Central Europe is not Eastern Europe · bare.systemsCentral Europe is not Eastern Europe<br>date2026-05-31categorygeographylength664 words · 4 minTL;DR: Central Europe is a real region, sitting between Western and Eastern Europe, too often forgotten and mixed up with Eastern Europe. The two have different histories, culture, societies, and naming the difference is a way of respecting this identity.<br>I often witnessed the same confusion, and lately more than ever with the internet newfound&rsquo;s love for Poland: someone calls Polish, Czechs, or Hungarians &ldquo;Eastern European&rdquo;. Plenty of westerners (and non-westerners) place these countries under the Eastern Europe umbrella, even if they don&rsquo;t belong to it. By the definitions below, I consider myself Central European, and I&rsquo;d like to make the world aware about our identity.<br>Defining Central and Eastern Europe<br>Human geography is not a hard science, so no two geographers will share the exact same opinion. There is usually a kernel a majority agree on, surrounded by more thinly-defined borders, exactly like the definitions we want to address. I&rsquo;ll keep the definitions short and try to avoid a diatribe on contemporary geography.<br>Central Europe sits between Western and Eastern Europe. Definitions in their narrower senses reliably include Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, often Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, and sometimes many more. Eastern Europe is reliably comprised of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, often Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and again others. The farther you move from the core, the more fuzzy the definitions get and the more exceptions you have, but these uncertainties are always relative to that fixed core.<br>Wikipedia is full of interesting maps and definitions, so go ahead and check them out: Central Europe, Eastern Europe. Keep in mind that most definitions stop at the country-level, but countries are not homogeneous. Also remember what the author intended their definition to be used for, before claiming &ldquo;but the United Nations Statistics Division doesn&rsquo;t mention the existence of Central Europe!&rdquo;.<br>Summarizing centuries of history and millions of pages on the subject is too much for this article. Interested readers must do their own research (good place to start: The Three Historical Regions of Europe by Jenő Szűcs), but if I had to hand-pick some distinctions out of a thousand, I could mention:<br>History: Central Europe developed inside the West&rsquo;s Latin influence, later growing under Habsburg and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth influence. Eastern Europe grew up around Kyiv, then Moscow.<br>Religion and writing: Latin Christianity and the Latin alphabet are in majority used in Central Europe; Orthodoxy and Cyrillic in the East.<br>Society: Central European countries were Soviet satellites states, not really independent but maintaining their own languages and churches. They were NOT the USSR. Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, and others, were the USSR, with far deeper Russification and larger Russian-speaking populations. Day-to-day sentiment toward Moscow varies, but Central Europeans generally feel repulsion towards Russia and their Soviet heritage.<br>Where I believe the confusion comes from<br>There are two main reasons why I believe Central Europe is forgotten. The shallowest one is simply direction and a lack of geographical knowledge: it&rsquo;s east of Western Europe, so it ends up rounded up to &ldquo;Eastern&rdquo;. The more historical reason is that for several decades, until the fall of the Iron Curtain, Central Europe was subjected to Soviet domination and therefore actually was Eastern Europe in a West/East opposition sense. While remaining distinct from Russia, Central European culture was being absorbed into the Soviet/Russian one, a traumatizing experience. Moscow is still trying hard to absorb a geographically Eastern European Ukraine, that they perceive as their turf. These absorption attempts and their remnants are still visible today through Russia&rsquo;s war of influence, and are exactly what is worth resisting.<br>In conclusion<br>Plenty of Central Europeans call themselves Eastern European, and that&rsquo;s their call to make. Choosing that label for yourself however is a very different thing from having it thrown at you by someone who never thought of the implications. The Soviets spent decades trying, and failing, to erase Central European identity, but it is an uphill battle. Getting the name right, being aware and mindful of the distinction, is already showing respect.