[Rinzler89]

Americans don't think too much about those "commies" in Eastern Europe when doing comparisons. For them Europe is only where they go on vacation: Paris, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, etc.

Same how for us America is mostly New York, Los Angeles, Texas, etc

[closewith]

Three of your examples (Rome, Barcelona, and Lisbon) aren't in Western Europe, so don't fit the GP's definition of continental Europe.

My own experience with Americans is that Europe could be any number of definitions. I'd be wary of assuming your own is generally accepted.

[simonbarker87]

Isn’t Lisbon the most western capital city in Europe? Not sure how that doesn’t count as Western Europe? As a Brit I maybe have a different view of eastern and Western Europe but to me the dividing line is probably a vertical line through … Prague?

[thaumasiotes]

> As a Brit I maybe have a different view of eastern and Western Europe but to me the dividing line is probably a vertical line through … Prague?

It shouldn't be a vertical line at all; I assume the typical division between Eastern and Western Europe would be Catholicism vs Eastern Orthodoxy.

They're Eastern Europe and Western Europe because Eastern Europe lies to the east of Western Europe, not because every part of Eastern Europe lies to the east of every part of Western Europe.

[closewith]

Both the areas called Northern Europe and Southern Europe extend more Westerly than Western Europe. More or less no common definition of Western Europe includes the Iberian peninsula.

[simonbarker87]

At the risk of sounding belligerent - Wikipedia seems to include Spain and Portugal in its definition of Western Europe. Perhaps there are formal economic or historic definitions that don’t count them but I think a more colloquial/informal/layperson definition would include them.

[closewith]

We may be reading different Wikipedia articles? None of the definitions suggested by Wikipedia includes the Iberian peninsula: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe

> think a more colloquial/informal/layperson definition would include them.

With respect, I think the opposite is true. I think you might just have discovered a personal blindspot.

[thaumasiotes]

> We may be reading different Wikipedia articles? None of the definitions suggested by Wikipedia includes the Iberian peninsula: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe

Or maybe he's reading that article and you aren't? The only definitions in that article that don't include Spain and Portugal in Western Europe are the ones in which Eastern Europe and Western Europe fail to cover all of Europe.

And those tend to include Turkey in Europe, which is bizarre.

[walthamstow]

Traditionally the dividing line is Vienna, though that doesn't make it any clearer because Prague is west of Vienna

[simonbarker87]

Yeh I was going to say Vienna and then saw where Prague is and switched. I guess it’s a fuzzy line.

[ghaff]

Quite a few Americans vacation in Eastern Europe these days, eg Prague. But you’re right that wasn’t historically the case. I didn’t really until my last job because we had a facility and associated events in Brno in cz.