Western Europe#Classical antiquity and medieval origins

{{original research|date=September 2020|section}}

File:Expansion of christianity.jpg in Christianity{{cite web|url=http://rbedrosian.com/Maps/ahgh66b.htm |title=Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land |publisher=Rbedrosian.com |access-date=23 February 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130610034842/http://rbedrosian.com/Maps/ahgh66b.htm |archive-date=10 June 2013 }}{{cite web|url=http://home.comcast.net/~DiazStudents/MiddleAgesChurchMap1.jpg |title=home.comcast.net |access-date=23 February 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130213233630/http://home.comcast.net/~DiazStudents/MiddleAgesChurchMap1.jpg |archive-date=13 February 2013 }}]]

Prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces, which had formed the highly urbanised Hellenistic civilisation, and the western territories, which in contrast largely adopted Latin. The cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the Roman Empire. The Western Roman Empire and the [Eastern Roman Empire]] controlled the two divergent regions between the 3rd and the 5th centuries.

The division between these two was enhanced during late antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived and even thrived for another 1000 years. The rise of the Carolingian Empire in the west and in particular the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe.

After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire, the centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Carolingian Empire), the division between Roman Catholic and Protestant became more important in Europe than that with Eastern Orthodoxy.

In East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as {{lang|zh|taixi}} in China and {{lang|ja|taisei}} in Japan, which literally translates as the "Far West". The term "Far West" became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty. The Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In Ricci's writings, Ricci referred to himself as "Matteo of the Far West".{{cite book|first=Matteo|last=Ricci|others=Translated by Timothy Billings|title=On Friendship: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Prince|year=1610|orig-year=2009|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-14924-2|pages=19, 71, 87}} 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 the Pew Research Center, 71.0% of Western Europeans identified as Christians.{{citation|title=Being Christian in Western Europe|work=Pew Research Center |year=2018|url=http://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/ |access-date=29 May 2018 |publisher=Pew Research Center}}

In 1054, the East–West Schism divided Christianity into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. This split Europe in two, with Western Europe primarily under the Catholic Church, and Eastern Europe primarily under the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ever since the Reformation in the 16th century, Protestantism has also been a major denomination in Europe, with Eastern Protestant and Eastern Catholic denominations also emerging in Central and Eastern Europe.

File:Europe-blocs-49-89x4.svg; neutral countries (shaded grey or light blue) considered informally Western-oriented but not formally aligned to the West]]

During the four decades of the Cold War, the definition of East and West was simplified by the existence of the Eastern Bloc. A number of historians and social scientists view the Cold War definition of Western and Eastern Europe as outdated or relegating."One very common, but now outdated, definition of Eastern Europe was the Soviet-dominated communist countries of Europe."http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/BKdef.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171210020555/http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/BKdef.html |date=10 December 2017 }}"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. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20171031132532/http://www.ce-review.org/99/1/hanley1.html Central Europe Review: Re-Viewing Central Europe By Sean Hanley, Kazi Stastna and Andrew Stroehlein, 1999]}}{{Cite book |last1=Berglund |first1=Sten |last2=Ekman |first2=Joakim |last3=Aarebrot |first3=Frank H. |title=The handbook of political change in Eastern Europe |page=2 |year=2004 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=HeRzzwzdfPkC&q=Eastern+Europe+term+outdated&pg=PA2 |access-date=5 October 2011 |quote=The term 'Eastern Europe' is ambiguous and in many ways outdated. |isbn=978-1-78195-432-4 }}

During the final stages of World War II, the future of Europe was decided between the Allies in the 1945 Yalta Conference, between the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.

Post-war Europe was divided into two major spheres: the Western Bloc, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc, influenced by the Soviet Union. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. This term had been used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and, later, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the last days of the war; however, its use was hugely popularised by Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri:

{{blockquote|From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; 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 officially neutral, 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 with Eastern Europe on the east side. On the western side is the Atlantic ocean.

The world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. West Germany peacefully absorbed East Germany, in the German reunification. Comecon and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries that had been part of the Soviet Union regained full independence.

File:Western European Union (1995-2011).svg (1995–2011)]]

In 1948, the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established. It was declared defunct in 2011 after the Treaty 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.

File:Europe subregion map UN geoscheme.svg.
{{legend|#FF8080|Eastern Europe}}

{{legend|#4080FF|Northern Europe}}

{{legend|#00FF00|Southern Europe}}

{{legend|#00FFFF|Western Europe}}]]

The United Nations geoscheme is a system devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), which divides the countries of the world into region groups, based on the M49 coding classification. The partition is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories.{{Cite web|url=https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/|title= Methodology|website=UNSD |access-date=17 June 2019}}

In the UN geoscheme, the following countries are classified as Western Europe:

• Austria
• Belgium
• France
• Germany
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• Switzerland

File: Europe subregion map world factbook.svg:

{{legend|#007FFF|Northern Europe}}

{{legend|#F88379|Eastern Europe}}]]

The CIA classifies seven countries as belonging to "Western Europe":{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2144.html |title=Field listing: Location |publisher=CIA World Factbook |access-date=30 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524151212/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2144.html |archive-date=24 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}

• Belgium
• France
• Ireland
• Luxembourg
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom

The CIA also classifies three countries as belonging to "Southwestern Europe":

• Andorra
• Portugal
• Spain

File:European_Regions_EuroVoc_(Denmark_in_Northern_Europe).png:

{{legend|#0076D3|Northern Europe}}

{{legend|#E62121|Central and Eastern Europe}}]]

EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union. In this thesaurus, the countries of Europe are grouped into sub-regions.{{cite web|title=EuroVoc: 7206 Europe|url=https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/concept-scheme/-/resource?uri=http://eurovoc.europa.eu/100277|accessdate=9 February 2021}} The following countries are included in the sub-group Western Europe:{{cite web|title=EuroVoc: Western Europe|url=https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/concept/-/resource?uri=http://eurovoc.europa.eu/913&lang=en|accessdate=9 February 2021}}

• Andorra
• Austria
• Belgium
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

File:UN WEOG members.svg

The Western European and Others Group is one of several unofficial Regional Groups in the United Nations that act as voting blocs and negotiation forums. Regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European members of the group are:[http://data.unaids.org/pub/Manual/2009/jc1682_governancehandbook_lr_en.pdf UNAIDS, The Governance Handbook, January 2010] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110109143548/http://data.unaids.org/pub/Manual/2009/jc1682_governancehandbook_lr_en.pdf |date=9 January 2011 }} (p. 29).

{{colbegin|colwidth=12em}}

• Andorra
• Austria
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Italy
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• San Marino
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Turkey
• United Kingdom

{{colend}}

In addition, Australia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand are members of the group, with the United States as observer.

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 the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.{{cite web | url=https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/ | title=World Population Prospects 2018 | access-date=14 October 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160919061238/https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/ | archive-date=19 September 2016 | url-status=dead }}

Using the CIA classification a little more liberally and including "South-Western Europe" would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population:

¹ The Hague is the seat of government{{Cite web|title=Europe :: Netherlands — The World Factbook |url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/netherlands/|access-date=6 October 2020|website=Central Intelligence Agency }}

File:Europe Köppen Map.png 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 from Mediterranean in the coasts of Italy, Portugal and Spain to alpine in the Pyrenees and the Alps. The Mediterranean climate of the south is dry and warm. The western and northwestern parts have a mild, generally humid climate, which is influenced by the North Atlantic Current. Western Europe is a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes.{{Cite journal |last1=Rousi |first1=Efi |last2=Kornhuber |first2=Kai |last3=Beobide-Arsuaga |first3=Goratz |last4=Luo |first4=Fei |last5=Coumou |first5=Dim |date=4 July 2022 |title=Accelerated western European heatwave trends linked to more-persistent double jets over Eurasia |journal=Nature Communications |language=en |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=3851 |doi=10.1038/s41467-022-31432-y |pmid=35788585 |pmc=9253148 |bibcode=2022NatCo..13.3851R |s2cid=250282752 |issn=2041-1723|doi-access=free }}

{{See also|Languages of Europe|Indo-European languages|List of Indo-European languages}}

Western European languages mostly fall within two Indo-European language families: the Romance languages, descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire, and the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language (Proto-Germanic) came from southern Scandinavia.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9106055|title=Europe|year=2007|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=10 June 2008}}

Romance languages are spoken primarily in the southern and central part of Western Europe, Germanic languages in the northern part (the British Isles and the Low Countries), as well as a large part of Northern and Central Europe.

Other Western European languages include the Celtic group (that is, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton) and Basque, the only currently living European language isolate.{{Cite web|title=Basque language|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basque-language|access-date=16 June 2020|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}

Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Western Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.{{cite web |url=https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/a-word-from-the-chair |title= A Word from the Chair of the Committee of Experts|last=Oszmiańska-Pagett |first=Aleksandra |date=January 2022 |website= |publisher=Council of Europe |access-date=10 November 2023 |quote=}}

Western Europe is one of the richest regions of the world. Germany has the highest gross 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 highest net national wealth of any European state.{{Cite web|title=GDP (current US$) - European Union {{!}} Data|url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=EU|access-date=12 March 2021|website=data.worldbank.org}}

Switzerland and Luxembourg have the highest average wage in the world in nominal and PPP, respectively. Norway ranks highest in the world on the Social Progress Index.{{cite web|url=https://www.socialprogress.org/index/global/results|title=2020 Social Progress Index|publisher=The Social Progress Imperative|access-date=29 December 2020}}

{{See also|Age of Discovery|History of colonialism|New Imperialism|Industrial Revolution}}

{{portal|Geography|Europe}}

• Atlantic Europe
• Central Europe
• Eastern Europe
• Northern Europe
• Southern Europe
• Far West
• Marshall Plan
• {{section link|EuroVoc|Western Europe}}
• Western world

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{refbegin}}

• The Making of Europe, {{ISBN|978-0-14-015409-2}}, by Robert Bartlett
• Crescent and Cross, {{ISBN|978-1-84212-753-7}}, by Hugh Bicheno
• The Normans, {{ISBN|978-0-7524-2881-9}}, by Trevor Rowley
• 1066: The Year of the Three Battles, {{ISBN|978-0-7126-6672-5}}, by Frank McLynn

{{refend}}

{{Commons and category}}

• [http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm#europe The European sub-regions according to the UN]
• [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9217/europe.htm Teaching about Western Europe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060601210634/http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9217/europe.htm |date=1 June 2006 }}

{{Regions of the world}}

{{Europe topics (small)}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Regions of Europe

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