Talk:Region (Europe)

merge with Regions of Europe?
I wonder if we maybe better merge these two articles. I think the concepts are too easily confused unless covered in the same article. --Johan Magnus 14:48, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Umm. One is of intra-national regions, t'other of inter-national ones. They're quite different, to my mind at least.
 * James F. (talk) 17:31, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Most definitely, yes. That's why I think it would be important to contrast the concepts in the same article &mdash; i.e. in order to avoid unintended confusion. --Johan Magnus 18:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. Hmm. Possibly. Anyone else want to chip in?
 * James F. (talk) 19:49, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I wrote I wonder... &mdash; I'm not in any way convinced :-))
 * Johan Magnus 11:07, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A bit confused
I'm having problems parsing the first sentence: "The European Union follows to strengthen the Regions of Europe as the layer of EU government administration directly below the nation state level."

Follows to strengthen? Can someone rework that a bit? JohnRDaily 01:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I've made the text more legible, but I don't know how accurate the result is. -JohnRDaily 02:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Official status
What are the sources for the division of Sweden into Götaland, Svealand and Norrland in this system? That division is a historical and cultural division, but it is not an administrative division in any way, at least I haven't heard of it being used as such. And I've lived in Sweden for 20 years... Also, the flags seem very inaccurate. The flag of Skåneland is not used in the whole of Götaland, only in the south. The Sami flag is only used by the Sami, and the flag of Sweden is of course not used only in Svealand. Also, the flag used for the Oulu Province is the Ingrian flag, and Ingria is an area on the south-eastern border between Finland and Russia, far away from Oulu... /130.243.135.145 18:12, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm currently going through all the countries, adding numbers and correcting them, and using correct flags (if any). I'm afraid I haven't been able to find a source on the internet yet, so I can't say too much about the rather historical divisions for the Swedish and Czech partitions, and the Greek division is mainly guesswork on my part... &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 06:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, it seems more correct now. However, I wonder why Nord-Pas de Calais and Pays-de-la-Loire, which are separated by both Normandy and Picardy, are counted as one region. /130.243.135.145 23:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have seen Nord-Pas de Calais and Picardie as beeing combined before. Pays de la Loire I guess stays on its own.

The data for Ulster arent right cause for this region only the RoI area counts.

This whole list is currently based far too much on assumptions -- mine, mainly -- and far too little on source. Can someone please come up with references for this? &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 08:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Isle of Man
The Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom's membership, although Gibraltar is. The IOM is a Crown Colony, like Guernsey and Jersey, and therefore attached to the British Crown, but not the United Kingdom.


 * "Crown dependency". On the other hand, Eurostat refuses to recognise Gibraltar as a NUTS region.

Pairing of regions
What is the justification for pairing some of these regions (e.g. North East England and North West England or Navarra and La Rioja)? The first line "The European Union created the Regions of Europe as the layer of EU government administration directly below the nation-state level" is simply not true. The whole thing looks like POV original research and should in muy view be replaced by a brief factual description of the Committee of the Regions and a pointer to Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.--Henrygb 18:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no idea, actually. I tried to find some references for this, but was unable to. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 01:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Do these regions actually exist?
I've had a very good look around, particularly the EU's website and have come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as the sort of EU regions this page is talking about. In the context of the EU, "region" is quite a loose term, just as it has been historically. The actual list of regions depends on what they are being used for. There is a hierarchy of areas used for statistics, NUTS. It seems various levels or combinations of these areas are used as "regions" in other contexts.

Now, I had prevously thought that there was such thing as EU Regions, which were imposed on us by the EU. I thought these were used when EU bodies such as the Regional Development Fund. But as with many editors comtributing this page (or at least I suspect, apologies if I'm wrong) I'm looking at it from a UK perspective. In the UK, we didn't have regions before. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are logical regions, but the "Government Office Regions" of England often seem artificial, so must have been invented by the EU. I'd heard it argued by Europhiles that it was up to member states to decide on their administrative boundaries, but you never know whether to believe it.

If you look at the site on EU regional policy, you'll see that they list Cornwall as a "region" eligible to receive aid. Scotland is also sibdivided into several regions such as "Highland and Islands". In fact, these boundaries are based on NUTS2, see map.

The EU's Committee of the Regions "provides local and regional authorities with a voice at the heart of the European Union", but these authorities can be anything from a German federal state government to an English county council.

The closest thing to the regions this Wikipedia page is talking about can be found on a clickable map on the EU site. For some member states, it has solid red lines for "Regional boundaries". It then has dashed lines for "Boundaries between administrative units". Some countries only have the latter, but there is no correspondance between size of the area and whether they call them regions. e.g. Sweden has no regions, but Lithuania has lots of small regions. Latvia is divided up into similar areas to Lithuania, but they are not called regions. Other examples of "regions" are Irish provinces (which have no administrative function) and German Länder, which are federal states.

Each member state can also decide how to conduct its elections to the EU parliament. In the UK, we have regional votes, but that doesn't follow across the EU. In this context, they are no more than electoral regions.

From all this, I would conclude that there are no set regions that form part of a rigid hierarchy (EU&mdash;member state&mdash;region-...) It's up to each member state to decide how it is subdivided. In the UK context, it seems that regions are imposed on us not by the EU, but by John Prescott (so I'm not suggesting they are any more welcome!)

I welcome any comments to any of the points raised here. But really I think this page is confusing and inaccurate, and should probably be listed as an AfD.  J Rawle  (Talk) 14:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty certain you're right, yeah. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 20:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Neither the EU nor John Prescott invented the English "Government Office Regions" - they were administrative regions set up by the previous Conservative government. What Prescott did was (a) merge Merseyside with the North West and (b) adopt them as a basis for his regional policy to avoid having a lengthy debate over boundaries.  The EU accepted them as NUTS 1 regions.  In the UK NUTS 2 and 3 are fairly artificial.  In Spain NUTS 2 and 3 are administrative (communities and provinces) while NUTS 1 is artificial.  And it varies in other countries. --Henrygb 00:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * They also changed other boundaries, in the east and south-east for example. Anyway, I think the list on this page doesn't mean anything. Everything people need to know is covered in other articles, e.g. NUTS (what comprises a certain level in each country is well-explained on that page) and Committee of the Regions. If a country has particular regional or local administrative structure, it's best discussed on that country's page (and I'm sure it already will be!)  J Rawle  (Talk) 00:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * PS off-topic a bit, but I wish they'd invent some better English regions. East- and West Midlands are fairly close to people's natural alliances I would say (speaking as someone from that area) but why couldn't they have more sensible things such as "East Anglia" and "The Westcountry". And if only they matched ceremonial county boundaries: then we could be rid of "The Humber" – Humberside in disguise – once and for all.


 * "They"? The change to the East/South East (Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Essex) was a part of the Conservatives' Government Office responsibilities. It does not make it good or bad. --Henrygb 01:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As far as I could find: EU citizens live in some 240 regions, 800 cities of +50.000 inhabitants and those Europeans living in the EU Rural Areas, the countryside. More: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/digpub/regions/ - sorry, no more time. Talk more some other time :), SvenAERTS (talk) 11:39, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Regions of Hungary – wrong?
I've just created NUTS:HU and the three main (NUTS 1) regions described there are quite different from those mentioned in this chart. The three main regions of Hungary according to this article are "Central Hungary", "Transdanubia" and "Great Plain and North" (I'm not sure of the English name of the latter but I'm practically sure of its extent). I have several sources for them (see its "Sources and external links" section). Are these regions different from the NUTS 1 or is the data wrong in this chart? Adam78 01:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The charts is most likely completely made up. I've now removed it for good after considering it for quite some time, as I haven't been able to find *any* sources. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 12:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)