Northern Europe
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Northern Europe is the northern region of Europe. Narrower definitions may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54°N, or may be based on other geographical factors such as climate and ecology. A broader definition would include the area of Europe north of the Alps (but excluding Eastern Europe).
Historically, when Europe was dominated by the Roman Empire, the parts of Europe that were not near the Mediterranean region were deemed Northern European,[citation needed] including southern Germany, all of the Low Countries, and Austria. This meaning is still used today in some contexts, for example, discussions of the Northern Renaissance.
During the Early Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church expanded into Northern Europe and spread Christianity among the Germanic peoples.[1] Christianity reached the Vikings and other Scandinavians in later centuries. The Latin alphabet gradually replaced the runic alphabet in Scandinavia and England as the influence of Catholic Christianity spread northward from Rome, leading to English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic. During the Protestant Reformation, which began in Northern Europe according to some looser definitions of the region, Protestantism was embraced in Northern Europe to an extent unseen in other parts of Europe such as Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, and the vast majority of Northern European countries, by any definition, are mostly Protestant historically.
Climate[edit]
The climate is mainly Oceanic climate (Cfb), Humid continental climate (Dfb), Subarctic climate (Dfc and Dsc), and Tundra (ET).
Geography[edit]
Northern Europe might be defined roughly to include some or all of the following areas: British Isles, Fennoscandia, the peninsula of Jutland, the Baltic plain that lies to the east and the many islands that lie offshore from mainland Northern Europe and the main European continent. In some cases, Greenland is also included, although it is only politically European, comprising part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and not considered to be geographically in Europe.
The area is partly mountainous, including the northern volcanic islands of Iceland and Jan Mayen, and the mountainous western seaboard, Scotland and Scandinavia, and also often includes part of the large plain east of the Baltic sea.
The entire region's climate is at least mildly affected by the Gulf Stream. From the west climates vary from maritime and maritime subarctic climates. In the north and central climates are generally subarctic or Arctic and to the east climates are mostly subarctic and temperate/continental.
Just as both climate and relief are variable across the region, so too is vegetation, with sparse tundra in the north and high mountains, boreal forest on the north-eastern and central regions temperate coniferous forests (formerly of which a majority was in the Scottish Highlands and south west Norway) and temperate broadleaf forests growing in the south, west and temperate east.
Classifications[edit]
There are various definitions of Northern Europe which often include the British Isles, the Nordic countries and the Baltic states and sometimes Greenland, northern Germany, northern Belarus and northwest Russia.
CIA World Factbook[edit]
In the CIA World Factbook, the description of each country includes information about "Location" under the heading "Geography", where the country is classified into a region. The following countries are included in their classification "Northern Europe":[2]
as well as the dependent areas:
In this classification Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Ireland are included in Western Europe, while Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are included in Eastern Europe.
World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions[edit]
The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions is a biogeographical system developed by the international Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, formerly the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases. The WGSRPD standards, like other standards for data fields in botanical databases, were developed to promote "the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the world's heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large". The system provides clear definitions and codes for recording plant distributions at four scales or levels, from "botanical continents" down to parts of large countries. The following countries are included in their classification of "Northern Europe":[3]
as well as the dependent areas:
EuroVoc[edit]
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EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, giving definitions of terms for official use. In the definition of "Northern Europe", the following countries are included:[4]
as well as the dependent area:
In this classification Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Ireland are included in Western Europe.
UN geoscheme classification[edit]
The United Nations geoscheme is a system devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) which divides the countries of the world into regional and subregional groups, based on the M49 coding classification. The partition is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories.[5]
In the UN geoscheme, the following countries are classified as Northern Europe:[5]
as well as the dependent areas:
Demographics[edit]
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Countries in Northern Europe generally have developed economies and some of the highest standards of living in the world. They often score highly on surveys measuring quality of life, such as the Human Development Index. Aside from the United Kingdom, they generally have a small population relative to their size, most of whom live in cities. Most peoples living in Northern Europe are traditionally Protestant Christians, although many are non-practising. There are also growing numbers of non-religious people and people of other religions, especially Muslims, due to open immigration policies. In the United Kingdom, there are also significant numbers of Indian religions such as Hindus and Sikhs, due to the large South Asian diaspora. The quality of education in much of Northern Europe is rated highly in international rankings, with Estonia and Finland topping the list among the OECD countries in Europe. The Hansa group in the European Union comprises most of the Northern European states, plus the Netherlands.
See also[edit]
- Arctic
- Arctic Circle
- Baltic languages
- Baltic region
- Baltic states
- Baltoscandia
- British Isles
- Celtic languages
- Celtic nations
- Central Europe
- Council of the Baltic Sea States
- Crown Dependencies
- Eastern Europe
- European Free Trade Association
- Euroregion Baltic
- Finno-Ugric languages
- Germanic languages
- New Hanseatic League
- Nordic-Baltic Eight
- Nordic Council
- Nordic countries
- Nordic Estonia
- North Sea Region
- Northern Dimension
- Northern Future Forum
- Northwestern Europe
- Roadex Project
- Sápmi
- Scandinavia
- Southern Europe
- Vifanord
- Western Europe
References[edit]
- ^ Tanner, Norman. New Short History of the Catholic Church. p. 41.
- ^ CIA. "The World Factbook".
- ^ Brummitt, R. K. (2001). World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (PDF) (2nd ed.). International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases For Plant Sciences (TDWG). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
- ^ Publications Office of the European Union. "EU Vocabularies 7206 Europe". EuroVoc.
- ^ a b "UNSD — Methodology". unstats.un.org. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
External links[edit]
Media related to Northern Europe at Wikimedia Commons
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