CASE STUDY 2 -CENTRAL EUROPE-

MAP OF CENTRAL EUROPE

Central Europe is a core region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The concept of Central Europe is Central European culture as controversial and debated the notion maybe exists. It is based on similarities emanating from historical, social and cultural and it is identified as having been one of the world's richest sources of creative talent between the 17th and 20th centuries. From the 2000's on, Central Europe is going through a phase of strategic awakening, with initiatives like the CEI, Centrope and V4. While the region's economy shows high disparities with regard to income, all Central European countries are listed by the Human Development Index as very high development countries.


HISTORY

MAP OF GERMANY

CAPITAL CITY OF GERMANY

• In 1335 the castle of Visegrad, the seat of the Kings of Hungary was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary.
•  The concept of Central Europe was already known at the beginning of the 19th century, but its real life began in the 20th century and immediately became an object of intensive interes.
• On 21 January 1904 - Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein (Central European Economic Association) was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany and Austria–Hungary (with eventual extension to Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands) as its main aim.
• The “bible” of the concept was Friedrich Naumann's book Mitteleuropa in which he called for an economic federation to be established after the war.
• The concept failed after the German defeat in the World War 1 and the dissolution of Austria-Hugary.
• According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927 the Central European countries included: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. Italy and Yugoslavia are not considered by the author to be Central European because they are located mostly outside Central Europe.
• In World War II, large parts of Europe that were culturally and historically Western became part of the Eastern bloc.
• According to Mayers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon, Central Europe is a part of Europe composed by the surface of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, northern marginal regions of Italy and Yugoslavia (northern states- Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia) as well as northeastern France.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

• Central Europe's borders with its neighbouring regions to the North and South, namely Northen Europe (or Scandinavia) across the Baltic Sea, the Apennine peninsula (or Italy) across the Alps and the Balkan peninsula across the Soča-Krka-Sava-Danube line.
• The Rhine river which runs South-North through Western Germany is an exception.
• Carpathian mountains divide the European Plain in two sections: the Central Europe's Pannonian Plain in the west, and the East European Plain, which lie eastward of the Carpathians. Southwards, the Pannonian Plain is bounded by the rivers Sava and Danube- and their respective floodplains.
• As southeastern division of the Eastern Alps, the Dinaric Alps extend for 650 kilometres along the coast of the Adriatic Sea (northwest-southeast), from the Julian Alps in the northwest down to the Šar-Korab massif, where the mountain direction changes to north-south.
• The southern regions are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east.
• An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut, spine of Norway.

SWITZERLAND

POPULATION OF CENTRAL EUROPE

Name of country, with flag	Area (km²)	Population (1 July 2002 est.)	Population desinty(per km²)	Capital
Albania	28,748	3,600,523	125.2	Tirana
Andorra	468	68,403	146.2	Andorra la Vella
Armenia	29,800	3,229,900	101	Yerevan
Austria	83,858	8,169,929	97.4	Vienna
Azerbaijan	86,600	9,000,000	97	Baku
Belarus	207,600	10,335,382	49.8	Minsk
Belgium	30,510	10,274,595	336.8	Brussels
Bosnia and Herzegovina	51,129	4,448,500	77.5	Sarajevo
Bulgaria	110,910	7,621,337	68.7	Sofia
Croatia	56,542	4,437,460	77.7	Zagreb
Cyprus	9,251	788,457	85	Nicosia
Czech Republic	78,866	10,256,760	130.1	Prague
Denmark	43,094	5,368,854	124.6	Copenhagen
Estonia	45,226	1,415,681	31.3	Tallinn
Finland	336,593	5,157,537	15.3	Helsinki
France	547,030	59,765,983	109.3	Paris
Georgia	69,700	4,661,473	64	Tbilisi
Germany	357,021	83,251,851	233.2	Berlin
Greece	131,940	10,645,343	80.7	Athens
Hungary	93,030	10,075,034	108.3	Budapest
Iceland	103,000	307,261	2.7	Reykjavík
Ireland	70,280	4,234,925	60.3	Dublin
Italy	301,230	58,751,711	191.6	Rome
Kazakhstan	2,724,900	15,217,711	5.6	Astana
Latvia	64,589	2,366,515	36.6	Riga
Liechtenstein	160	32,842	205.3	Vaduz
Lithuania	65,200	3,601,138	55.2	Vilnius
Luxembourg	2,586	448,569	173.5	Luxembourg
Republic of Macedonia	25,713	2,054,800	81.1	Skopje
Malta	316	397,499	1,257.9	Valletta
Moldova	33,843	4,434,547	131.0	Chişinău
Monaco	1.95	31,987	16,403.6	Monaco
Montenegro	13,812	616,258	44.6	Podgorica
Netherlands	41,526	16,318,199	393.0	Amsterdam
Norway	324,220	4,525,116	14.0	Oslo
Poland	312,685	38,625,478	123.5	Warsaw
Portugal	91,568	10,409,995	110.1	Lisbon
Romania	238,391	21,698,181	91.0	Bucharest
Russia	17,075,400	142,200,000	26.8	Moscow
San Marino	61	27,730	454.6	San Marino
Serbia	88,361	7,495,742	89.4	Belgrade
Slovakia	48,845	5,422,366	111.0	Bratislava
Slovenia	20,273	1,932,917	95.3	Ljubljana
Spain	504,851	45,061,274	89.3	Madrid
Sweden	449,964	9,090,113	19.7	Stockholm
Switzerland	41,290	7,507,000	176.8	Bern
Turkey	783,562	71,517,100	93	Ankara
Ukraine	603,700	48,396,470	80.2	Kiev
United Kingdom	244,820	61,100,835	244.2	London
Vatican City	0.44	900	2,045.5	Vatican City
Total	10,180,000	731,000,000	70

State of Central Europe

According to the majority of sources (see section Current views on Central Europe for some) the region includes:

§   Austria

§   Czech Republic

§   Germany

§   Hungary

§   Liechtenstein

§   Poland

§   Slovakia

§   Slovenia

§   Switzerland

Some sources also add neighbouring countries (for historical, geographical and/or cultural reasons):

§   Croatia (except Istria and Dalmatia, frequently the entire country)

§   Romania (Transylvania and Bukovina, occasionally the entire country)

§   Serbia (Vojvodina, northern Belgrade, Mačva regions)

§  Baltic states (often associated with Northern Europe historically were part of central and eastern as well)

as well as smaller parts of the following states:

§   Ukraine (Western Ukraine)

§   Belarus (Western Belarus)

§   Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast)

§   France (Alsace and portions of Lorraine)

§   Italy (South Tirol, Trieste and Gorizia, Friuli, occasionally all of Northern Italy)

DEMOGRAPHICS OF EUROPE 

1. After the renaissance, Europe had a dominating influence in culture, economics and a social movements in the world.
2.  It included religious emigration, race relations, economic immigration, a declining birth rate and an ageing population. In some countries, such as Poland, access to abortion is currently limited and entirely illegal in Ireland and the Mediterranean nation of Malta.
3. In the past, such restrictions and also restrictions on artificial birth control were commonplace throughout Europe. Furthermore, some European countries (currently Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland) have allowed a limited form of voluntary euthanasia. It remains to be seen how much demographic impact this may have.