallyneutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political and economic systems. This division largely defines the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe and its borders withEastern Europe on the east side. On the western side is the Atlantic ocean.
In 1948 theTreaty of Brussels was signed betweenBelgium,France,Luxembourg, theNetherlands and theUnited Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at theParis Conference, when theWestern European Union was established. It was declared defunct in 2011 after theTreaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries. Additionally, it had 6 associate member countries, 7 associate partner countries and 5 observer countries.
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.[11]
In the UN geoscheme, the following countries are classified as Western Europe:[11]
EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by thePublications Office of the European Union. In this thesaurus, the countries of Europe are grouped into sub-regions.[13] The following countries are included in the sub-group Western Europe:[14]
Using the CIA classification strictly would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population. All figures based on the projections for 2018 by the Population Division of theUnited Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.[16]
Using the CIA classification a little more liberally and including "South-Western Europe", would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population.[16]
European climate. TheKöppen-Geiger climates map is presented by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Global Precipitation Climatology Center of the Deutscher Wetterdienst.
The climate of Western Europe varies fromMediterranean in the coasts ofItaly,Portugal andSpain toalpine in thePyrenees and theAlps. TheMediterranean climate of the south is dry and warm. The western and northwestern parts have a mild, generally humid climate, influenced by theNorth Atlantic Current. Western Europe is aheatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes.[18]
Western Europe is one of the richest regions of the world.Germany has the highestgross domestic product in Europe and the largest financial surplus of any country,Luxembourg has the world's highest GDP per capita, and Germany has the highestnet national wealth of any European state.[22]
^Delanty, Gerard (1995). "The Westernisation of Europe".Inventing Europe Idea, Identity, Reality. p. 30.doi:10.1057/9780230379657.ISBN978-0-333-62203-2.Until the late fifteenth century the idea of Europe was principally a geographical expression and subordinated to Christendom which was the dominant identity system in the West. The idea of Europe as the West began to be consolidated in the foreign conquests of the age of 'discovery" (...) "Europe then begins to shed itself of its association with Christendom and slowly becomes an autonomous discourse.
^Ricci, Matteo (1610) [2009].On Friendship: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Prince. Translated by Timothy Billings. Columbia University Press. pp. 19, 71, 87.ISBN978-0-231-14924-2.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^"Too much writing on the region has – consciously or unconsciously – clung to an outdated image of 'Eastern Europe', desperately trying to patch together political and social developments from Budapest to Bukhara or Tallinn to Tashkent without acknowledging that this Cold War frame of reference is coming apart at the seams.Central Europe Review: Re-Viewing Central Europe By Sean Hanley, Kazi Stastna and Andrew Stroehlein, 1999
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