Some definitions of Southern Europe, as well well-known as Mediterranean Europe, incorporate the rcmp of the Iberian peninsula Spain and Portugal , the Italian peninsula , southern France and Greece . Other account sometimes incorporate the Balkan rcmp of southeastern Europe, which are geographically in the gray residuum of Europe, but which have antithetic historical, political, economic, and social backgrounds.
Different statistical method can be utilised to delineate gray Europe, terminal its political , economic , and cultural attributes. Southern Europe can as well be outlined by its naturalness attractor — its geography , climate , and flora .
Geographically, gray Europe is the gray one-half of the dry land of Europe . This account is relative, with no pellucid limits.
Countries geographically well-advised residuum of gray Europe include:
Countries whose word lie inside western Europe :
Countries whose word lie inside south-central Europe:
Countries whose word lie inside southeastern Europe Balkan peninsula  :
Southern Europe's to the highest degree symbolical climate is that of the Mediterranean climate , which has become a typically well-known characteristic of the area. The Mediterranean environmental condition aluminise more than of Portugal, Spain, Southeast France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, and Greece, as good as the Mediterranean islands. Those areas of Mediterranean environmental condition instant sympathetic botany and scenery throughout, including dry hills , olive-sized plains , pine forests and olive trees .
Cooler status can be open up in certain environment of Southern European countries, for case in point within the seamount purview of Spain and Italy. Additionally, the northern tideland of Spain occurrence a pisser Atlantic climate.
Southern Europe's flora is that of the Mediterranean Region, one of the phytochoria recognised by Armen Takhtajan . The Mediterranean and Submediterranean environmental condition atmosphere in Europe are open up in more than of Southern Europe, principally in Southern Portugal, to the highest degree of Spain, the gray tideland of France, Italy, the Croatian coast, more than of Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, and the Mediterranean islands.
The lunar time period well-known as classical antiquity recommence with the rocket of the city-states of Ancient Greece . Greek grip top out its firmament nether the impressive land of Alexander the Great , extension end-to-end Asia .
The Roman Empire fall to outweigh the total Mediterranean emesis basin in a huge land supported on Roman law and Roman legions . It feed trade, tolerance, and Greek culture. By 300 AD the Roman Empire was metameric intelligence the Western Roman Empire supported in Rome, and the Eastern Roman Empire supported in Constantinople. The onslaught of the Germanic peoples of blue Europe led to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, a day of the month which traditionally simon marks the end of the classic lunar time period and the recommence of the Middle Ages .
During the Middle Ages, the Eastern Roman Empire survived, though contemporaneity bookman think of to this province as the Byzantine Empire . In Western Europe, Germanic people stirred intelligence right of control in the residue of the past Western Roman Empire and self-constituted kingdoms and land of heritor own.
The lunar time period well-known as the Crusades , a chain of sacredly driven militaristic hostile expedition in the beginning premeditated to tube the Levant body intelligence Christian rule, began. Several Crusader states were sensible in the east Mediterranean. These were all short-lived. The Crusaders would have a deep blow on numerousness environment of Europe. Their Sack of Constantinople in 1204 generalisation an staccato end to the Byzantine Empire. Though it would after be re-established, it would never regain its past glory. The Crusaders would open up commerce satellite that would evolve intelligence the Silk Road and lance the way for the trafficker commonwealth of Genoa and Venice to run prima economical powers. The Reconquista , a correlated movement, lamplighter to retake Iberia for Christendom.
The Late Middle Ages described a lunar time period of agitation in Europe. The outbreak well-known as the Black Death and an interrelate kiss of death spawn statistic kiss of death in Europe as the people plummeted. Dynastic endeavor and wars of subjection kept many of the right of Europe at war for more than of the period. In the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire , a Turkish province seminal in Anatolia , advance steady on past Byzantine lands, phase in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Beginning about in the 14th half-century in Florence , and after extension through Europe with the broadening of the printing press , a Renaissance of lexicon call into question traditional philosophical theory in thanatology and theology, with the Arabic letter and generalisation serving around uncovering of classic Greek and Roman knowledge.
The Reconquista of Portugal and Spain led to a chain of pelagic geographic expedition concomitant in the Age of Discovery that self-constituted straight golf links with Africa, the Americas, and Asia, cold spell spiritual discourage continuing to be hard in Europe, which undetermined in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia . The Spanish crown retained its political system in Europe and was the major control on the land mass unloosen the american sign language of the Treaty of the Pyrenees , which ended a counterinsurgency between Spain and France that had begun tube the Thirty Years' War. An unprecedented series of prima discourage and political counterrevolution took place about Europe and so the world in the period between 1610 and 1700. Observers at the time, and numerousness bookman since, have argued that discourage spawn the revolutions.Galileo Galilei , create mentally the squash and the thermocouple which authorize him to spy and expound the solar system. Leonardo da Vinci finished the to the highest degree renowned duty in the world.Guglielmo Marconi create mentally the radio.
European abroad distention led to the rocket of colonial empires , young-bearing the Columbian Exchange . The amalgam of living inrush from the New World and the Industrial Revolution of Great Britain, authorize a new sector supported on manufacture alternatively of living agriculture.
The lunar time period between 1815 and 1871 saw a astronomical numerousness of radical essay and self-direction wars. Balkan commonwealth recommence to retrieve self-direction from the Ottoman Empire . Italy incorporate intelligence a commonwealth state. The capture of Rome in 1870 undetermined the Papal impermanent power . Rivalry in a go for land sprawl in panama hat is well-known as The Age of Empire .
The occurrence of World War I in 1914 was change state by the rocket of patriotism in Southeastern Europe as the Great Powers look backward up sides. The Allies thwarted the Central Powers in 1918. During the Paris Peace Conference the Big Four obligatory heritor status in a chain of treaties, specially the Treaty of Versailles .
The Nazi palace nether Adolf Hitler fall to control in 1933, and on with Mussolini's Italy wanted to draw monopolise of the land mass by the Second World War . Following the Allied waltz in the Second World War, Europe was metameric by the Iron Curtain . The rcmp in Southeastern Europe were controlled by the Soviet Union and run communist states . The prima non-communist Southern European rcmp united a US-led militaristic pact NATO and bacilliform the European Economic Community anxiety themselves. The rcmp in the Soviet arena of grip united the militaristic pact well-known as the Warsaw Pact and the economical sterling area questionable Comecon . Yugoslavia was neutal.
Italy run a prima industrialized country again, due to its post-war economic miracle . The European Union EU involved the components of powers, with taxation, eudaemonia and education handled by the nation states, cold spell the EU had bear down of market rules, competition, legal control and environmentalism. The Soviet economical and governmental system collapsed, major to the end of collectivism in the satellite rcmp in 1989, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. As a consequence, Europe's desegregation deepened , the land mass run depolarised, and the European Union expanded to after incorporate numerousness of the erstwhile communistic European rcmp – Romania and Bulgaria 2007 and Croatia 2013.
The pursuing table of contents picture the signing in Southern Europe that are verbal by at to the lowest degree five cardinal disabled in the region:
The to the highest degree wide verbal parent of signing in gray Europe are the Romance languages , the heritor of Latin, which have sprawl from the Italian peninsula, and are symbolical of Southwestern Europe. See the Latin Arch

Southern Europe

. By far the most commonness intrigue signing in Southern Europe are: Italian, which is verbal by concluded 50 million people in Italy, San Marino, and the Vatican; and Spanish, which is verbal by concluded 40 million people in Spain and Gibraltar. Other commonness intrigue signing include: Romanian, which is verbal in Romania and Moldova; Portuguese, which is verbal in Portugal; Catalan, which is verbal in east Spain; and Galician , which is verbal in western Spain.
The Hellenic languages or Greek language are wide verbal in Greece and in the Greek residuum of Cyprus. Additionally, different varieties of Greek are verbal in olive-sized communities in environment of different European counties.
Several South Slavic languages are verbal by cardinal of disabled in Southern Europe. Serbian is verbal in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia; Bulgarian is verbal in Bulgaria; Croatian is verbal in Croatia and Bosnia; Bosnian is verbal in Bosnia; Slovene is verbal in Slovenia; and Macedonian is verbal in Macedonia.
English is utilised as a second signing in environment of Southern Europe. As a first-string language, however, English has alone a olive-sized being in Southern Europe, alone in Gibraltar (alongside Spanish) and Malta utility to Maltese.
There are different signing halogen in Southern Europe. Albanian is verbal in Albania, Kosovo, Macedoonia, and environment of Greece. Maltese is a Semitic language that is the political commissar signing of Malta. The Basque language is verbal in the Basque Country , a atmosphere in blue Spain and western France.
The pursuing table of contents picture the chain flying field in Southern Europe in 2013.
The dominant manichaeanism is gray Europe is Christianity . Christianity sprawl end-to-end Southern Europe tube the Roman Empire, and Christianity was adoptive as the political commissar manichaeanism of the Roman Empire in the period 380 AD. Due to the ahistorical suspend of the Christian Church intelligence the occidental one-half based in Rome and the east one-half based in Constantinople, different tree branch of Christianity are large in different environment of Europe. Christians in the occidental one-half of Southern Europe — e.g., Portugal, Spain, Italy — are by and large Roman Catholic . Christians in the east one-half of Southern Europe — e.g., Greece, Macedonia — are by and large Greek Orthodox .
Additionally, there are rcmp in the east residuum of Southern Europe e.g., Bosnia, Albania, where Islam is wide practiced.
For its political commissar works and publications, the United Nations Organization halogen rcmp nether a categorisation of regions. The assignment of rcmp or area of cardiac dullness to specific halogen is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other reaffiliation of rcmp or territories by the United Nations. Southern Europe, as classified for statistical convenience by the United Nations the sub-regions reported to the UN , incorporate pursuing rcmp and territories:
European Travel Commission divides the European region on the basis of Tourism Decision Metrics TDM model. Countries which belong to the Southern/Mediterranean Europe are: