Geographic division of Europe

[King of Kensington]

What do you consider Western, Eastern, Northern, Southern etc.

[JA]

There's really no satisfying answer to this question. Do we go by existing political borders or ethnic cultures? What, then, do we use to set the standards that distinguish one group of ethnic cultures from another? Is it linguistic, like Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Germanic, etc...? A "pan-ethnic" identity, like Germanic, Slavic, etc...? Maybe their position during the Cold War? But if we did that, then we'd be ignoring thousands of years of older European history. Maybe religious identity, like Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox? But that'd ignore the Muslim and pagan cultures in Europe, not to mention that'd lump together countries like Malta, Poland, and Ireland, while separating Ireland from Ulster-Scots of Northern Ireland, and England. Perhaps the most realistic answer is simple geography, but then that ignores culture.

Honestly, I don't think you could really break down Europe or any other continent into such categories without oversimplifying the cultural factors involved.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Just based on an arbitrary division I made in my head without looking at a map, I would put the UK, and France, over in "Western Europe", German, Hungary, and Austria (along with those nations to their south, and perhaps north) in "Central Europe", and then essentially anything at or east of Poland' longitude in "Eastern Europe". Northern and Southern Europe are two different divisions, considered independent of West/Central/East; "Northern Europe" would probably be Germany, the UK, the Nordic states, the Baltics, etc., while "Southern Europe" would be anything touching the Mediterranean, plus the landlocked areas of the Balkans.

[Lechasseur]

Western Europe: Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Monaco
Southern Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Andorra, Vatican, San Marino
Northern Europe: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia
Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia
Balkans: Romania, Moldova (maybe not so much in a geographical sense but due to their links to Romania), Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania
Eastern Europe: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus
Caucasus: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan

The three latter groups if needed to be classed in a larger region would be Eastern Europe

[King of Kensington]

UN Statistical Agency definition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme_for_Europe

US Census Bureau for countries of birth (some countries with smaller populations classified into "other" categories).

Northern Europe: UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden

Western Europe:  Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland

Southern Europe:  Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain

Eastern Europe:  Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechoslovakia (!), Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Southern Europe is a mish-mash that exists only for compass completists.

My divisions:
Western Europe: France, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom
Central Europe: Austria, Benelux, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Switzerland
Balkans: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey (European),
Northern Europe: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden
Eastern Europe: Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Russia (European), Slovakia, Ukraine

If you must have a Southern Europe, use that as the name for the Balkans.