Eastern Europe facts for kids

Eastern Europe (marked in red) according to the UN Statistics Division.

Eastern Europe is the eastern region of Europe. Originally, it referred to the countries that were under the influence of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople during the middle ages, which was in contrast to the West which referred to the countries under the influence of the Roman Catholic and later Protestant Churches. Later during the Cold War it meant the European countries that belonged to the Soviet Union, a definition that still persists today in these post-soviet states. Others describe Eastern Europe as a region of predominantly Slavic cultures, though other ethnic groups live there as well.

According to the widest contemporary definitions - including those used by the UN Statistics Division, several other UN organizations and EuroVoc (the multilingual thesaurus of the EU) - the following states are in Eastern Europe:

1.  Albania
2.  Belarus
3.  Bosnia and Herzegovina
4.  Bulgaria
5.  Croatia Was western in the middle ages
6.  Cyprus Geologically located in Europe and Asia
7.  Czech Republic Was western in the middle ages
8.  Estonia Was western in the middle ages
9.  Georgia Geologically located in Europe and Asia
10.  Greece
11.  Hungary Was western in the middle ages
12.  Kazakhstan Geologically located in Europe and Asia
13.  Latvia Was western in the middle ages
14.  Lithuania Was western in the middle ages
15.  North Macedonia
16.  Moldova
17.  Montenegro
18.  Poland Was western in the middle ages
19.  Romania
20.  Russia Geologically located in Europe and Asia
21.  Serbia
22.  Slovakia Was western in the middle ages
23.  Slovenia Was western in the middle ages
24.  Turkey Geologically located in Europe and Asia
25.  Ukraine

Partly recognized:

1.  Abkhazia (part of Western Asia)
2.  Kosovo
3.  South Ossetia (part of Western Asia)

Alternatives

Contemporary developments since January 1993 have led to the reassessment of which countries make up Eastern Europe among some groups. Although the list shown above is still the most popular and widely accepted definition of this region, some experts divide the region further into subsections. According to such theories: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are in Central Europe (the western sections of Belarus and Ukraine are also sometimes listed as Central European) or East-Central Europe. Finally, the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Slovenia are occasionally grouped with a number of other countries into Southern Europe, but more often referred to as Southeast (or Southeastern) Europe.

Images for kids

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  Digital rendering of Europe, focused over the continent's eastern portion

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  Expansion of Christianity

See also

In Spanish: Europa Oriental para niños