This map is yet another dissection of Europe, this time focussing on the north-south divides in the continent. Some of the boundaries here were already present in one or both of the earlier maps, especially the religious (Protestant-Catholic) and linguistic (Germanic-Romance) divides. Three additional borders are of a more climatic nature:
- The northern limit of vineyards, winding its way from the north coast of Spain up via France, to reach its northernmost point in the Belgian-German border area and thereafter undulating through Central Europe (almost perfectly following the southern border of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Ukraine).
- Then, there’s a divide between plains and mountains: this line starts north of the Pyrennees, dips into the Mediterranean before heading straight north to take in the Alps, after which is crosses Bavaria and Austria. After this, the line falls between Poland and Slovakia before heading south through Romania, via the Transylvanian Alps.
- Finally, there’s the divide between cool, wet and hot, dry climates, splitting Spain, skirting the South of France, the North of Italy, the Adriatic coast of the former Yugoslavia and the north of Greece.
One wonders, with global warming and all, whether the first and the third of these lines shouldn’t be moved northwards by now…
The vineyard line is slowly creeping north — but if the Gulf Stream shuts down as some scientists fear, it would suddenly lurch south…
Comment by Yorick — November 6, 2006 @ 9:49 am
What about the light roast vs. dark roast coffee line? I had a friend in grad school who had a theory that coffee and religion were correlated…
Comment by Rob — November 7, 2006 @ 1:39 am
The Germanic/Romance line has all the Celtic Countries (bar Brittainy) lumped in with the Germanics. The Cetic langugaes (Welsh, Irish, Cronish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic) have more in common with Romance languages than Germanic ones.
Comment by Rhys — November 7, 2006 @ 9:37 am
I’ve never thought that being Czech I live in plains. With the hills all around.. The highest point of Czech Rep. has 1602 m above sea level, there are hundreds of hills with more then 1000 m. Do you call it plains? And what about Panonian plains – south half of Slovakia, almost all Hungary, half of Serbia, eastern part of Croatia. This land is as flat as table.. The religious line is funny a bit as well. Czech were mostly protestant already before Martin Luther (Jan Hus, hussits revolution after 1419), then rekatolized by force on 1627 and now mostly atheistical. And what about linguistic line? What has Czech and Polish language common with German languages? And what has language of Slovenia and Croatia common with Romance? Almost nothing. And what have languages of these 4 countries common altogether? Much, being members of group of Slavonic languages..
Comment by Tomas Bernhardt — November 9, 2006 @ 7:51 am
If I remember correctly, in his great book on the Mediterranean the French historian Fernand Braudel had a map of the distribution of olive trees (and also of date palms, I think), because to him it constituted another significant north/south divide of varying agricultural systems and traditions.
As for the protestant/catholic divide: In Harry Mulisch’s novel “The Discovery of Heaven”, one of the characters is ridiculing Protestantism because it happens to coincide with the areas that were once covered by glaciers.
Comment by claus — November 9, 2006 @ 11:34 am
Don’t forget the divide between butter and olive oil.
Comment by Del Davis — November 10, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
The “Vineyard” line could probably also be labled “Beer/Wine”.
Comment by MikeM — November 10, 2006 @ 6:44 pm
Isn’t this map one taken from Norman Davies’ Europe?
Comment by Chelman — November 10, 2006 @ 11:01 pm
The cool,wet / dry,hot line is not correct when going through Bulgaria. It should be further north.
Comment by Krum Stanoev — February 26, 2007 @ 9:27 am
The first map I found with google:
http://www.agro.ttm.bg/guide/kl.htm
The climates are continental, transitional, Mediterranean, mountainous and Black Sea.
Comment by Krum Stanoev — February 26, 2007 @ 9:34 am
Oh, those cool and wet Hungarian summers! This is more a joke than a fact. Plus as said before, the Hungarian Plain as the westernmost Eurasian steppe is not quite mountainous either…
Comment by aetil — April 25, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
Hmm, there are Catholic parts of N. Germany, like Cologne & the Rhineland, which is also no slouch for wine production! There is the
“Weisswurst Aequator” that divides the Prussians and the Bavarians.
Comment by David K — May 10, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
Funny, in the Balkan Peninsula the Cool/Wet vs Dry/Hot line is very close to the Greek vs Latin line (which has a name I forgot)
Comment by RanDominio — June 18, 2007 @ 5:53 am
Yorick —
There are no real climate scientists worried about the Gulf Stream shutting down. Currents are functions of the wind patterns, which are a function of the rotation and topography of the Earth.
And the Gulf Stream isn’t even the major cause of Northern European climactic mildness; the west-to-east direction of prevailing winds, crossing the heat reservoir of the ocean, is why both the Pacific Northwest and Europe are warmer than Northeast Asia and Northeast America — despite the fact there’s no Gulf Stream equivalent warming the Pacific Northwest.
There is the possibility that a melt of Greenland ice could screw up the North Atlantic Drift, a thermohaline extension of the Gulf Stream. This would chill Britain and Scandinavia perhaps a bit, but much less than the worldwide heating necessary to melt the ice in the first place. The only thing anthropogenic global warming is going to do to Europe is warm it up.
Comment by Warmongering Lunatic — June 20, 2007 @ 12:39 am
[...] the whole country). So I’d like to see first hand what it’s like down there, below the Germanic divide. (Although I’m not looking forward to the 40ºC [...]
Pingback by Insight? : Understanding Nothing — August 26, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
Vineyard line definitely too far South.
Franken, Saale-Unstrut,
to name only two wine regions in central Germany.
Comment by duch — December 10, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
thanks.
Comment by hero — October 15, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
The protestant-catholic divide is inaccurate. Protestant Switzerland includes Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel, i.e. the entire northern half of French-speaking Switzerland. Geneva, after all, is the birthplace of Calvinism.
Comment by berliner2 — January 16, 2009 @ 10:42 pm
Complicated topic. One may imagine many things here. From vegetation to climate and from religion to anthropological aspects.
And damn… it gave place to a lot of controversies.
I would guess, from pure visiting experience, without holding to any books (which are often biased), I would guess the northern latitude of 50 degrees is a delimiter between Northern and Southern Europe. So, a line ranging from the British Cornwall to Amiens (FR)-Fulda(DE)-Prague(CZ)-Krakow(PL)-Lviv(UKR)-Kiev(UKR)
separates, in my own oppinion, the North to the South, in Europe.
Comment by Marius — February 12, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
thanks alot
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 2:21 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 7:09 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 4:51 am
Hi,
I am writing on behalf of Le Cherche-Midi Publishing, and already contacted you for other maps.
Would you own this map with a higher resolution please ?
Thank you.
Véronique Pret
Iconographer for “Le Cherche-Midi” Publishing
13-15 rue Amelot
75 011 Paris
01 73 71 68 73
06 83 65 68 35
Comment by Véronique Pret — May 26, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
teşekkür ederim
Comment by yory — June 12, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 3:50 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 6:40 am
Great map–fascinating
Comment by SpisterMooner — August 6, 2009 @ 12:05 am
here he is : jean-paul ney
Comment by jpn_lover — August 28, 2009 @ 2:01 am
[...] Europe’s North South Divides | Larger version | Source [...]
Pingback by Nonformality | European Ethnolinguistics — November 16, 2009 @ 10:05 pm