r/MapPorn • u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 • 8h ago
Do you agree with these divisions? If not what would you change?
I personaly think, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia should be Nordic.
Edit:
This was a bad idea.
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u/TailleventCH 8h ago
I find rather "interesting" that "following cultural proximities", Alsace is split from France but French and Italian speaking Switzerland are still with the Germans.
I'm not sure to find this consistent.
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u/Familiar_Cow_6901 7h ago
People in the comments just being blatantly stubborn in Cold War propaganda definitions that were made for westerners to feel superior and for the USSR to justify their reign over the east...
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u/Many-Gas-9376 8h ago
That "cultural proximities" map is more reasonable than most, recognizing those complexities within France and Ukraine for example.
It always feels a bit forced to draw these discrete lines. With the Baltics you could make reasonable arguments for Northern, Central and to lesser extent eastern cultural proximities. If forced to group the Baltics somehow, you might even not group them together, rather might make a northern/central split down the middle, somewhere around the historic Lutheran/Catholic line, and recognizing Lithuania's strong ties with Poland and the Estonia's with the Nordic countries.
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u/Lespia 8h ago
If Cyprus is Europe then include Syria and Lebanon as well.
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u/No-Disk5588 8h ago
Because the Adriatic coast of Croatia is super similar to Narva, Estonia. Give me a break. Dividing europe into regions varies depending on geography, history, culture and language and it also transcends political boundaries
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 8h ago
Very much agreed, it's hard to do but this map got some things horribly wrong.
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u/Rob_lochon 8h ago
Southwest France should be southern, the whole occitan area. I'm bang in the middle of it and culturally we are closer to Spain than northern France.
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u/Longjumping_Care989 7h ago
I would add Istria and Dalmatia from Croatia; and Montenegro, Albania, Cyprus, and Greece to Southern Europe
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 7h ago
Imo untill Greece should be southern, especially the coast region has many similarities. The deeper inland you go the more it changes relative to distance traveled by coast or even across the water to Italy.
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u/Classic_Truth4780 8h ago
I disagree. We should move France out of Western Europe and in its place we will put a Walmart Supercenter
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 7h ago
Hear me out, Belgium. One GIANT Wallmart with smooth asphalt between Netherlands and France.
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u/Baldri 8h ago
Netherlands and Germany are more similar than Netherlands and GB or France i dare to say.
Isnt netherlandish just drunk german?
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 7h ago
Oh and no actually the Languages are similar but quite different.
When the Netherlands established itself as a country it adopted it's own "Diets" meaning "People's Language" (as opposed to Latin used by Scholars and Clerics).Diets is also where "Dutch" comes from, referring to West-European Germanic speakers in general in the Middle Ages.
"Diets" is now unused in the Dutch language, but Germans still call their language "Deutsch".
But Yes, culturally and genetically especially West-Germans and Dutch are relatively close, though we also bridge a gap between England and Germany too. And let's not talk about France.
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u/PaleoTurtle 7h ago
Baltics are always weird othewise I like this map a lot. IMO Baltics are kind've their own thing but I'd put them in Northern or Eastern before I'd put them in central. Poland and Slovakia are other oddballs imo in that regard. Regions are ofc a gradient and we lose a lot of nuance trying to fit them into neat categories.
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u/11160704 7h ago
The baltic cities definitely feel central European because they were dominated by Germans or Poles for centuries. Not so sure about the countryside though.
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u/Extreme-Shopping74 8h ago
As a German, I see these as logical, historically and culturally. But also geographically.
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u/theys96 8h ago
I would start Eastern Europe roughly east of Vienna.
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u/Fishak_29 8h ago
Baltic history is tied closer to Germany and Poland than Russia so I guess I can see it. But that’s taking the long view
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u/PrestigiousRoof5723 7h ago
Unfortunately, they absolutely hate when someone describes how those ties to Germany look like.
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u/moitolixo 7h ago
Wow! So the westernmost point of continental Europe isn't in “Western Europe”!
Nor the place where the world was once believed to end!
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u/srmndeep 6h ago
Historically, Rather than Scandinavia, Lithuania was historically more closer to Poland as Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as both Poland and Lithuania are Catholic.
Whereas Latvia and Estonia, I am not sure how much politically and culturally closer they were to Scandinavia.
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u/scbalazs 7h ago
Germany is culturally Western Europe.. At least it was before reunification
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u/PrestigiousRoof5723 7h ago
So is Austria and Switzerland. Balkan countries are culturally closer to other Slavic countries than to Greece. But on the other hand, Italy and France are closer culturally than France and the UK.
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u/SilverNeptuneAbyss 8h ago
There is no Central Europe it's either east or west
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 8h ago
Privyet comrade, long time no see.
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u/Extension-Beat7276 8h ago
I like it as “accurate” as it can get
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 8h ago
Western and Southern Europe sure, but the Baltics are not Central European, and the Balkans and Eastern Europe are on something else.
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u/Extension-Beat7276 8h ago
Thing is you can’t seperate Lithuania from Poland and can’t separate Lithuania from the Baltics so either they all go central or all go northern
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u/Unhappy-Bluebird-362 8h ago
Well the map actually accounts for cultural proximities so it's a non argument for me.
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u/a_bright_knight 7h ago
cope map so no one ends up in eastern europe. In a few years this map will be updated and Ukraine will also be Central Europe 🤡
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u/TarheelCroatInMA 8h ago
The baltics can’t be Central Europe tho