Talk:Europe

Infobox map revert

On 04:05, 28 August 2023, I replaced an infobox map. My edit summary was, "replaced identical projection map that was basically a duplicate, with a map with countries names, per MOS:IMAGE, "Use the best quality images available. Poor-quality images—dark or blurry; showing the subject too small, hidden in clutter, or ambiguous; and so on—should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Think carefully about which images best illustrate the subject matter."

I do think that for readers it is more useful having a map with the European countries' names than a map only showing the borders of said countries. The intercontinental border is not perfect but I couldn't find another map of Europe with countries' names in English in Commons so I decided to upload this that I found elsewhere. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 00:41, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I can understand why it was removed it's non-legible.... is there a better map ? Moxy- 00:53, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I have noticed that if I use the svg format as advised by Commons, they may become poorly legible if they have legends inside (check the link of the source, it is legible). I will upload it in png format to see if it becomes better and if it's accepted. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 01:02, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

On a side note...... three quarters of your signatures isn't viewable. See File:Screenshot of a use your signature.pngMoxy- 01:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Apparently the legibility issue is caused by poor resolution of the screen shot mechanism in the operating system. I will follow up. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 18:10, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

@Moxy I have finally been able to work out a more legible map. It is File:Map of Europe, its countries, and neighbors.png. If you use the highest and next to highest resolution all the labels are legible. Let me know what you think. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:30, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I cant see any names......will look for you. Moxy- 22:55, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Remember to choose the highest resolution. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 23:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the editor who reverted this map addition. It does not look like an infobox-level quality image. Also, it's been quite a considerable amount of time that all continent articles have only an orthographic projection in the infobox. The article's second section, § Definition, contains in my opinion a much more convenient (image) map with countries captioned and as a bonus linked, although quite densely. That one could be improved (too). –Vipz (talk) 23:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I have in mind MOS:IMAGEQUALITY, which states, "A map of Moldova should show its frontiers with Romania and Ukraine, so people may know where the country is located in relation to its neighbors." The problem is when the reader has no idea which one is Romania and which one is Ukraine. Therefore, I think one of the maps should have the countries' names.

Regarding the other map, I agree it's a nice map that could be improved because the labels are too cluttered in my opinion. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 23:41, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Largest cities

Kyiv is the 7th largest city in Europe, but it is not on the list. add Septemberten (talk) 08:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I guess you mean the list in the infobox? The first point is that the term city is dealt with differently in different countries. E.g. Paris (city) is relatively small (2 million), but with it's banlieu's (suburbs) included it is massive (over 11 million). (greater) London is really weirdly defined as the city of London is very small (pop ~ 10.000) and greater London (as we know London) has a unique status under British law (population about 10 million). These oddities and differences between national definitions make city populations incomparable. Therefore we tend to use different measures that capture suburbs etc. .

The current order is now 1. Moscow 2. Paris 3. London 4. Istanbul 5. Madrid 6. Saint Petersburg 7. Milan 8. Barcelona 9. Berlin 10. Rome). The data seems to be extracted from page 23 of the source that lists Largest Built up Urban Areas (whatever that may mean). Istanbul is listed 2nd there, so how we get to the European part (with the same definition) is not clear, and Madrid is followed by Essen-Dusseldorf (not listed)) with Athens ranking higher than Rome.

This brings me to several problems with the current listing.

(1) What definition do we use? The urban area definition in the source (demographia) is only one; the city proper is problematic for all the reasons I mentioned above, the metropolitan area as defined by Eurostat is based on high quality data but only available for EU countries (ie not all European countries). This is not so easy, but I can live with urban area (but a better definition would be preferable).

(2) The list does not follow the source by (a) omitting the Essen-Dusseldorf urban area. While this area consists of 2 cities (Essen and Dusseldorf as well as additional smaller ones) the omission seems to be original synthesis, as cities like Saint Denis are included with Paris it seems arbitrary to exclude Essen-Dusseldorf (b) similarly the source lists Istanbul as 2nd, but without further sourcing that city is moved down to a lower ranking by only counting it's European part. Seems another original reinterpretation of the source. (c) The source lists the Athens urban area (slightly) higher than the Rome area. This may be a typo, but if we only list the top 10 it would dorp out in any case is Essen-Dusseldorf is added.

(3) Demographia, from which the source is derived, is a conservative, small US based think tank. The report does use EU JRC numbers however newer version are apparently available at[1]. But not so easy to extract. So some update seems to be in order; and if feasible without doing our own synthesis, these sources may be preferable.

While a lot of this relates to your concern, Kyiv would not feature in any larger urban area definition. But worthwhile indeed to scrutinise the listing. Arnoutf (talk) 09:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I updated the list in the infobox to fit the source. Please provide sourcing (with equal definition of urban area) before changing to avoid original research in this article. Arnoutf (talk) 09:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

That's great, because the list includes Milan with a population of 1,366,180 people, but not Kyiv with a population of about 3 million Septemberten (talk) 09:55, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

The used source indeed lists Kiyev (their spelling) at about 3 million but it lists Milan at about 5.5 (which by the way ranks well above the capitcal of Italy, Rome sitting at 3.3 million). We can discuss the sourcing and definition, but I would not favour a change to city limits (what you seem to favour). The problem being that city limits is problematic as different countries deal with suburbs differently (see abovementioned Paris which is about 2 million (city limits) but 11 million including suburbs and Athens about 650,000 but with suburbs about 3.4 million, with the latter numbers begin more sensible given the size of the urbanisation of these cities). In any case, as long as we use this source we have to follow it. Arnoutf (talk) 10:10, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Politics

Political map of Europe following the Congress of Vienna, 1815

The first sentence "The political map of Europe is substantially derived from the re-organisation of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815." is nonsense. Compare political map of Europe from 1815 (which moreover shows "congress Poland" that did not exist in fact), which is in this article, with recent political map of Europe. Much more important were later unifications of Italy and Germany, new countries in Balkan, new countries after first WW, new countries after breaks of Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Which of these countries existed in 1816: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine? None! And these were only examples, not full list. Nadsenec2 (talk) 15:55, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Most of eastern Europe was Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, and Prussia. None of these exist today, of course. I don't see that today there's any particular continuing bond special to the countries that arose out of any one of these. Largoplazo (talk) 22:45, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Old inaccurate data in "Major cities and urban areas" section

The wiki states:

> The next largest cities in order of population are Madrid, Saint Petersburg, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin, and Rome each having over three million residents.

Citing a source dated to 2016. But if you click to the suggested Wiki page for further information, it contains way more recent data and a different ranking (List of European cities by population within city limits)

I would update it, but the page is restricted so I'm bringing it up here. Leonardobe (talk) 21:25, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Inappropiate .eu reference

I find the .eu reference inappropriate, it seems to derive from (and feed into) a confusion between Europe and the EU, which are two very different things:

- Less than 50% of the area in Europe is controlled by the EU (this is true even if you include disputed territories in Ukraine).

- Some parts of the EU are not even in Europe! E.g. Ceuta and Canary Islands. Robert1dB (talk) 11:16, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

What is the .eu reference? ".eu" seems to appear only 3 times, all in the reference section. CMD (talk) 11:28, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

We have an article: .eu. It is the top-level domain for the European Union. Not the same thing as Europe, the continent, which is the subject of this article. I agree that it doesn't belong in this article. ~Anachronist (talk) 16:29, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Where is it on this article and to what purpose? CMD (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: It's no longer in the article. It was in the infobox as the 'internet' parameter, which makes sense for the European Union article, but not here. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:05, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Cyprus and Armenia

Cyprus and Armenia are not geographically located in Europe. They are only associated with Europe, and thus should be removed from the list. Can somebody change it, because the page is currently protected. Thank you in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A44E:FA4A:0:70B8:89BD:B14C:13B1 (talk) 13:14, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

This is why we have notes. Archives908 (talk) 01:47, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but the issue is, they shouldn't be included on the list in the first place. 2A02:A44E:FA4A:0:70B8:89BD:B14C:13B1 (talk) 02:20, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

There has been a longstanding practice of treating all these continent lists expansively. Continents are ill-defined cultural concepts, and it is easier to have entries in multiple lists with clarifying notes than to pick and run with a particular definition across all pages. CMD (talk) 02:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Number of muslims in Europe

The article says 17.9% of European population is muslim, that would be around 135 million people. The source cited to support this information and also other articles on wikipedia itself (see ‘muslims in Europe’) clearly state that they are around 45 million, so around 6% 151.18.129.5 (talk) 09:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Mention climate change?

So far the article does not mention climate change once. How would people feel if I added an excerpt to climate change in Europe to this article, perhaps below the section on "climate"? I think an excerpt is better than new text because this is something that will continually change over time, and would then have to be updated in two places, not just one. Compare also with how it's done for the Africa article. Pinging User:Chidgk1 and User:RCraig09 for comment. EMsmile (talk) 11:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

• No strong opinion Though transclusions are often read clumsily when inserted, and tend to bloat the length of destination articles, this is article is a reasonable target for a transclusion. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

No excerpts, please – it's a total pain to have to go to some completely other page to edit the content of an article. Why not just write or copy over a sentence or two of content that is directly relevant to the continent of Europe and nowhere else (if there is any?). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Excerpts are a brilliant tool for any content that is likely to change over time, in the near future. So rather than updating the content in several places, it just needs to be updated in the source article (climate change in Europe in this case) and is automatically updated in any other article where the content is used. We use them a lot in WikiProject Climate Change as some of the figures are continually going up or down (think sea level rise, ocean acidification, global surface temperatures, CO2 in the atmosphere etc.). See e.g. the way excerpts are used at effects of climate change. So I don't think they are a "total pain", quite the contrary.

For this case here, we can still ponder if it's better to just copy two general sentences across, perhaps those that do not contain numbers. In any case, do folks agree that it would be fair to say something about climate change in Europe in the Europe article? EMsmile (talk) 22:13, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Europe's warming temperature and heatwaves probably merit some coverage in the Climate section. CMD (talk) 02:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Because later someone will likely update one of the articles but not the other which will get out of date Chidgk1 (talk) 14:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Russia is not in Europe.

This article mentions that Russia is a part of Europe but last I checked , it was a part of Asia.If Russia used to be in Europe , then I would have excused this mistake but it was NEVER part of Europe.Any thoughts? 180.151.17.56 (talk) 12:41, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Russia is a transcontinental country and the part of Russia situated in Europe is literally called European Russia. Depending on the continent model you're using, it is wholly situated in Eurasia if the model doesn't regard Europe and Asia as separate continents. –Vipz (talk) 13:15, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

The last you checked where? Europe doesn't end at the Russian border. Moscow is in Europe. St. Petersburg is in Europe. And, if you look at Kaliningrad, the piece of Russia wedged between Lithuania and Poland, where do you think it is? Largoplazo (talk) 13:18, 13 December 2023 (UTC)