When I think of Europe, geographically, that red line would trace the Russian border to the Black Sea. Turkey has always been a sticking point here though, being a border state between Europe and Asia. In general terms i.e. culturally or politically, your line pretty much nails it, IMO.
You seem to have a very traditionally British attitude to drawing borders (although to be fair at least you didn't use a ruler). Cultures change, borders change, politics change, unions change, and they always have. You can't take an average over the last 2000 years and draw a line that is comfortable for you... Well you can, but it's pretty meaningless other than the potential to cause some divisive tension. Drawing red lines is fun. I made a little edit for you: Finland is traditionally basically Russia, right?...
Finland hasn't been Russia for a hundred years or so. I did read some speculation about it being Putin's next target for "renationalisation", since Crimea went down such a storm.
We're talking about tradition here though. I'll always think of it as part of Russia, traditionally. At least that means if Putin makes it his next target peace in Europe (as I see it) isn't threatened...
Brits... Time to draw new map of Europe. *calls comrades Stalin and Zhukov* Send from iPad via Tapatalk
What traditions are those, exactly? Yes, it was part of Russia until 1917, but only a hundred years before that it was part of Sweden. Linguistically it's part of a different family tree (Swedish being a Germanic language, and Finnish being Uralic), so perhaps in that sense it's closer to the Baltic states than Western European countries. Continental boundaries are kind of weird though, especially in the greater Eurasian landmass. Russia straddles a number of cultural borders, and I find that it's unhelpful to lump the entire country in either Europe or Asia.
Just trying to make a point regarding the potential pitfalls of taking your own fuzzy ideas of what it means to be European and expressing them with a big red line on a map. Especially mentioning the Ukraine-crisis in that context. And coming from someone in Finland. Agreed.
2 centuries or 2 millennia, it's still a fundamentally flawed way of looking at things. Current politics, societal values and self-determination , not to mention geography, are far more relevant to what constitutes "European".
Why Catholicism and not Orthodox? The Schism in Christianity occurred over semantics and pretty much boils down to politics and power-play in the first place. What does a Middle-Eastern religion have to do with Europe anyway? Why would you consider Latin before Greek? In your opinion some Slavic people are European and some Slavic people are not? You exclude Bulgaria and Romania but you include Macedonia and Albania. Your map makes absolutely no sense. Is there any particular reason why a continent needs to have a homogenous culture? India isn't the same as Korea but it's still all Asia. After you exclude Eastern Europe, maybe then you will want to exclude Southern Europe as well. Inb4 Godwin's Law.
Greece was also conquered by the Ottoman Empire and was occupied by them for 400 years, but you didn't exclude them. The Balkans include Bulgaria as well. The Ottomans didn't simply "retract". Romania fought damn hard to free themselves. What do you mean when you say that the European Crowns invented stuff and new art styles?
Well this is the Wikipedia definition of 'Continental Europe' with the border between Europe and Asia being the Ural mountains [though even this is disputed]. If we're going on what is culturally Europe you need to decide what constitutes European culture
I think that if you're looking for differences to separate people even further into "us" and "them" it'll be very easy, because there are plenty of differences choose from. The question is, why?
We ain't stinking Europeans, we're British. Italy's island seems an oversight though- the map appears to be based on the mainland, not islands.
The term "Continental Europe" or "the continent" generally refers to mainland Europe, that's why the islands are excluded from that wiki page.
In the context of the phrase 'continental Europe,' try not to get too hung up on that particular definition of 'continental.' In this case it's referring to mainland vs islands. Hypothetically, if Europe sat on a tectonic plate of its own, Ireland and the British Isles would still not be considered 'continental Europe.' In our case over here, we have North America (which includes the North American "mainland", plus all of the territories and countries in the Caribbean and Central America, but excludes the US state of Hawaii), the continental United States (which includes Alaska but not Hawaii), and the contiguous United States, which excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Poor Hawaii is an island chain, but not part of North America. The video SuicideNeil posted is pretty funny. I especially liked the comparison to the planetary debate. I recall when Pluto was declassified as a planet, my initial shock, and my steadfast resolve to forever consider Pluto one of the nine. Then I read Neil de Grasse Tyson's book, The Pluto Files, and his explanation made a lot of sense as he attempted to apply at least some scientific basis for the decision. Perhaps geology is due for a similar debate in the area of continental definitions. Considering that not even geologists - practicing scientists - can agree on the definition of what exactly constitutes a continent, it seems perfectly acceptable to combine Europe and Asia into one, depending on who you talk to.