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If you are from northern Ireland, you unlikely are 1000km from SE France, (but more 1500 from NI to Nice.) Your thinking is strange, 1000km at European scale is a huge distance!... 1000 kms south from Denmark, you are in Italy! So I guess that follwing your thoughts Italy is aslo in Northern Europe!...
1000 km south from where I live (which is in northwestern France, that you think is in northwestern Europe in your opinion) and we are in Algeria or Morroco... 1000 km further north I'm in Scotland... A place that is as close to North Africa than it is to Scotland just canno't be classified as northwestern Europe unless you are in delusion.
He most likely was talking in miles. Btw, the bolded is impossible, even using the most liberal definition of northwestern France.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rozenn
He most likely was talking in miles.
If he did that's even much more! 1000 miles is very huge distance at European scale (a small continent). 1000 miles south of Copenhagen and you are in Napoli...
1000 miles south from Paris and you are in the sahara desert! Should we conclude that France is geographically Saharian ?...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rozenn
Btw, the bolded is impossible, even using the most liberal definition of northwestern France.
Ok, that's 1150 kms from where I am (near Chinon, telephone zone 2) http://www.vacuum-guide.com/images/m..._indicatif.gif) to Algiers.
The fact is that from where I am Algiers is closer than Inverness. latitudinally speaking, Inverness in 10°23' further north than where I am; 10°23' degrees further south is Algiers latitude.
From my home Madrid is closer than Dublin. My latitude is exactly at the same latitude as Italy's northernmost point; 318 km further south than Britain extreme point's latitude (Lizard point), 318 km south than my home are the latitudes of the Cinque terre region in Italy. I like seeing geographical facts.
Ok, that's 1150 kms from where I am (near Chinon, telephone zone 2) http://www.vacuum-guide.com/images/m..._indicatif.gif) to Algiers.
The fact is that from where I am Algiers is closer than Inverness. latitudinally speaking, Inverness in 10°23' further north than where I am; 10°23' degrees further south is Algiers latitude.
From my home Madrid is closer than Dublin. My latitude is exactly at the same latitude as Italy's northernmost point; 318 km further south than Britain extreme point's latitude (Lizard point), 318 km south than my home are the latitudes of the Cinque terre region in Italy. I like seeing geographical facts.
By the same convoluted logic France has got to be in NW Europe because you live a hell of a lot closer to Brighton than Siracusa. But we've gone a long way on pointless facts.
I should have arbitrarily split France in 2 parts and put the southern part with the Mediterranean and the northern part with UK, the Netherlands and Germany. Feel free to disagree, but please don't bring up how close you live to Alger, I don't care.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Quote:
Originally Posted by barneyg
By the same convoluted logic France has got to be in NW Europe because you live a hell of a lot closer to Brighton than Siracusa. But we've gone a long way on pointless facts.
Those facts are pointless only if you take exemples that are not comparable or if you refuse to see the reality as it is. Brigthon is in the far south of the UK (All of Norwestern Europe is far to be situated so much south than Brighton) while Cyracuse is in the extreme south of Italy and Europe. Even a third of Italy is latitudinally closer to brighton than to Cyracuse... Are Genova, Bologna, Venise, Milan, Turin, Bergamo, etc are also in northwestern Europe because of that?
The fact is where I live is still latitudinally closer to a point of extreme southern Europe such as Syracuse than to areas in the extreme north of Europe such as Aberdeen in Scotland (see that I do not even take Scandinavia in consideration). If you want to take an exemple of the far south of England to "proove" your point, you should compare it with an exemple in the far north of Italy or Spain to be fair. I still much closer to the latitudes of northern Italy than I am to the extreme south of Britain, and even closer to Santander's (the spanish equivalent of Brighton) than to Brighton's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barneyg
I should have arbitrarily split France in 2 parts and put the southern part with the Mediterranean and the northern part with UK, the Netherlands and Germany.
You can do what you want if it please you. I just said that it is geographically and culturally not true that France is in northwestern Europe, even the northern half. The reality is that the northern half of France is "central western Europe" at best, if we can say so, that is to say geographically inbetween northern and southern European (such as between northern Italy and southern England), while the southern half is completly lined with the rest of southern Europe.
Let's see maps. if we divide Europe in 4 geometric zones: Nortwest, Southwest, Northeast, southeast (not even taking account of the north of Scandinavia, too few densily populated to be relevant in comparision with the rest of Europe) Image #140057 - CtrlV.in Image Hosting
Most of France is just not at all in the north western quarter of Europe, with maybe the exception of a northernmost fringe. I just don't understand why it should please you so much if we'll be in northerwestern Europe? But I let you do as you like, even considering us as scandinavians it it please you
Quote:
Originally Posted by barneyg
Feel free to disagree, but please don't bring up how close you live to Alger, I don't care.
Maybe you don't care but maybe others wont, I do not write just for you. Anyway, if the facts I give bother you, you can fell free to not watching them.
I was just ansering to someone who said that the fact that southern France was 1000 miles to his home situated in Ireland, made France a northwestern country too. I just remind to him what 1000 kms at European scale means by saying than 1000 miles south from my home is not even in Europe anymore but the Sahara desert in Africa.
I'm sorry for not having well understood the idea of making groups of about same population weight in your classifications, so I recognise that many of my groupings are not relevant and should be redone.
But I think that in western Europe we have a ntural grouping of countries wich about similar demographic weight: South west Europe and North-west Europe. Those groups are in my opinion quite relevant, at least for fitting quite well their geographic denominations, but also, especially in the case of the two groups of countries of western Europe, for fitting with cultural groupings; the germanic part of Europe and the Romance one.
I thought if those regions were to unite (maybe after the collapse of the UE, if it unfortunally finally happens); Amsterdam or Rotterdam could be interesting capitals for Northwestern Europe, being in the most densily core of Germanic cultures of Europe, close to the Rhine Delta, between the two "big ones" of the regions (geographically and culturally): the UK and Germany.
For a capital of the southwestern part, I thought of either Lyon or Marseille (not for being chavinistic, but because France is in the middle between Spain and Italy).
Lyon is maybe better connected to the northern Italian plain thru the Alps, and to the northern half of France (with Paris), but might be a little more distant to the Iberian peninsula.
But Marseille could maybe a better choice, because it is a major mediterranean port, and a geographical situation connected to the Rhone valley (to connect with northern France); to the languedoc plain (to connect to Iberia; and to italy thru costal Provence (=the axis already exitant in Roman times)
The southern Rhone Delta, as well as the Rhine Delta represent an area at the center of the big Romance culture historical cores: the Oil in the north, the Castillan in the west, and the Italian to the east.
By the same convoluted logic France has got to be in NW Europe because you live a hell of a lot closer to Brighton than Siracusa. But we've gone a long way on pointless facts.
I should have arbitrarily split France in 2 parts and put the southern part with the Mediterranean and the northern part with UK, the Netherlands and Germany. Feel free to disagree, but please don't bring up how close you live to Alger, I don't care.
French User is a very strange fish, for some reason he/she is DESPERATE for everybody to consider him/her as a Mediterannean, he/she keeps harping on that the UK is North West Europe and France is South West Europe (perhaps he/she consideres the Isle of Wight as Central Europe?) why for the life of me I dont know!???? Though I would be interested to know why he/she is so desperate NOT to be considered as a Northern European????
North America: New York.
South America: São Paulo.
Central America and Caribbean: Panamá City
West Europe: Paris.
East Europe: Moscow.
Middle East and North Africa: Dubai.
Asia (except the Middle East): Tokyo.
Sub-Saharian Africa: Johannesburg
Oceania: Sydney.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
2,825 posts, read 5,261,618 times
Reputation: 1957
Quote:
Originally Posted by easthome
French User is a very strange fish, for some reason he/she is DESPERATE for everybody to consider him/her as a Mediterannean,
I never asked anybody to consider ME as a "mediterranean" (applied to a person I dont know what this term could mean applied to a person, actually my personal family roots are from moslty from southern and central parts of France if this is what you want to know (not every french is from Normandy! contrary of what many British like to think), and I've been raised most of my childhood in Languedoc along the mediterranean and Charentes along the Atlantic), but that is not all all the subject.
I just said that my country is of a latin culture and it is bordering the mediterranean sea, but this reality seem to bother you as you are wishing to deny it (because of what, Jalousy? There is no reason for that, I don't think that being from a mediterrranean country make anyone better than being from a country with shores on the baltic or the north sea). For me, obviously (in the case you misunderstood my view), mediterranean is nothing like a exclusive "superior" category: we are obviously also as much an "Altantic country" (as are Spain, Portugal, the UK or Ireland) as a mediterranean one (as are Spain or Italy), depending of the regions.
We are obviously a western European country, along those countries that border the Atlantic (in the same bag as the UK in that concept). I just said that our country was not situated nor geographically nor culturally in NORTH-western Europe; because we are just not in the northern half of Europe. I don't know what would it gives you to consider at all price a country that in not in the north-western quarter of Europe to be included in it??! We both are western countries, let's be both proud of belonging to it, despite and the differences made by the fact that your country belongs to the northern half of western Europe and mine in the southern part of it, what is the problem with that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by easthome
he/she keeps harping on that the UK is North West Europe and France is South West Europe (perhaps he/she consideres the Isle of Wight as Central Europe?) why for the life of me I dont know!????
Because it is how European geography is actually made in its reality.
It is just that thinking that a country mostly situated in the 40° 's might be NORTH-western is just plain absurd. Image #140714 - CtrlV.in Image Hosting
You could do whatever you want, you will never be able to move France further north to be situated in the NORTH-western part of Europe and please your wishes...
Quote:
Originally Posted by easthome
Though I would be interested to know why he/she is so desperate NOT to be considered as a Northern European????
I feel YOU to be desesparate. I fear you reacted as if you thought that not consider my country as northwestern European was an expression of agressivity against yourselves or against northwestern European cultures in general. I precise that it is obviously not the case at all.
I personally have a great respect for your country where I go very often, and personnaly love very much the Netherlands. But, sorry if it hurt your pride, but to me Northwestern European cultures are very foreign. This is precicely because England or Netherlands fell to me like a completly diffferent part of Europe that I like to go there. I wouldn't find it as much interesting if it would be like in my home.
The interesant thing is that, since many important English things (London, Oxford, Brigthon, etc) are located in the south of England, just over the channel makes it very easily reacheable from Paris with the TGV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by easthome
perhaps he/she consideres the Isle of Wight as Central Europe
latidudinally Speaking the extreme south of Britain is lined with Czech republic. This begins to be pretty central Europe in a north/south scale... The isle of wight is clearly not in the extreme northwest part of Europe, or do you consider it is?
Do you realise that Italy and Germany have about the same latitudinal relative positions than France and Britain have (Milan and Munich have the same latitudinal difference than London and Paris) ?
I never seen or heard a German wanting at all price that Italy might be lumped in the geographical group of Germany because the southernmost parts of Germany are situated about 46km north of the northermost parts of Italy... It is not because some parts of northern Italy are situated a few kilometers further south than some parts of Germany than suddenly both countries have to be put in the same region of Europe, it is the same for France with UK.
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