The cultural-spatial borders of Europe according to the Standing Committee on Geographical Names, Germany. The map displays two different segment-bordering ways superimposed on each other.[2]
Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern, Southern, Western and Northern Europe.[3][4] Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity;[5][6] however, countries in this region also share historical and cultural similarities.[7][8]
Since the Cold War the countries that make up Central Europe have historically been, and in some cases continue to be,[15] divided into either Eastern or Western Europe.[16][17] After World War II, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain[18] into two parts, the capitalistWestern Bloc and the socialistEastern Bloc, although Austria, Switzerland and Yugoslavia (encompassing the territories of present-day Croatia, Slovenia and various other Balkans nations) declared neutrality. The Berlin Wall was one of the most visible symbols of this division.[19] Respectively, countries in Central Europe have historical, cultural and geopolitical ties with these wider regions of Europe.[20][21][22][23]
Central Europe began a "strategic awakening" in the late 20th and early 21st century,[24] with initiatives such as the Central European Defence Cooperation, the Central European Initiative, Centrope, and the Visegrád Four Group. This awakening was accelerated by writers and other intellectuals, who recognized the societal paralysis of decaying dictatorships and felt compelled to speak up against Soviet oppression.[25]
Historical perspective
Middle Ages and early modern period
In the early Middle Ages, Central Europe had a diverse landscape, with various ethnic groups inhabiting the region. Germanic tribes, among them the Franks, Alemans and Bavarians, were predominantly situated in the west, while Slavic tribes were predominantly in the east.[26] However, the region encompassed a wide spectrum of additional tribes and communities.
From the late 6th century to the early 9th century, the area roughly corresponding to the Carpathian Basin was part of the Avar Khaganate, the realm of the Pannonian Avars.[27][28] While the Avars dominated the east of what is now Austria, its north and south were under Germanic and Slavic influence, respectively.[29] Meanwhile, the territories now comprising Germany and Switzerland were under the influence of the Merovingian dynasty, and later the Carolingian dynasty.[30][31] Various Slavic tribes that inhabited eastern Central Europe established settlements during this period, primarily in present-day Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.[32] The territory of Lithuania was inhabited by Baltic tribes. Amongst them were the Samogitians, Aukštaitians and Curonians.[33]
The Holy Roman Empire was founded at the turn of the 9th century, following the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III.[34] At its inception, it incorporated present-day Germany and nearby regions, including parts of what is now Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Switzerland. Three decades later, Great Moravia, centred in present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia, became one of the first West Slavic states to be founded in Central Europe. In the late 9th Century, the Hungarian tribes, originating in the Ural Mountains and Western Siberia,[35] settled in the Carpathian Basin and established the Principality of Hungary.[36]
The earliest recorded concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simply a geographic term) was formed by Alcuin of York in the late 8th century during the Carolingian Renaissance, limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. "European" as a cultural term did not include much of the territories where the Orthodox Church represented the dominant religion until the 19th century.[37]
Following the Christianization of various Central European countries, elements of cultural unity emerged within the region, specifically Catholicism and Latin. Eastern Europe remained Eastern Orthodox, and was dominated by Byzantine cultural influence. After the East–West Schism in 1054, significant parts of Eastern Europe developed cultural unity and resistance to Catholic Western and Central Europe within the framework of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet.[38][39][40][41]
According to historian Jenő Szűcs, at the end of the first millennium Central Europe became influenced by Western European developments. Szűcs argued that between the 11th and 15th centuries, not only did Christianization influence the cultures within Central Europe, but well-defined social features were also implemented in the region based on Western characteristics. The keyword of Western social development after the turn of the millennium was the spread of Magdeburg rights in some cities and towns of Western Europe. These began to spread in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries, bringing about self-governments of towns and counties.[42]
In 1386, Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, converted to Christianity (specifically Catholicism) and subsequently became King of Poland through marriage to Queen Jadwiga of Poland. This initiated the Christianization of Lithuania. It also resulted in the Union of Krewo, signifying a personal union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. The union commenced an enduring political alliance between the two entities and laid the foundations for the later establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569.[44]
Between the 15th and early 16th centuries, the Kingdom of Croatia, which was at the time in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary, served as a significant maritime gateway of Central Europe, with its ports facilitating key trade routes between Central Europe and the Mediterranean.[45][46] The Republic of Ragusa emerged as a prominent hub for cultural exchange during this time.[45] Following the Ottoman and Habsburg wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Kingdom of Croatia, under Habsburg rule, began to regain its position as a significant trade route, restoring ports and revitalising commercial activity.
Before World War I
A view of Central Europe dating from the time before the First World War (1902):
Regions located at the transition between Central Europe and Southeastern/Eastern Europe: Romania
Before 1870, the industrialization that had started to develop in Northwestern and Central Europe and the United States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. Even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia, for example, remained largely rural and agricultural, and its autocratic rulers kept the peasants in serfdom.[48] The concept of Central Europe was already known at the beginning of the 19th century,[49] but it developed further and became an object of intensive interest towards the 20th century. However, the first concept mixed science, politics, and economy – it was strictly connected with the aspirations of German states to dominate a part of European continent called Mitteleuropa. At the Frankfurt Parliament, which was established in the wake of the March Revolution of 1848, there were multiple competing ideas for the integration of German-speaking areas, including the mitteleuropäische Lösung (Central European Solution) propagated by Austria, which sought to merge the smaller German-speaking states with the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, but was opposed by Prussia and others. An imperialistic idea of Mitteleuropa also became popular in the German Empire established in 1871, which experienced intensive economic growth. The term was used when the Union of German Railway Administrations established the Mitteleuropäische Eisenbahn-Zeit (Central European Railway Time) time zone, which was applied by the railways from 1 June 1891 and was later widely adopted in civilian life, thus the time zone name shortened to the present-day Central European Time.[50]
The German term denoting Central Europe was so fashionable that other languages started referring to it when indicating territories from Rhine to Vistula, or even Dnieper, and from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans.[51] An example of this vision of Central Europe may be seen in Joseph Partsch's book of 1903.[52]
On 21 January 1904, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein (Central European Economic Association) was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany and Austria (with eventual extension to Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands) as its main aim. Another time, the term Central Europe became connected to the German plans of political, economic, and cultural domination. The "bible" of the concept was Friedrich Naumann's book Mitteleuropa[53] in which he called for an economic federation to be established after World War I. Naumann's proposed a federation with Germany and the Habsburg empire as its centre, eventually uniting all external European nations through economic prosperity.[54] The concept failed after the German defeat in World War I.[citation needed][dubious–discuss] The revival of the idea may be observed during the Hitler era.[citation needed][dubious–discuss]
Interwar period
Interwar Central Europe according to Emmanuel de Martonne (1927)
CE countries, Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes 1910–1930 (L.A. County Museum of Art)[55]
The interwar period (1918–1938) brought a new geopolitical system, as well as economic and political problems, and the concept of Central Europe took on a different character. The centre of interest was moved to its eastern part – particularly to the countries that had (re)appeared on the map of Europe. Central Europe ceased to be the area of German aspiration to lead or dominate and became a territory of various integration movements aiming at resolving political, economic, and national problems of "new" states, being a way to face German and Soviet pressures. However, the conflict of interests was too big and neither Little Entente nor Intermarium (Międzymorze) ideas succeeded. Hungarian historian Ádám Magda wrote in her study Versailles System and Central Europe (2006): "Today we know that the bane of Central Europe was the Little Entente, military alliance of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), created in 1921 not for Central Europe's cooperation nor to fight German expansion, but in a wrong perceived notion that a completely powerless Hungary must be kept down".[56] The events preceding World War II in Europe—including the so-called Western betrayal/ Munich Agreement were very much enabled by the rising nationalism and ethnocentrism that typified that period.
The interwar period brought new elements to the concept of Central Europe. Before World War I, it embraced mainly German-speaking states, with non-German speaking territories being an area of intended German penetration and domination – German leadership was to be the 'natural' result of economic dominance.[49] Post-war, the Eastern part of Central Europe was placed at the centre of the concept. At that time the scientists took an interest in the idea: the International Historical Congress in Brussels in 1923 was committed to Central Europe, and the 1933 Congress continued the discussions.[57]
According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927, Central Europe encompassed Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Switzerland, northern Italy and northern Yugoslavia. The author uses both Human and Physical Geographical features to define Central Europe, but he doesn't take into account the legal development or the social, cultural, economic, and infrastructural developments in these countries.[58]
The avant-garde movements of Central Europe contributed to the evolution of modernism, reaching its peak throughout the continent during the 1920s. The Sourcebook of Central European avantgards (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) contains primary documents of the avant-gardes in the territories of Austria, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia from 1910 to 1930.[55]
Mitteleuropa
With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire around 1800, there was a consolidation of power among the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns as the two major states in the area. They had much in common and occasionally cooperated in various channels, but more often competed. One approach in the various attempts at cooperation, was the conception of a set of supposed common features and interests, and this idea led to the first discussions of a Mitteleuropa in the mid-nineteenth century, as espoused by Friedrich List and Karl Ludwig Bruck. These were mostly based on economic issues.[59]
Mitteleuropa may refer to a historical concept or a contemporary German definition of Central Europe. As a historical concept, the German term Mitteleuropa (or alternatively its literal translation into English, Middle Europe[60]) is an ambiguous German concept.[60] It is sometimes used in English to refer to an area somewhat larger than most conceptions of 'Central Europe'. According to Fritz FischerMitteleuropa was a scheme in the era of the Reich of 1871–1918 by which the old imperial elites had allegedly sought to build a system of German economic, military and political domination from the northern seas to the Near East and from the Low Countries through the steppes of Russia to the Caucasus.[61] Later on, professor Fritz Epstein argued the threat of a Slavic "Drang nach Westen" (Western expansion) had been a major factor in the emergence of a Mitteleuropa ideology before the Reich of 1871 ever came into being.[62]
In Germany the connotation was also sometimes linked to the pre-war German provinces east of the Oder-Neisse line.[63]
The term "Mitteleuropa" conjures up negative historical associations among some people, although the Germans have not played an exclusively negative role in the region.[64] Most Central European Jews embraced the enlightened German humanistic culture of the 19th century.[65] Jews of turn of the 20th century Central Europe became representatives of what many consider to be Central European culture at its best, though the Nazi conceptualisation of "Mitteleuropa" sought to destroy this culture.[66] The term "Mitteleuropa" is widely used in German education and media without negative meaning, especially since the end of communism. Many people from the new states of Germany do not identify themselves as being part of Western Europe and therefore prefer the term "Mitteleuropa".[citation needed]
During World War II, Central Europe was largely occupied by Nazi Germany. Many areas were a battle area and were devastated. The mass murder of the Jews depopulated many of their centuries-old settlement areas or settled other people there and their culture was wiped out. Both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin diametrically opposed the centuries-old Habsburg principles of "live and let live" with regard to ethnic groups, peoples, minorities, religions, cultures and languages and tried to assert their own ideologies and power interests in Central Europe.[67] There were various Allied plans for state order in Central Europe for post-war. While Stalin tried to get as many states under his control as possible, Winston Churchill preferred a Central European Danube Confederation to counter these countries against Germany and Russia. There were also plans to add Bavaria and Württemberg to an enlarged Austria.[68] There were also various resistance movements around Otto von Habsburg that pursued this goal. The group around the Austrian priest Heinrich Maier also planned in this direction, which also successfully helped the Allies to wage war by, among other things, forwarding production sites and plans for V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks and aircraft to the USA.[69][70] Otto von Habsburg tried to relieve Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and northern Yugoslavia (particularly the territories of present-day Croatia and Slovenia) from Nazi German, and Soviet, influence and control.[71][72] There were various considerations to prevent German and Soviet power in Europe after the war. Churchill's idea of reaching the area around Vienna before the Russians via an operation from the Adriatic had not been approved by the Western Allied chiefs of staff.[73] As a result of the military situation at the end of the war, Stalin's plans prevailed and much of Central Europe came under Russian control.[74][75]
Following World War II, parts of Central Europe became part of the Eastern Bloc. The boundary between the two blocks was called the Iron Curtain. Austria, Switzerland and Yugoslavia remained neutral.
The post-World War II period brought blocking of research on Central Europe in the Eastern Bloc countries, as its every result proved the dissimilarity of Central Europe, which was inconsistent with the Stalinist doctrine. On the other hand, the topic became popular in Western Europe and the United States, much of the research being carried out by immigrants from Central Europe.[76] Following the Fall of Communism, publicists and historians in Central Europe, especially the anti-communist opposition, returned to their research.[77]
According to Karl A. Sinnhuber (Central Europe: Mitteleuropa: Europe Centrale: An Analysis of a Geographical Term)[78] most Central European states were unable to preserve their political independence and became Soviet satellites. Besides Austria, Switzerland and Yugoslavia, only the marginal European states of Cyprus, Finland, Malta and Sweden preserved their political sovereignty to a certain degree, being left out of any military alliances in Europe.
The opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989 then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer an East Germany and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated.[79][80] It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. After the picnic, which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test the reaction of the USSR and Mikhail Gorbachev to an opening of the border, tens of thousands of media-informed East Germans set off for Hungary.[81] The leadership of the GDR in East Berlin did not dare to completely block the borders of their own country and the USSR did not respond at all. This broke the bracket of the Eastern Bloc and Central Europe subsequently became free from communism.[82][83][84]
Roles
According to American professor Ronald Tiersky, the 1991 summit held in Visegrád attended by the Czechoslovak, Hungarian and Polish presidents was hailed at the time as a major breakthrough in Central European cooperation, but the Visegrád Group became a vehicle for coordinating Central Europe's road to the European Union, while development of closer ties within the region languished.[85]
American professor Peter J. Katzenstein described Central Europe as a way station in a Europeanization process that marks the transformation process of the Visegrád Group countries in different, though comparable ways.[86] According to him, in Germany's contemporary public discourse "Central European identity" refers to the civilizational divide between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.[86] He argued that there is no precise way to define Central Europe and that the region may even include Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Serbia.[87]
Definitions
Geopolitical Challenges – Panel on the Future of Europe.
The issue of how to name and define the Central European area is subject to debates. Very often, the definition depends on the nationality and historical perspective of its author. The concept of "Central Europe" appeared in the 19th century. It was understood as a contact zone between the Southern and Northern areas, and later the Eastern and Western areas of Europe. Thinkers portrayed "Central Europe" either as a separate region, or a buffer zone between these regions.
In the early nineteenth century, the terms "Middle" or "Central" Europe (known as "Mitteleuropa" in German and "Europe centrale" in French) were introduced in geographical scholarship in both German and French languages. At first, these terms were linked to the regions spanning from the Pyrenees to the Danube, which, according to German authors, could be united under German authority. However, after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the French began to exclude France from this area, and later the Germans also adopted this perspective by the end of World War I.[88]
The concept of "Central" or "Middle Europe", understood as a region with German influence, lost a significant part of its popularity after WWI and was completely dismissed after WWII. Two defeats of Germany in the world wars, combined with the division of Germany, an almost complete disappearance of German-speaking communities in these countries, and the Communist-led isolation of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia from the Western world, turned the concept of "Central/Middle Europe" into an anachronism. On the other side, the non-German areas of Central Europe were almost universally regarded as "Eastern European" primarily associated with the Soviet sphere of influence in the late 1940s–1980s.
For the most part, this geographical framework lost its attraction after the end of the Cold War. A number of Post-Communist countries rather re-branded themselves in the 1990s as "Central European.", while avoiding the stained wording of "Middle Europe," which they associated with German influence in the region. This reinvented concept of "Central Europe" excluded Germany, Austria and Switzerland, reducing its coverage chiefly to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania and Yugoslavia.[88]
Academic
The main proposed regional definitions, gathered by Polish historian Jerzy Kłoczowski, include:[89]
West-Central and East-Central Europe – this conception, presented in 1950,[90] distinguishes two regions in Central Europe: German West-Centre, with the imperial tradition of the Reich, and the East-Centre covered by a variety of nations from Finland to Greece, placed between the great empires of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union.
Central Europe as the area of the cultural heritage of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian historians, in cooperation (since 1990) with Polish historians, insist on the importance of this concept.
A concept putting the accent on links with the West,[citation needed][dubious–discuss] especially from the 19th century and the grand period of liberation and formation of Nation-states – this idea is represented by the South-Eastern states, which prefer the enlarged concept of the "East Centre" expressing their links with Western culture.[dubious–discuss][citation needed]
Former University of Vienna professor Lonnie R. Johnson points out criteria to distinguish Central Europe from Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe:[92]
One criterion for defining Central Europe is the frontiers of medieval empires and kingdoms that largely correspond to the religious frontiers between the Catholic West and the Orthodox East.[93] The pagans of Central Europe were converted to Catholicism while in Southeastern and Eastern Europe they were brought into the fold of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[93]
Multinational empires were a characteristic of Central Europe.[93]Hungary and Poland, small and medium-size states today, were empires during their early histories.[93] The historical Kingdom of Hungary was until 1918 three times larger than present-day Hungary,[93] while Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest state in Europe in the 16th century.[93] Both these kingdoms housed a wide variety of different peoples.[93]
He also thinks that Central Europe is a dynamic historical concept, not a static spatial one. For example, a fair share of Belarus and Right-bank Ukraine are in Eastern Europe today, but 240 years ago they were in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[93] Johnson's study on Central Europe received acclaim and positive reviews in the scientific community.[94][95] However, according to Romanian researcher Maria Bucur, this very ambitious project suffers from the weaknesses imposed by its scope (almost 1600 years of history).[96]
Encyclopedias, gazetteers, dictionaries
The World Factbook[1] defines Central Europe as: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. The Columbia Encyclopedia includes: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland. While it does not have a single article defining Central Europe, Encyclopædia Britannica includes the following countries in Central Europe in one or more of its articles: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina,[97] Croatia,[98] the Czech Republic, Germany,[99] Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland.
The German Encyclopaedia Meyers Grosses Taschenlexikon (Meyers Big Pocket Encyclopedia), 1999, defines Central Europe as the central part of Europe with no precise borders to the East and West. The term is mostly used to denominate the territory between the Schelde to Vistula and from the Danube to the Moravian Gate.
According to Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon,[100] Central Europe is a part of Europe composed of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Switzerland, and northern marginal regions of Italy and Yugoslavia (northern states – Croatia and Slovenia), as well as northeastern France.
The German Ständige Ausschuss für geographische Namen (Standing Committee on Geographical Names), which develops and recommends rules for the uniform use of geographical names, proposes two sets of boundaries. The first follows international borders of current countries. The second subdivides and includes some countries based on cultural criteria. In comparison to some other definitions, it is broader, including Luxembourg, Estonia, Latvia, and in the second sense, parts of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Italy, and France.[2]
The terminology EU11 countries refer the Central, Eastern and Baltic European member states which accessed in 2004 and after: in 2004 Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia; in 2007 Bulgaria, Romania; and in 2013 Croatia.[103]
The choice of states that make up Central Europe is an ongoing source of controversy.[109] Although views on which countries belong to Central Europe are vastly varied, according to many sources (see section Definitions) the region includes some or all of the states listed in the sections below:
Depending on the context, Central European countries are sometimes not seen as a specific group, but sorted as either Eastern or Western European countries.[119][120][121] In this case Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland are often placed in Western Europe, while Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are placed in Eastern Europe.[122][121][123][124]
The Danube watercourse system throughout Central and Southeastern Europe
Geography defines Central Europe's natural borders with the neighbouring regions to the north across the Baltic Sea, namely Northern Europe (or Scandinavia), and to the south across the Alps, the Apennine peninsula (or Italy), and the Balkan peninsula[101] across the Soča–Krka–Sava–Danube line. The borders to Western Europe and Eastern Europe are geographically less defined, and for this reason the cultural and historical boundaries migrate more easily west–east than south–north.
South of the Eastern Alps (spanning Austria, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Switzerland),[150] the Dinaric Alps extend for 650 kilometres along the coast of the Adriatic Sea (northwest-southeast), from the Julian Alps in the northwest down to the Šar-Korab massif, north–south. According to the Freie Universität Berlin, this mountain chain is classified as South Central European.[151] The city of Trieste in this area, for example, expressly sees itself as a città mitteleuropea. This is particularly because it lies at the interface between the Latin, Slavic, Germanic, Greek and Jewish culture on the one hand and the geographical area of the Mediterranean and the Alps on the other. A geographical and cultural assignment is made.
Population density in Central European countriesPopulation density (people per km ) by country
Central Europe is one of the continent's most populous regions. It includes countries of varied sizes, ranging from tiny Liechtenstein to Germany, the second largest European country by population. Demographic figures for countries entirely located within notion of Central Europe ("the core countries") number around 173 million people, out of which around 82million are residents of Germany.[153] Other populations include: Poland with around 38.5million residents,[154] Czech Republic at 10.5million,[155] Hungary at 10 million,[156] Austria with 8.8million, Switzerland with 8.5million,[157] Slovakia at 5.4million,[158] Croatia with 4.3million,[159] Lithuania with 2.9 million, Slovenia with 2.1million[160] and Liechtenstein at a bit less than 40,000.[161]
If the countries which are sometimes also included in Central Europe were counted in, partially or in whole – Romania (20million), Latvia (2million), Estonia (1.3million), Serbia (7.1million)[162] – this would contribute around an additional 30.4 million, although this figure would vary depending on whether a regional or integral approach is used.[163] If smaller, western and eastern historical parts of Central Europe would be included in the demographic corpus, a further 20 million people of different nationalities would also be added in the overall count, surpassing a total of 200 million people.
Currently, the members of the Eurozone include Austria, Croatia, Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland use their own currencies (koruna, forint, Polish złoty, respectively), but are obliged to adopt the Euro. Switzerland uses its own currency (Swiss franc), as does Serbia (dinar) and Romania (Romanian leu).
World map by quartiles of Human Development Index in 2013:
Very High
Low
High
Data unavailable
Medium
In 2018, Switzerland topped the HDI list among Central European countries, also ranking No. 2 in the world. Serbia rounded out the list at No. 11 (67 world).
Legatum Prosperity Index demonstrates an average and high level of prosperity in Central Europe (2018 data).[165] Switzerland topped the index (#4 world).
Overview of the index of perception of corruption, 2015:
90–100
60–69
30–39
0–9
80–89
50–59
20–29
No information
70–79
40–49
10–19
Most countries in Central Europe tend to score above the average in the Corruption Perceptions Index (2018 data),[166] led by Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.
Rail
Rail network density
Central Europe contains the continent's earliest railway systems, whose greatest expansion was recorded in Austrian, Czech, German, Hungarian and Swiss territories between 1860-1870s.[167] By the mid-19th century Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Pest and Prague were focal points for network lines connecting industrial areas of Saxony, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia and Lower Austria with the Baltic (Kiel, Szczecin) and Adriatic (Rijeka, Trieste).[168] By 1913, the combined length of the railway tracks of Austria and Hungary reached 43,280 kilometres (26,890 miles). By 1936, 70% of the Swiss Federal Railway network had undergone electrification.[169]
Rail infrastructure in Central Europe remains the densest in the world. Railway density as of 2022, with total length of lines operated (km) per 1,000 km2, from highest to lowest is Switzerland (129.2), the Czech Republic (120.7), Germany (108.8), Hungary (85.0), Slovakia (74.0), Austria (66.5), Poland (61.9), Slovenia (59.6), Serbia (49.2), Croatia (46.3) and Lithuania (29.4).[170][171]
River transport and canals
Before the first railroads appeared in the 1840s, river transport constituted the main means of communication and trade.[168] Earliest canals included Plauen Canal (1745), Finow Canal, and also Bega Canal (1710) which connected Timișoara to Novi Sad and Belgrade via the Danube.[168] The most significant achievement in this regard was the facilitation of navigability on the Danube from the Black sea to Ulm in the 19th century.
The economies of Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland tend to demonstrate high complexity. Industrialisation reached Central Europe relatively early beginning with Germany and the Czech lands near the end of the 18th century.[172]
The industrialization of the cities of Romania[173] and Serbia[174] started in the interwar period, and did not make significant progress until the post ww2 era.
Agriculture
Central European countries are some of the most significant food producers in the world. Germany is the world's largest hops producer with 34.27% share in 2010,[175] 3rd largest producer of rye and barley, 5th rapeseed producer, 6th largest milk producer, and 5th largest potato producer.[citation needed] Poland is the world's largest triticale producer, 2nd largest producer of raspberries, currants, 3rd largest of rye, the 5th apple and buckwheat producer, and 7th largest producer of potatoes.[citation needed] The Czech Republic is the world's 4th largest hops producer and 8th producer of triticale.[citation needed] Slovenia is one of the world's leading producers of honey[176] and the world's 6th largest hops producer.[citation needed] Hungary is world's 5th hops and 7th largest triticale producer.[citation needed] Serbia is the world's 2nd largest producer of plums and 2nd largest producer of raspberries.[177][178]
Business
Central European business has a regional organisation, Central European Business Association (CEBA), founded in 1996 in New York as a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting business opportunities within Central Europe and supporting the advancement of professionals in America with a Central European background.[179]
Tourism
Central European countries, especially Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland are some of the most competitive tourism destinations.[180]
Student performance has varied across Central Europe, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment. In the 2012 study, countries scored medium, below or over the average scores in three fields studied.[181]
In 1991, Ernest Gellner proposed the establishment of a truly Central European institution of higher learning in Prague (1991–1995).[183] Eventually, the Central European University (CEU) project was taken on and financially supported by the Hungarian philanthropist George Soros, who had provided an endowment of US$880million, making the university one of the wealthiest in Europe.[184] Over its 30-year history CEU has become one of the most internationally diverse and recognisable universities in the world. For example, as of 2019, 1217 students were enrolled in the university, of which 962 were international students, making the student body the fourth most international in the world.[185] CEU offers highly selective programs with a student to faculty ratio of 7:1.[186] In 2021, the admission rate into its programs was 13%.[187] CEU has thus become a leading global university in Europe promoting a distinctively Central European perspective while emphasizing academic rigor, applied research, and academic honesty and integrity.[188] CEU is a founding member of CIVICCA, a group of prestigious European higher education institutions in the social sciences, humanities, business management and public policy, such as Sciences Po (France), The London School of Economics and Political Science (UK), Bocconi University (Italy) and the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden).[189] In 2019, Central European University leadership announced their preparatory work on moving CEU to Vienna due to legal constraints against academic freedom in Hungary.[190]
Central European major Christian denomination is Catholicism as well as large Protestant populations. Click map to see legend.
Central European countries are mostly Catholic (Austria, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) or historically both Catholic and Protestant (the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland). Large Protestant groups include Lutheran, Calvinist, and the Unity of the Brethren affiliates. Significant populations of Eastern Catholicism and Old Catholicism are also prevalent throughout Central Europe. Orthodox Christianity is a minority denomination observed to varying extents across Central Europe.
Central Europe has been the center of the Protestant movement for centuries, with the majority of Protestants suppressed and annihilated during the Counterreformation.[194][195]
Historically, people in Bohemia in today's Czech Republic were some of the first Protestants in Europe. As a result of the Thirty Years' War following the Bohemian Revolt, many Czechs were either killed, executed (see for Old Town Square execution), forcibly turned into Roman Catholics, or emigrated to Scandinavia and the Low Countries. In the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War, the number of inhabitants in the Kingdom of Bohemia decreased from three million to only 800,000 due to multiple factors, including devastating ongoing battles such as the significant Battle of White Mountain and the Battle of Prague (1648). However, in recent years, most Czechs report as overwhelmingly non-religious, with some describing themselves as Catholic (10.3%).
Before the Holocaust (1941–45), there was also a sizeable Ashkenazi Jewish community in the region, numbering approximately 16.7million people.[196] Poland, Lithuania and Hungary had the largest Jewish populations in Europe as a percentage of their total populations, with Jews constituting 9.5% of the Polish population in 1933.[197]
Certain countries in Central Europe, particularly the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland have sizeable atheist and non-religious populations. In 2021, 48% of the Czech population declared that they had no religion.[198] In 2022, 43.8% of the German population declared that they had no religion.[199] Meanwhile, 33.5% of the Swiss population stated that they were not affiliated with any religion.[200]
Cuisine
Central European cuisine has evolved over centuries due to social and political change and is generally diverse. However, the national cuisines of western Central Europe share notable similarities, as do the cuisines of eastern Central Europe. Sausages, salamis and cheeses are popular in most of Central Europe, with the earliest evidence of cheesemaking in the archaeological record dates back to 5,500 BCE (Kuyavia region, Poland).[201] Other popular food items in Central Europe include soups, stews, pickled and fermented vegetables. Schnitzel, goulash and cabbage rolls are popular in the region.
Another common feature among Central European cuisines, particularly Austrian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Slovenian and Swiss cuisine, is the use of wild ingredients in traditional dishes, spanning from wild herbs to mushrooms and berries. Beer consumption is also prominent in parts of Central Europe, where the Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita globally, followed by Austria, with Germany coming 4th. The cuisines of Central European countries that are included in broader definitions of Eastern Europe share similarities and traditions with other Eastern European cuisines. This is particularly evident in the cuisines of Lithuania and Poland, which feature dishes like borscht, pierogi and sour rye soup.
Human rights
Generally, the countries in the region have been progressive on the issue of human rights: death penalty is illegal in all of them, corporal punishment is outlawed in most of them and people of both genders can vote in elections. However, Central European countries are divided on the subject of same-sex marriage and abortion. Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland also have a history of participation in the CIA's extraordinary rendition and detention program, according to the Open Society Foundations.[202][203]
Literature
Regional writing tradition revolves around the turbulent history of the region, as well as its cultural diversity.[204][205] Its existence is sometimes challenged.[206] Specific courses on Central European literature are taught at Stanford University,[207]Harvard University[208] and Jagiellonian University[209] as well as cultural magazines dedicated to regional literature.[210] Angelus Central European Literature Award is an award worth 150,000.00 PLN (about $50,000 or £30,000) for writers originating from the region.[211] Likewise, the Vilenica International Literary Prize is awarded to a Central European author for "outstanding achievements in the field of literature and essay writing".[212]
Football is one of the most popular sports. Countries of Central Europe hosted several major competitions. Germany hosted two FIFA World Cups (1974 and 2006) and two UEFA European Championships (1988 and 2024). Yugoslavia hosted the UEFA Euro 1976 before the competition expanded to 8 teams. Recently, the 2008 and 2012UEFA European Championships were held in Austria & Switzerland and Poland & Ukraine respectively.
The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy index map for 2022, with greener colours representing more democratic countries
Central Europe is a home to some of world's oldest democracies. However, most of them have been impacted by totalitarianism, particularly Fascism and Nazism. Germany and Italy occupied all Central European countries, except Switzerland. In all occupied countries, the Axis powers suspended democracy and installed puppet regimes loyal to the occupation forces. Also, they forced conquered countries to apply racial laws and formed military forces for helping German and Italian struggle against Communists. After World War II, almost the whole of Central Europe (the Eastern and Middle part) had been transformed into communist states, most of which had been occupied and later allied with the Soviet Union, often against their will through forged referendum (e.g., Polish people's referendum in 1946) or force (northeast Germany, Poland, Hungary et alia). Nevertheless, these experiences have been dealt in most of them. Most of Central European countries score very highly in the Democracy Index.[214]
In spite of its turbulent history, Central Europe is currently one of world's safest regions. Most Central European countries are in top 20%.[215]
Central European Time
Central European Time zone (dark red)
The time zone is a standard time which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. Countries using CET include:
Albania
Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Hungary
Italy
Luxembourg
Monaco
Montenegro
Netherlands
North Macedonia
Norway
Poland
San Marino
Slovakia
Slovenia
Serbia
Sweden
Switzerland
Vatican City
In popular culture
Central Europe is mentioned in the 35th episode of Lovejoy, entitled "The Prague Sun", filmed in 1992. While walking over the well-regarded and renowned Charles Bridge in Prague, the main character, Lovejoy, says: "I've never been to Prague before. Well, it is one of the great unspoiled cities in Central Europe. Notice: I said: 'Central', not 'Eastern'! The Czechs are a bit funny about that, they think of Eastern Europeans as turnip heads."[216]
Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military and diplomatic alliance, it consisted of two sovereign states with a single monarch who was titled both Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Austria-Hungary constituted the last phase in the constitutional evolution of the Habsburg monarchy: it was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War and was dissolved shortly after Hungary terminated the union with Austria on 31 October 1918.
Pan-Slavism, a movement that took shape in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with promoting integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had ruled the South Slavs for centuries. These were mainly the Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice.
The Visegrád Group is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The alliance aims to advance co-operation in military, economic, cultural and energy affairs, and to further their integration with the EU. All four states are also members of the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Bucharest Nine (B9).
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountains, whilst its western boundary is defined in various ways. Most definitions include the countries of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania while less restrictive definitions may also include some or all of the Balkans, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and the Visegrád group.
Mitteleuropa, meaning Middle Europe, is one of the German terms for Central Europe. The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations.
Europe is often divided into regions and subregions based on geographical, cultural or historical factors. Since there is no universal agreement on Europe's regional composition, the placement of individual countries may vary based on criteria being used. For instance, the Balkans is a distinct geographical region within Europe, but individual countries may alternatively be grouped into South-eastern Europe or Southern Europe.
The Central European Olympiad in Informatics (CEOI) is an annual informatics competition for secondary school students. Each of the participating central European countries (plus one or two guest countries, and a local team from the host area) sends a team of up to four contestants, a team leader and a deputy team leader. The contestants compete individually, i.e. a team score is not calculated. Competitors are selected through national competitive programming contests.
The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeast Central Europe. After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I, the geomorphological term Pannonian Plain became more widely used for roughly the same region, referring to the lowlands in the area occupied by the Pannonian Sea during the Pliocene Epoch.
The United States of Greater Austria was an unrealised proposal made in 1906 to federalize Austria-Hungary to help resolve widespread ethnic and nationalist tensions. It was conceived by a group of scholars surrounding Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, notably by the ethnic Romanian lawyer and politician Aurel Popovici.
Central and Eastern Europe is a geopolitical term encompassing the countries in Northeast Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Europe, usually meaning former communist states from the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact in Europe, as well as from former Yugoslavia. Scholarly literature often uses the abbreviations CEE or CEEC for this term. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also uses the term "Central and Eastern European Countries" (CEECs) for a group comprising some of these countries. This term is sometimes used as an alternative to the term "Eastern Europe," for more neutral grouping.
AMC Networks International Central and Northern Europe is a Budapest, Hungary-based television company, owned by AMC Networks International.
Saint Nicholas is a legendary figure in European folklore based on the Greek early Christian bishop Nicholas of Myra, patron saint of children.
East-Central Europe is the region between German-, Hungarian-, and West Slavic-speaking Europe and the East Slavic countries of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Those lands are described as situated "between two": "between two worlds, between two stages, between two futures".
The sixth European Athletics Team Championships took place on 20 and 21 June 2015.
The dissolution of Austria-Hungary was a major political event that occurred as a result of the growth of internal social contradictions and the separation of different parts of Austria-Hungary. The more immediate reasons for the collapse of the state were World War I, the 1918 crop failure, general starvation and the economic crisis. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had additionally been weakened over time by a widening gap between Hungarian and Austrian interests. Furthermore, a history of chronic overcommitment rooted in the 1815 Congress of Vienna in which Metternich pledged Austria to fulfill a role that necessitated unwavering Austrian strength and resulted in overextension. Upon this weakened foundation, additional stressors during World War I catalyzed the collapse of the empire. The 1917 October Revolution and the Wilsonian peace pronouncements from January 1918 onward encouraged socialism on the one hand, and nationalism on the other, or alternatively a combination of both tendencies, among all peoples of the Habsburg monarchy.
The Slovenia national football team represents Slovenia in association football and is controlled by the Football Association of Slovenia, the governing body for football in Slovenia. It competes as a member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), which encompasses the countries of Europe. Slovenia joined UEFA and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) in 1992, a year after the country gained independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The EuroBasket Women 2023 qualification was held from November 2021 to February 2023 to decide the 14 teams to join the co-hosts Israel and Slovenia. It featured 38 teams split in ten groups of three or four teams. The ten group winners and the four best second-ranked teams qualified for the final tournament.
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↑ Gerald Stourzh "Geschichte des Staatsvertrages 1945–1955" (1980), p 4.
↑ Wolfgang Mueller "Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945–1955 und ihre politische Mission" (German – "The Soviet occupation in Austria 1945–1955 and its political mission"), 2005, p 24.
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↑ A. Podraza, Europa Środkowa jako region historyczny, 17th Congress of Polish Historians, Jagiellonian University 2004
↑ Sinnhuber, Karl A. (1954). "Central Europe: Mitteleuropa: Europe Centrale: An Analysis of a Geographical Term". Transactions and Papers (20). Institute of British Geographers: 15–39. doi:10.2307/621131. JSTOR621131. S2CID133729155.
↑ Hilde Szabo: Die Berliner Mauer begann im Burgenland zu bröckeln (The Berlin Wall began to crumble in Burgenland – German), in Wiener Zeitung 16 August 1999; Otmar Lahodynsky: Paneuropäisches Picknick: Die Generalprobe für den Mauerfall (Pan-European picnic: the dress rehearsal for the fall of the Berlin Wall – German), in: Profil 9 August 2014.
↑ Ludwig Greven "Und dann ging das Tor auf", in Die Zeit, 19 August 2014.
↑ Miklós Németh in Interview, Austrian TV – ORF "Report", 25 June 2019.
↑ Otmar Lahodynsky "Eiserner Vorhang: Picknick an der Grenze" (Iron curtain: picnic at the border – German), in Profil 13 June 2019.
↑ Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German – Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.
↑ Andreas Rödder, Deutschland einig Vaterland – Die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung (2009).
1 2 Aleksov, Bojan; Piahanau, Aliaksandr (2020). Wars and Betweenness: Big Powers and Middle Europe, 1918–1945. Central European University Press. pp.7–8. ISBN978-963-386-336-7.
↑ Jerzy Kłoczowski, Actualité des grandes traditions de la cohabitation et du dialogue des cultures en Europe du Centre-Est, in: L'héritage historique de la Res Publica de Plusieurs Nations, Lublin 2004, pp. 29–30 ISBN83-85854-82-7
↑ Oskar Halecki, The Limits and Divisions of European History, Sheed & Ward: London and New York 1950, chapter VII
↑ Geddes, Andrew; Lees, Charles; Taylor, Andrew (2013). The European Union and South East Europe: The Dynamics of Europeanization and Multilevel Governance. Routledge. ISBN978-1-136-28157-0.[pageneeded]
↑ Bokros, Lajos (2013). Accidental Occidental: Economics and Culture of Transition in Mitteleuropa, the Baltic and the Balkan Area. Central European University Press. p.2. ISBN978-615-5225-24-6.
↑ "About Serbia". UNDP in Serbia. United Nations Development Programme. 2018. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
↑ Irena Kogan: Delayed Transition: Education and Labor Market in Serbia , Making the Transition: Education and Labor Market Entry in Central and Eastern Europe, 2011, chapter 6
↑ Government of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's speech at the Energy Forum following a joint meeting of the Serbian and Hungarian cabinets Archived 23 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine , Government of Hungary on Serbia, 2018
↑ "Sajtótájékoztató 2013"[Press Conference 2013](PDF) (Press release) (in Hungarian). Hungarian Central Statistical Office. 28 March 2013. Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
↑ Joachim W. Stieber: "Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of Basel and the secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the Empire: the conflict over supreme authority and power in the church", Studies in the history of Christian thought, Vol. 13, Brill, 1978, ISBN90-04-05240-2, p.82; Gustav Stolper: "German Realities", Read Books, 2007, ISBN1-4067-0839-9, p. 228; George Henry Danton: "Germany ten years after", Ayer Publishing, 1928, ISBN0-8369-5693-1, p. 210; Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius: "The German Myth of the East: 1800 to the Present", Oxford Studies in Modern European History Series, Oxford University Press, 2009, ISBN0-19-954631-2, p. 109; Levi Seeley: "History of Education", BiblioBazaar, ISBN1-103-39196-8, p. 141
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