Talk:Western Europe/Archive 3

Protected edit request on 29 July 2017
Hi, so I think you should add to this page that the Czech Republic can be also described as a western european country (in history it was always associated with Germany and Austria) and thus should be called a western european country Vit.krivan (talk) 17:26, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting comment.svg Note: I'm closing this edit request because further consensus is needed on which countries should be included. See the above discussion. st  170  e  23:34, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

UN statistical division
Since we are listing various definitions of European sub-regions per countries here, we should probably also list the United Nations geoscheme, along with the CIA Factbook one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:28, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. It used to be there, but was removed in January, reinstated by an IP user and then again removed by the same user. The fact that the grouping is meant for statistical convenience, does not disqualify it from being a rare case of a well-defined use of the term "Western Europe". On the other hand, I am more doubtful about the inclusion of "European Union" and "EFTA" as subsections. Neither organization define themselves as Western European. They may have been regarded as Western European in a Cold War perspective at the time they were the "Inner Six" and the "Outer Seven", but the later enlargement of the EU has disrupted any logical connection between EU and the term "Western Europe". I mean, Cyprus as a Western European country? --T*U (talk) 14:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, if the UN grouping is "only for statistical purposes", then what is the CIA grouping and why are we giving it pride of place now? Actually, in the World Factbook, I can't see any formal definition or grouping at all – the only thing I can see is this list of geographical descriptors for each individual country, where terms like "Western Europe" are used. While these descriptors are all of course quite plausible (sure, the geographical position of Germany is nicely described by "Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark"), I'm not seeing any attempt at formalizing these descriptors into a coherent set of well-defined groups of countries. For instance, there is at least one such descriptor that is used only for a single country ("south Central Europe", describing Slovenia), so should we conclude from this that in a system of world regions Slovenia forms a unique group of one? Incidentally, our coverage of this framework isn't even accurate, as we are currently describing Switzerland as "Western", while the source lists it as "Central". Can somebody find a more substantial description of what the intention and systematicity of that CIA list is? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:03, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: I have corrected the map for Switzerland (and also Andorra) in accordance with the Factbook. As for Slovenia, I think we can assume, given the small "s" in "south", that the Factbook meant something like "in the southern part of Central Europa". I believe the map is now in line with the descriptions here. If not, please yell. --T*U (talk) 12:40, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I remain opposed to including any statistical regions. What is the point? So the UN divides Europe into equal size regions "for statistical convenience" and then gives them names which roughly correspond to where they are located, and we are going to list this as a definition? The UN does not specify that their statical regions are definitions of the regions they roughly correspond to, so it is original research to suggest so. T*U, you really have got to be kidding, this article isn't about arbitrary statistical regions, it's about a region called Western Europe. Please do not add OR to the article. Rob984 (talk) 16:15, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I fully understand your concern about not assigning too much significance to that UN grouping. The question is: is there any other grouping that deserves being given more significance than it? All the other definitions I'm currently seeing in the article are, if anything, weaker than this one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:35, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Support inclusion -- it's a notable and well-defined use of the term Western Europe, with boundaries, and can be one of the many (as per the lede different geographic, geopolitical and cultural definitions of the term discussed. Also TU-nor's point that the EU and EFTA never defined themselves as Western European is also notable with regards to how those two should be treated. --Yalens (talk) 17:34, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Rob984, I understand your concerns, but if you look at internet, you will see that we haven't found any strong sources about WE's definition. And I doubt that the UN Statistical Division is better than the others. But at least it is better than nothing. I support inclusion. WP:OR isn't to include how international organizations define Europe, but how certain users here have tried to make changes to the article without citing any sources at all. -- ❤ S ILENT R ESIDENT  ❤ 19:16, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * How is a source which doesn't claim to in any way define Western Europe, a good source for defining it? The UNSD states:


 * "the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories".


 * So why on earth is it appropriate to use it for "affiliation of countries or territories"?
 * I'm not defending any of the other alleged "definitions" on this page. If we have no reliable source, then we cannot list which countries are in western Europe.
 * Rob984 (talk) 12:03, 31 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It's also quite obvious to anyone who lives here that Europe isn't divided up into mutually exclusive regions like that, they overlap extensively, particularly southern and western Europe. I mean, Britain, Portugal and Spain aren't in western Europe, but Austria is? Please find me reliable sources that use that definition (and not just for statistical convenience). A reliable factual book, journal or article? Because there are millions of sources which use the term "western Europe". And also, which puts Kuril Islands of the coast of Japan as part of Eastern Europe... Rob984 (talk) 12:33, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I completely agree that "we cannot list which countries are in western Europe" unless we have reliable sources. Also I am quite sure that we will never find sources that "define Western Europe" once and for all. But what we can do and should do, is to present how the term "Western Europe" is used in different contexts. The presentation should probably have another title than "Modern divisions". It would include the CIA Factbook classification (but not as "groups" and "subgroups" unless the CIA actually does make such groupngs). It could (and imho should) include the Eurovoc classification scheme (perhaps with a note about Eurovoc not using the term "Central Europe" at all). It could (and again I think should) include the UN geoscheme (with a note about the purpose of the grouping). On the other hand, I cannot quite see what EU, EFTA and Intermediate Region has to do here. And of course there may be other groupings that are more useful. We will need to make sure that the text gives a balanced presentation of the various uses of the term "Western Europe". Hopefully we will even be able to find reliable sources that discuss the suitability of the different groupings. --T*U (talk) 13:27, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Coming to this article, I think this qualifies as by far the worst outlined definition of any geographic region on Wikipedia, bordering on the ridiculous. While the article is fairly long and includes a number of maps, a lot of the focus seems to be on artifical political and statistical regions that have little to no value to the entirely cultural-geographic region that is Western Europe. To a reader not familiar with the subject, the maps shown here either limit Western Europe to the Netherlands in the east and France in the south and west, or goes deep into Eastern Europe, one even including Turkey. Western Europe is also presented as synonymous with the European Union, which has explicitly been a project of uniting the west and east. The article is unhelpful and confusing at best. The nearly universal rendition of Western Europe by any common view would be identified by the map on the right (which is used in nearly all other Wikipedia language articles on Western Europe); somehow it isn't even included here. User2534 (talk) 11:03, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I understand where you are coming from. In day-to-day usage, Western Europe is the western half of Europe, and contrasts with the other half of Europe: Eastern Europe. This idea that Europe is split into 5 distinct regions (north, south, west, east, central) is nonsense. They are all overlapping. But, I have to dispute that map. I mean, including Finland but not Greece? Greece is actually further west of Finland. The map you cited is a globe projection without any lines of longitude or latitude... meaning it doesn't look like a global and instead a flat map. In other words, that map is misleading as hell when it comes to locating countries. Have a look at these two maps:
 * LA2-Europe-UTM-zones.png Location European nation states.svg
 * You can see clearly Greece is further west then Finland. And its certainly culturally more western then Finland. Finland is often associated with Estonia.
 * I agree with the commenters above, we need actual sources. Taking a (misleading) map used by another Wikipedia isn't going to solve any problems.
 * Rob984 (talk) 13:30, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * "Certainly is more culturally Western"? What exactly is defined as "culturally Western" here? Both countries present interesting cases with internal contradictions. Urban areas in Greece are very culturally Westernized, but Greek folk culture even in very basic things like mannerisms on many points (do you smile at strangers, do you nod or shake your head to say yes, etc...) can be quite different from what people from the US or Britain are used to. On the other hand Greece is a pretty economically developed ("Western", if we forget Saudi and Japan) country with "Western" cultural phenomena like recent advances in LGBT rights, although there is still plenty of room for improvement there. It's worth mentioning that there's a debate among Greeks about how "Western" or "Eastern" they are-- I assume you're familiar with the arguments of the former, but here's Patrikarakos arguing the latter [] -- obviously it's pretty complicated. Finland was profoundly influenced by Sweden throughout much of its history despite one intervening period of Russian occupation, and in many ways Finns are a lot like Swedes although they're more conservative, though I'm less familiar with Finland. Indeed in some definitions Sweden itself isn't Western; in others Estonia is. Given the subjectivity of the matter, it's the views of notable sources that matter, whether we like/agree wtih them or not. --Yalens (talk) 03:13, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh, I didn't realise that it has a source. My thinking was more around the fact that both Finnish and Estonian people are considered Finnic people, while Greeks are rarely grouped with their immediate neighbours (the Balkans). I updated that map with a more accurate projection. I agree, notable sources defining western Europe as a region are ideal. This will allow us move forward from the definition problem and start expanding this article to cover the topic more fully (such as geography, culture, history, etc.). Rob984 (talk) 18:32, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing the map for Malta. In history, there's Misha Glenny's (intro of The Balkans) definition of the Balkans as including north Greece but not the rest of Greece; obviously in politics/economics Greece is typically Western Europe, but in music and food not a bit (indeed it's practically the same as Turkish food, and people stopped calling Turkey West Europe decades ago). Language family as criterion I've never seen except by Romanian nationalists to claim their country is an "outpost" of Western Europe because their language is related to Spanish and French. Of course, if you have seen a source define West Europe by language family, by all means, add it. --Yalens (talk) 02:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Section "Population"
Since I got rather heavy-handed response to my last edits to this section, I prefer to explain the reasoning for my edit in detail. Also pinging the other users who have edited the section:, and.

I may not be an expert on English grammar (although I know what a sentence fragment is), but I have a very good knowledge about presentation and typography, having worked with oral and written communication and presentation all my professional life.

The text in the section has a rather simple main message which can be condensed to: "Here are the numbers: (table)". Two additions are needed, one about inclusion criteria, one about the source for the numbers. The inclusion criteria is added in an elegant and efficient way by use of the gerund construction (a feature in English sadly missing in many other languages). The source addition is not quite as simple, and I will discuss it in several steps.


 * 1) The simplest way is to add it just as a note with hyperlink to the web source.
 * 2) One may wish to add a description also in the text. I think that is advisable in this case to highlight that the numbers come from a UN source, not a CIA source. The easy way is to add a subordinate clause like "based on source X". This is sufficient, and in my opinion the best solution.
 * 3) The next possibility is to add the info with a full sentence like "Numbers are based...". Then the typographical signals come into work. The meta-message from the full stop + capital letter is "Now we stop this and start with a new message on a similar importance level." That gives the brain a detour before going back to the table. In my opinion it is unnecessary, but not quite unacceptable. I just do not see why.
 * 4) Next step is to add the emphasis "All" like "All numbers...". This is semantics, not typography, but it adds further weight to the source addition at the expense of the main message. Again I do not see why, but the structure is familiar to most people and the semantic difference is small. Some people may not even notice the difference between "Numbers are based" and "All numbers are based". I do not like it, but I will accept it if it seems to get consensus.
 * 5) The final step of adding even more emphasis by bolding the word "All" is, however, overkill and completely unacceptable. Boldface is a very strong typographical signal. It is perceived even before the reader has actually read the word, giving the meta-message "Now we come to something really important." Having read on, the meta-message says something like "You may believe that we have used other sources, but we have not." Since this is so important, the reader may start to wonder if there is something somewhere else that is indicating other sources. The flow of the main message is disrupted.

I support step 2, but can accept anything up to step 4. I will remove the bolding, and I ask anyone who wants to re-add double emphasis to first read carefully MOS:BOLDFACE, particularly MOS:NOBOLD, and at least consider using a milder form of emphasis. I will not go into edit war for this, since I do not participate in edit wars. But I hope we can agree to let the main message talk for itself as much as possible. --T*U (talk) 13:28, 15 October 2018 (UTC)