Originally posted by RUMMY:[..]
I suppose that's why I didn't consider it initially. Believe it or not, I sort know my geography. Sort of.
Right or wrong, when I think of "western" Europe, I probably think more about countries that might be considered "westernized," if that makes any sense whatsoever.
I am English/Irish by decent (however, you gotta go WAY back) but I married a woman who's dad was born in Italy. We are very alike so I suppose I consider Italia part of the west. Am I digging myself into an even-deeper hole here?
Well, we're going absolutely off topic now, but now we're at it... I know you have your facts right, it's just a matter of terms and which criteria you choose to differentiate the zones.
If you go by social-cultural criteria, Italy does obviously belong to the same zone than Spain and Portugal (and possibly Greece, although the language becomes a heavier barrier here). Those 3 would be the Latin-Europe countries (Latin = cultural criteria, not geographical), and possibly the 3 your referred to.
On the other hand, judging by purely geographical criteria, France is much close to be southwest Europe than Italy. Italy is directly behind Germany, Switzerland and Austria -which are the main part of what's considered "central Europe"-, so there's no way that Italy could be South-West. Just South Europe works. South-East for Greece by the way
#OffTopicness
