Lesson Western European countries Plan: Introduction. Political map of the

Lesson 1. Western European countries
Plan:
1. Introduction.
2. Political map of the Western Europe
3. Economy of the Western Europea


Keywords: Physical maps, nautical chart, geographic information, the etymology, transcription, latitude, longitudinal span, cartographic wallpaper, the ancient times, the map indexing system, projection, international mapping programs, region, country, state, political features.


Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
Beginning with foreign exploration during the Age of Discovery, roughly from the 15th century, the concept of Europe as "the West" gradually became distinguished from and eventually replaced the dominant use of "Christendom" as the preferred endonym within the region.^[1] Later, during the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of "Eastern Europe" was created to juxtapose that of "Western Europe".Classical antiquity and medieval origins

Schism of 1054 (East–West Schism) in Christianity, the predominant religion in Europe at the time
Prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces, which had formed the highly urbanized Hellenistic civilization, and the western territories, which in contrast largely adopted the Latin language. This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the Roman Empire. The Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire controlled the two divergent regions between the 3rd and the 5th centuries.
The division between these two was enhanced during Late antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived and even thrived for another 1000 years. The rise of the Carolingian Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe.
After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Carolingian Empire), the division between Roman Catholic and Protestant became more important in Europe than that with Eastern Orthodoxy.
In East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the "Far West". The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty. The Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In Ricci's writings, Ricci referred to himself as "Matteo of the Far West". The term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.