403,843 Votes: Where's the Line Between West & Eastern Europe? - TLDR News

Eastern and Western Europe have some pretty well-defined identities, with the former often having theirs weaponized against them. However, the target isn't even particularly well defined. So in this video, we dive into the differences and uncover where is 'Eastern Europe?'

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[fantasy]

The East vs West is just too restrictive to make sense. In Czechia, everybody will tell you we're "central Europe". I'm fairly confident the Greeks would identify as "south Europeans". The East vs West is a relict of the Cold War and doesn't work anymore.

[goodlookingcorpse]

The religiosity divide seems much more north/south than east/west to me.

EDIT: I'm talking about degree of religiosity, not Catholic & Protestant vs Orthodox.

[jghillas]

Here in the United States, where I studied world geography in middle school, we were taught that Greece was part of Western Europe despite it's location. This was a holdover from Cold War geopolitics, as Greece was one of the only countries in the east that was not communist. Since Ancient Greece Was the birthplace of democracy and Western civilization, there is a tendency of western countries to want to associate it among themselves.

[Chitus]

In my country (Poland) we say that we are Central Europe. In Czech Republic and Slovakia it would be same I guess because our mindset is other than in eastern europe. We want to live properly and develop. Hugs for our brothers from Czechia and Slovakia.

[krupam]

Today "Eastern Europe" usually refers to the former Soviet block, so discussing the concept without even mentioning that seems kind of pointless.

[stepanvrana]

The Czech Republic has a lot of historical, cultural and mindset similarities with both Eastern and Western Europe, so we in the Czech Republic simply say that we are Central Europe.

[borisnikator]

You definitely missed Russia, because the biggest chunk of Europe is there. However you included Turkey which has very small part in Europe.

[jpwlfgh]

Love how you include Turkey in Europe, but Russia is just disappeared from your map.

[Nahbyr]

It would be interesting to see where people that voted originate from too. I can imagine a non-European person voting more based on geography instead of 'a feeling'.
Also, I always thought the East/West divide was based on former Soviet countries. This also lines up pretty well with your data and makes more sense to me. It explains why people think of Finland and Greece as borderline or West.

[letecmig]

Here in Czechia calling us 'Eastern Europe' is simply taken as an insult. We are and have always been Central European. The binary split of Europe to 'East' and 'West' is simply an imposition of defining factor of extremely short period of European history (1945-1989). To countries that see themselves as 'Central European' it just feels somebody still wants to put them back to an era defined by the communism and soviet dominance out of pure intellectual laziness

[Cay]

How was Turkey included in the map and not Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan? All of them straddle between Europe and Asia.

[becharac]

Wait, you put Turkey in Europe but kicked out Russia? Are you idiots? Turkey has one city (big city sure, but one) in Europe while Russia has its whole European culture, population, capital etc

[harryg]

I'm surprised that there was no mention of the USSR and Yugoslavia - as far as perceptions of what's 'west' and what's east, I would have thought it played a pretty big role.

Edit: Warsaw pact/Iron Curtain, not USSR

[goodlookingcorpse]

The line you ended up drawing is quite close to the line that divided the Western and Eastern blocs during the Cold War, if you count democratic, non-aligned countries such as Sweden as 'Western' and non-Soviet-aligned Yugoslavia and Albania as 'Eastern', with the exception that
i) East Germany is part of Germany and in the West here, but was a separate country and aligned with the East during the Cold War.
ii) Greece and Turkey are in the East here, but were aligned with the West during the Cold War.

[czechgroyper]

So according to you, turkey is European and Russia is not...

[keltdavies]

As a Canadian who grew up in the late stages of the Cold War (Reagan, Thatcher, Gorbachev era), I was taught Eastern Europe were Warsaw pact countries, while Western Europe was NATO countries with Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland thrown in (despite them being technically 3rd world nations). Turkey was not taught as a European country as its capital is in Asia.

[LucasBenderChannel]

It's curious to me, that Germany was voted in as almost unanimously "Western" by your audience, since Germany itself likes to highlight its situation as a bridge between East and West... Not too far-fetched, considering the whole split during the Cold War. But, sure, the country is also firmly aligned with the EU and NATO and its greatest foreign policy partners are France, the US and so on. So I can see why we're percieved as purely Western.

[TheOtario]

Just one quick not as one of the voters.

When I chose religion as a dividing line between east and west, I was referring to Orthodox vs Catholic faith, not how religious a country is.

[neil]

My experience, from working with colleagues from many European countries is that most regard beibg described at Eastern Europe to be an insult. Eastern Europe is considered to be less developed, less modern, than the West. For that reason, Eastern Europe always starts at least one country to the East of the speaker's home country. So to a German, it may include Poland, but to a Pole it definitely doesn't start until at least Belarus.

[Ghostdesuu]

You gotta divide Europe into Western, Northern, Central, Southern, Eastern and Southeastern. All of those are fairly solid groupings and tell you a lot more about the country.