Talk:List of European countries by area

Armenia?

Why isn't Armenia on the list while Cyprus is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ariso Light (talk • contribs) 16:54, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Armenia has no territory in Europe, and it is not sometimes considered in Asia, it is in Asia. It is political part of Europe. For many intercontinental countries, table lists size of the European chunks separately, but lists entire Armenia in Europe. Area in europe should be 0, and total area should be mentioned in the next cell, like other countries.

51.9.122.211 (talk)

Refer to the geographic map of the continent of Europe - Armenia is not in it. It should not be in this list, especially since only tiny portions of both Georgia and Azerbaijan fall within the geographic territory. (How could the entire Armenian territory be included, and only a bit ot northern Georgia?) 190.24.127.189 (talk) 21:34, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

This has already been discussed time and time again. All three of the Caucasus states, Turkey, Russia, Cyprus (and sometimes even Kazakhstan) are included due to their geopolitical ties to the continent- irrespective of their geography. This is the standard set across almost all Europe-related articles and they are accompanied by notes highlighting their geographic location in West Asia. Cheers! Archives908 (talk) 01:06, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Area of Kazakhstan

Do we have any sources on the European area of Kazakhstan. This article puts it at about 10% of Kazakhstan’s whole area (https://www.sporcle.com/blog/2019/01/is-kazakhstan-part-of-asia-or-europe/) but I’m sure there’s something from a more official source Thank you for helping Wikipedia. Benica11 (talk). 17:06, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

The source in our article states that the area of Kazakhstan's European part is 381,567 sq km, which is about 14% of Kazakhstan’s whole area. Your source mentions 10% of the total area, which is approx. 272,490 sq km. Both sources are incorrect, they probably used another non-main stream definition for the boundary between Asia and Europe. The main stream definition uses the Ural River as the boundary.

Kazakhstan has 14 regions and 4 cities, only 2 regions are transcontinental: West Kazakhstan Region (151,339 sq km) and Atyrau Region (118,631 sq km). These 2 regions have a combined area of 269,970 sq km, which is approx. 10% of Kazakhstan’s total area. However, if you look at the map, only about 50% of these 2 regions are located west of the Ural River. In other words, Kazakhstan only has approx. 5% of its land in Europe, not 10% or 14%. The article Europe has given an area of 148,000 sq km for Kazakhstan's European part in its data table. That figure looks genuine to me, I will replace the incorrect figure in this article with that figure instead. James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 08:22, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Denmark......am I missing something?

The areaq of Denmark (as a European country) is listed as 44,493 sq. kilometers. Then there is a note that measurement includes the faroe islands/Greenlans which is 2.2 million sq kilometers. Obviously the 2.2 million is not included in the 44,493 figure. I changed "measurement" to "Denmark" to indicate that that land is part of Denmerk but not in the 44,493 figure, and my change was reverted. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:41, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I think there has been a misunderstanding. The note means that the 44,493 figure includes the Faroes, and if Greenland would also be included, the number would be 2.2 million. I guess the revert you mention was mostly a matter of style: We had the wording "Measurement includes ..." for Norway and Portugal, so I guess that's why someone used it for Denmark as well. I think "Measurement includes" was a bit clunky though, so I just changed it to "Including". I hope that clears things up a bit. — Chrisahn (talk) 04:06, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I misread it and might still mis-read it if I just dropped in. I read it as saying that Greenland was a part of the faroe islands. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:29, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the wording still isn't great. The note for the Denmark entry says: Including the Faroe Islands; 2,210,579 km2 (853,509 sq mi) including Greenland; continental Denmark is 43,094 km2 (16,639 sq mi) in area. The semicolon after Faroe Islands is intended to end that part of the sentence, but I agree it's not very clear. But I can't think of a better way to express everything that's said in that note... :-( — Chrisahn (talk) 23:03, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Armenia

Armenia doesn't belong in this list, since it is strictly in Asia. This list is simply based on geography, and not geopolitics. Cyprus should also be removed for the same reason Ddum5347 (talk) 00:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose. Read the "Definition" section of the article. It very clearly states that, "Europe and Asia are contiguous with each other; thus, the exact boundary between them is not clearly defined, and often follows historical, political, and cultural definitions, rather than geographical". Cyprus and Armenia may sometimes be considered geopolitically European, despite them being geographically outside Europe's "traditional" boundaries. The article's definition is very clear about this. However, perhaps the wording in the lead can be changed to reflect that better. Archives908 (talk) 00:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The Europe article includes both these states respectively. The terminology used there is: "The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographic or political". Area and population of European countries and List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe yet again include both Armenia and Cyprus with similar definitions. Therefore, I think it would be wise to adopt a similar wording in the lead here in order to align with other articles- for consistency's sake. Archives908 (talk) 01:57, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Agree. Neither Armenia nor Cyprus are in Europe. Both are in Asia. The whole list in inconsequential. I would suggest that all of the territory in the countries listed should be included. For Georgia, only the European part is listed, while for Armenia all the country is listed. If one lists all of Armenia and Cyprus, then clearly it would be much more logical to include all of Georgia and other transcontinental countries, as the latter at least have SOME territory in Europe. Also, Greece is listed as completely European, despite also having Asian parts. The easternmost islands of Greece are in Asia. Oddeivind (talk) 11:35, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Strong Agree. Cannot have all of the area of Armenia and all of Cyprus listed, while having only the European parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan and other transcontinental countries listed - that is inconsistent. If Armenia and Cyprus will be included in the list, their European areas should be listed correctly (i.e. 0) and then their total areas given as a note (as with the transcontinental countries). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.102.153.158 (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Image asterisk explanation missing

The asterisk next to Russia in the colourful list of countries image seems to not be explained. Please could someone add? I'm looking at the mobile version. It probably means Russia to Ural but not clear. Thank you. 95.146.56.63 (talk) 14:39, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Asian Russia

I just want to point out the fact that although Siberia forms the core area of Asian Russia, it does not represent the whole Asian part of the country.

According to the mainstream definition, the red line above represents the boundaries between Europe and Asia. It goes along the Turkish Straits, the watershed of the Greater Caucasus, the Ural River, and the watershed of the Ural Mountains.

A careful analysis of the physiographic features suggests that Asian Russia actually consists of three parts:

1. Sochi and the area around Abaytikau (the southern tip of North Ossetia–Alania) near the Georgia–Russia border are located south of the watershed of the Greater Caucasus. These areas are physiographically part of Western Asia.

In the Sochi article, it states that "The whole city is located on the slopes of the Western Caucasus which descend to the Black Sea (i.e. extending "southward") and are cut by the rivers." which further proves that Sochi, although culturally European, is indeed a part of Asia.

2. The southern portion of Orenburg Oblast is located south of the Ural River and north of the Kazakhstan–Russia border. This area is physiographically a part of Central Asia.

3. Siberia is located east of the Ural River and the watershed of the Ural Mountains. This area is physiographically a part of North Asia. James Ker-Lindsay (talk) 14:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment Agree with your points 2 & 3. For point 1, the area around Abaytikau is actually a part of Euorpe, but Russia has more land in West Asia than just Sochi.

Link: https://sashamaps.net/docs/resources/europe-asia-boundary/

Above link contains the most precise Europe-Asia boundary map I could find on the Internet. Its notes section gives you some detailed explanations. According to this map, the narrow coastal strip containing the cities of Sochi, Tuapse, Gelendzhik, and Novorossiysk is geographically a part of Asia. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 23:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Gibraltar

Where is Gibraltar in the list?! Aminabzz (talk) 14:48, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

It is not a country. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Definition and Range, pie chart

The section below the list discussing what Europe is could probably be changed to a link to the Europe page, which already exists in the lead, or perhaps a link to Boundaries between the continents#Asia and Europe, which could also be in the lead.

The graph showing that countries have different sizes could also be removed. This is already covered more precisely by the pie chart, which itself is a little messy. It contains a lot of countries, and yet seems not to contain enough. A better solution would be to have % of Europe as a column in the table, which already exists on other continent articles: List of African countries by area or List of Asian countries by area for example.

I'll remove the Definition and Range sections soon if there are no objections. Wizmut (talk) 00:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of the pie chart, I don't believe it serves much purpose. As for the graph in the range section, it is a little hard to read and if the information is inaccurate then it should be updated or removed. However, I believe the definition section should stay. Over the years there has been a lot of vandalism on this page from IPs removing certain countries (usually Turkey, Russia, Armenia, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Georgia). The map is a good visual to readers clarifying the definition of what's included on the list. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 02:18, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I have now moved the percentage content into the table itself, and removed the pie chart.

I experimented with trying to move the "Definition" section up so it can be seen alongside the table (which is much skinnier now). But I couldn't figure out a way to do it. Perhaps the template could be changed to allow its width to be reduced, but it's not on my to-do list. Wizmut (talk) 04:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Wanted to comment on the pie chart issue because of recent disruption - not directed at anyone that's already been using this talk page. A lot of random IPs have been adding the pie chart back - never with any edit summary. Some of them have also been fiddling with the names on the chart. Names keep being added, with smaller and smaller slices. The chart currently has 25 (wonderful) triangles in it, including 8 shades of blue, 3 reds, 4 yellows, and oddly just 2 greens (greens are easiest for the human eye to distinguish).

What use could a pie chart serve here? Russia is a third of Europe. The next few countries are a twentieth each, and it just gets tinier from there. There's already a percentage column in the table itself, which is much easier to use than referring to tiny text and skinny triangles. A pie chart that limited itself to countries that could be distinguished based on size alone would have about 1 entry (Russia alone), or 10 entries (Russia and 9 similar-sized). Neither is very useful.

There is another way to show the relative areas of several adjacent countries - a map. I'm not 100% sure the article needs a map, but a map would be much more useful than a kaleidoscope. Wizmut (talk) 09:14, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

IPs which may be vandals or simply reverting without discussion: 178.121.16.222, 178.121.47.15, 178.121.5.64.

These all originate from Belarus and may be the same person. The latest bit of vandalism added old Soviet names. Wizmut (talk) 09:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

To the IP hopper (178.121.16.222) tagged above- please stop your disruptions. If you believe the pie chart should be reinstated, contrary to the established consensus, then the onus is on you to bring your proposal to talk and seek consensus. Edit warring will get you nowhere. Archives908 (talk) 23:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Crimea

Which country is Crimea in? Of course it depends on who you ask, but apparently it also depends on what you're asking about. Data from the UN on population takes in data from each country, and Ukraine has said that they can't report any data for Crimea anymore. But Russia has said that they can, so the UN goes with it.

But for area, you don't have to ask if anything has changed if you assume nothing has changed. So the UN reports Crimea as part of Ukraine and leaves it at that.

So, reflecting the sources, the Europe area list and the big area list says Crimea is in Ukraine, while the Europe population list and the big population list say Crimea is in Russia. Similar figures are used on the Ukraine and Russia articles, although the Russia article adds caveats to each number.

I don't know how to resolve this difference. Maybe Crimea is Ukrainian land populated entirely by Russians (probably not). Assuming the situation could continue to change in the future and that there's no deadline, I'm not even advocating a change right now. But if anyone can offer any criteria for how to handle recently annexed land, please do so. Wizmut (talk) 05:57, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of Kosovo and other items on the population list

Kosovo was removed from the list without any comment or use of this page. I was thinking of adding it back, but also thought I could add in the territories that are on the Europe population list. Are there any objections? Wizmut (talk) 07:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what happened to Kosovo, but, I don't think including the other territories is necessary. The territories should be included in the national figures already present, if I am not mistaken. Archives908 (talk) 08:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Current figures on the list seem to exclude the Crown Dependencies and Gibraltar (which someone above already complained about). They are mentioned in the note but no figure is given for them. Svalbard and the Faroes are included in their respective countries with figures, as are the Azores (autonomous but considered integral). Aland is not mentioned at all, which has the same status as the Azores but is considered separately from Finland by the ISO 3166-1. Some but not all of these could be considered distinct from their sovereigns.

Europe is somewhat unique in that all of the colonizers and colonies are from the same continent, which could make for a tidy list with fewer entries. But for consistency with similar articles, it might make sense to consider them separately. Consider the North American list which has long distinguished territories (albeit on a separate table until recently) owned by any country, whether from the same or other continents. You can see Puerto Rico not being part of the US there. And of course the Asia article distinguishes Hong Kong.

For ease of determining what should go on all these articles, I'd say that they should all follow the policy found by consensus on the big lists. Those are the ones with the most viewers and watchers and therefore likely to gather the most and best opinions on what to include. Not perfect but easier than having a discussion for each entity on each list. Wizmut (talk) 09:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Should Kosovo, which is disputed, be included here? 2600:100C:A205:743B:616D:417A:2C83:B014 (talk) 20:47, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I am working on a renovation of this table which will include it, but feel free to add it in the meantime. Wizmut (talk) 20:54, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Kazakhstan conundrum

I am trying to find a good source for the European area of Kazakhstan. The figure on the table is unsourced and may be original research, depending on how strict we are. Googling it will give you answers between 5 and 15 percent - and they all come with disclaimers. It seems nobody in the world wants to pronounce on this, but we can get a rough estimate as a sanity check. Let's replicate the process that probably got to the current figure and see.

Kazakhstan is divided into regions and further divided into districts. Of these districts, 9 are entirely west of the Ural River, the border used in the Definition section of this article. These total 122,176 km2 or so. Additionally there are 4 districts which are half west and half east of the Ural... roughly... ish. The total of these four is 52,638 km2 - and if you add 122,176 km2 to half of 52,638 km2, you get 148,495, which resembles the figure in the table now.

The range of possible values if you were entirely include or entirely exclude the 4 districts straddling the border would be between 4.5 to 6.4 percent of all Kazakhstan, so a lot of the higher estimates you find with Google don't fit with the definition in the article at all. But the table can't use error bars; it has to give a point estimate.

The number currently in the article is probably correct, involves a little bit of math, and I think the result is nice and neat. But I'm still on the fence as to whether it's original research. Maybe reducing the sig figs to make it 150,000 would be more palatable. Wizmut (talk) 00:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment We don't have a proper source for that. I doubt we would find one either. I have done some research on this subject myself, it seems to me that no one in the world cares about the area of European Kazakhstan.

Your calculation is very good, there is another user who has done a similar calculation in an earlier discussion. Both your and his calculations actually double confirmed that whoever came up with the original figure, his figure is genuine. All other so-called sourced figures are either incorrect or based on a non-standard Asia-Europe border which gives a bigger portion of Kazakhstan in Europe.

If possible, could you do a similar calculation for the areas of European Azerbaijan and European Georgia too? Much appreciated. 58.160.77.124 (talk) 06:54, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Including area outside the European continent?

The list of European countries by area could be improved by including the whole country area. When sorting the countries by size, the list is very unhelpful.

This is an example of what I mean:

Rank	State	Area		Notes
		(km2)	(sq mi)
40	Azerbaijan*	6,960	2,690	86,600 km2 (33,400 sq mi) when including Asian territory
41	Georgia*	2,642	1,020	69,700 km2 (26,900 sq mi) when including Asian territory
Total		9,725,367	3,754,985

The current system does not make sense as the list is on how big the European countries are, NOT how big the country's area inside Europe is.

I suggest swapping the notes and area:

Rank	State	Area		Notes
		(km2)	(sq mi)
rank	Azerbaijan*	86,600	33,400	6,960 km2 (2,690 sq mi) when excluding Asian territory
rank	Georgia*	69,700	26,900	2,642 km2 (1,020 sq mi) when excluding Asian territory
Total		new total	new total

Does anyone have any comments or constructive criticism? Pinecone23 (talk) 22:42, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

This would make Kazakhstan the second-largest European country by area if using total area.

Perhaps there could be a column named "Europe area" and "Total area". But that would be a lot of repeat numbers, and there's already two numbers for each country (km2 and mi2).

The population article has long distinguished transcontinental countries to warn readers that the data can't be defined in just one way. Hopefully all these continent-wise lists can agree on the best way to announce this fact. Wizmut (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I think I see what you mean; however, I do think that the full area of the country would best represent the intended content of the page.

Kazakhstan is, after all, the second-largest European country by area (which is the name of the page).

Would adding the excluded total be preferable? Like something like this:

Rank	State	Area		Notes
		(km2)	(sq mi)
rank	Azerbaijan*	86,600	33,400	6,960 km2 (2,690 sq mi) when excluding Asian territory
rank	Georgia*	69,700	26,900	2,642 km2 (1,020 sq mi) when excluding Asian territory
Total		new total	new total	9,725,367km2 (3,754,985sq mi)

Pinecone23 (talk) 23:17, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Should the other lists follow this? The US has Hawaii in Oceania, which in some sense makes it the largest country in Oceania. I'm not sure that's the data people are looking for when they visit a list like this.

Current method isn't perfect either but it may be better. Wizmut (talk) 00:59, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I think the list is fine as is. I would suggest avoiding over analyzing and overly complicating these details. Archives908 (talk) 17:48, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

STRONG OPPOSE If we adopt this format, Europe will be nearly 25,000,000 sq km. What is the point of adding the Asian territories of those transcontinental countries? Siberia alone is bigger than the whole of Europe. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:E51D:8114:E824:4CCF (talk) 02:34, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Comment Is there a source for the areas of European Azerbaijan and European Georgia? Are these figures genuine? 58.160.77.124 (talk) 06:48, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the Georgia area could have come from. It has little area on the northern side of the Greater Caucasus - perhaps none.

The Azerbaijan area is much closer to the mark. The Guba-Khachmaz Economic Region is generally north of the Greater Caucasus and everything else is generally south/southwest. That province has an area of 6,960 km2.

Anyway, I recently finished a refresh of Area and population of European countries, which focuses on population density, but have yet to port over all the little improvements to this list. I can put it on my to do list. Wizmut (talk) 09:36, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Portugal

Something odd happens with Portugal. In the current version of the table the European part of the country has 92,225 sq. km and when including the Azores and Madeira the area gets smaller – 91,568 sq. km, which cannot be true. 2dk (talk) 22:54, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

It is wrong. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:E51D:8114:E824:4CCF (talk) 02:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Russia's annexations of Ukraine

@Hoborex made an interesting edit and I thought it deserved some mention here. The current note on most lists was written before 2022, so there's no mention of the most recent annexations of Ukrainian provinces by Russia.

This is different issue than changing which provinces are said to "belong" to either country, which would require most reliable sources to note any such change, along with a discussion here. Apologies to Hoborex for mistaking which issue he was taking up.

I noted on another talk page, so I'll note here, that statistics for Ukraine's area tend to reflect pre-2014 (CIA and UN agree, more or less), while population statistics tend to reflect post-2022 (the UN asks Russia what the answer is). So if you see slightly different treatment of Russia/Ukraine on different lists, that's why. Wizmut (talk) 23:20, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Comment Until Ukraine formally cedes those territories to Russia, they should count as parts of Ukraine. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:E51D:8114:E824:4CCF (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

"Big" refresh

I put up a refresh of the whole table based on the same work that I recently did on the Europe density table. And, well, most of the figures didn't really change, but all of the oddball ones should have better notes and sources. The transcontinentals and partially recognized countries, you see.

This list now includes territories / dependencies, which puts it in line with the Europe population table and most other continent area tables. I also replaced the odd Georgia figure with the full area figure in parentheses and italics, along with a note indicating its uncertain Europe status.

If you see any errors, please note them here. If I made a change wrongly or badly, also note that here. Or if there's any further improvement you want to suggest, it should be possible to accommodate. Cheers. Wizmut (talk) 03:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Since the original figures for European Kazakhstan and European Azerbaijan are pretty accurate, I reckon we should keep European Georgia's area (2,642 sq km) too. It looks quite accurate as well. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 05:41, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Georgia is entirely south of the Greater Caucasus [edit: I was wrong! -Wizmut] and the figure that used to be there had no source. I don't know how the 2600 could be arrived at, and it's wrong according to the most common definition of Europe's borders. See List_of_European_countries_by_area#Definition Wizmut (talk) 05:54, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Georgia indeed has a small portion of its land in Europe. Please check the map (gathered from your link) below:

Alb.

Andorra

Austria

Azer.

Belarus

Belg.

Bosnia

Bulgaria

Channel
Is.

Croatia

Czech
Rep.

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Gib. (UK)

Germany

Georgia

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

IoM

S. Mar.

Kazakhstan

Kos.

Latvia

Liech.

Lithuania

Lux.

Malta

Moldova

Mon.

Mont.

Nether.

N. Mac.

Norway

Svalbard (Nor)

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Russia

Franz Josef Land (Rus)

Serbia

Slovakia

Slo.

Spain

Sweden

Switz-
erland

Turkey

Ukraine

United
Kingdom

Far. (Dk)

Vat.

Armenia

Cyprus

Greenland (Dk)

Adr-

iatic

Sea

Arctic Ocean

Baltic
Sea

Aegean

Sea

Barents Sea

Bay of
Biscay

Black
Sea

Caspian
Sea

Celtic
Sea

Greenland Sea

Baffin Bay

Gulf of
Cádiz

Ligurian
Sea

Mediterranean Sea

North
Atlantic
Ocean

North
Sea

Norwegian
Sea

Strait of Gibraltar

2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Not sure how or where that figure came from either. As you know Wizmut, confirming Georgia's precise territorial figures within geographical Europe is very difficult. However, lets not forget that Abkhazia (a breakaway state recognized as part of Georgia) is mostly, if not entirely within geographical Europe. Archives908 (talk) 16:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Not really, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are actually located entirely in Asia. Only the north-eastern region of Georgia is geographically a part of Europe (see the map above). 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 23:08, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Is it? The mountains are to its north/northeast. The west/northwestern tip is a little ambiguous, but to me it looks like it's almost entirely on the same side of the Greater Caucasus as Georgia. Wizmut (talk) 21:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

If you look at the most common boundaries of Europe with Asia, at least two definitions run the division directly through Abkhazia, with three other definitions placing it entirely in Europe. If we go by the more probable (and likely) definition, it would place at least some of its territory north west and perhaps north of the Caucasus mountains, so by extension, Georgia would be transcontinental (even if just by the slightest percentage). Again, its very hard to determine the exact percentage as information online is surprisingly quite limited. But, the established consensus across Wikipedia and over at Georgia's main article appears to be that the country is transcontinental. Please have a read at List of transcontinental countries#Asia and Europe, where it states that around 5% of the country's total territory is in Europe. There's sources available there also. It appears that by the most common modern convention, in use since 1850, would indeed place a sliver of Abkhazia in Europe. Archives908 (talk) 21:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Link: https://sashamaps.net/docs/resources/europe-asia-boundary/

This is the most precise Europe-Asia boundary map I could find on the Internet. Its notes section gives you some detailed explanations. The western part of Georgia-Russia border follows the Greater Caucasus watershed, so geographically both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are located entirely in Asia. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 23:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Good find. For Georgia, looks like a chunk of Dusheti Municipality (2,981.5 km2) and Akhmeta Municipality (2,208 km2) are north of the mountains, something like 25 to 40 percent of each. Would be neat to find some sort of estimate. Wizmut (talk) 23:41, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The municipality of Kazbegi, north Khevsureti and Tusheti are located north of the Greater Caucasus watershed, which is geographically in Europe. Again, not entirely sure what percentage, but Georgia most certainly qualifies as transcontinental. Archives908 (talk) 23:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Nice! The area figures are on those wiki pages is unsourced, as usual for old articles. But it looks like the figure will end up being around 3,000 km2. Wizmut (talk) 23:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I reckon we just use the original figure of 2,642 sq km. It won't be precise, but it is good enough for an estimate. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 00:05, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Found this study which says the total is 3,040 km2: [1]. Good enough for me. Wizmut (talk) 00:13, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Archives908 (talk) 00:15, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Good find! 2001:8003:9100:2C01:110B:5058:3F5A:723B (talk) 00:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Recent changes

@N. Mortimer your recent changes didn't seem to improve the article so I reverted them, and they are now contentious.

The dashes don't help the reader, and seem like Chartjunk to me. Same with the headers explaining that the column which contains rank numbers, and the footnote column which contains footnotes, are rank and footnote columns.

The word 'dependency' is favored for being more generic. It is used in the big area list and big population list and the template for navigating all the items on this list.

The most common name for Czech Republic and Vatican City are those, and not Czechia and Holy See. The proper place to discuss the standard treatment of these places is on those articles' respective talk pages.

The short description is intentionally blank, as the comment directly at the short description warned about. See WP:SDNONE. In short, short descriptions are used as subtitles. You wouldn't see a book titled "A History of England: A Book about English History".

You also changed the links for various countries which have dependencies to either an WP:EASTEREGG or a redundant link like United Kingdom instead of UK, which goes to the same place.

I am sorry to say but I really did not find any edits which seemed to improve the article. Any that do not have a good justification will be reverted soon. Wizmut (talk) 05:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree- they don't seem to be improvements. I've restored the last stable version. Archives908 (talk) 05:23, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Wizmut, thank you for your comments. My thoughts are as follows:

1. The dashes

I noticed that stats tables in the main articles use dashes for unranked entries instead of blank spaces. So I edited them for consistency purposes.

Ref:

List of countries and dependencies by area

List of countries and dependencies by population

2. Dependency

I can see your point, but I reckon "territory"" is actually the more generic word to use. Based on the definition of dependent territory, we know that all dependencies are territories, but not all territories are dependencies. For example, in our article, the Isle of Man is a dependency, but Svalbard and Åland aren't (imo the titles of those two "big lists" above should be changed too).

3. Czech Republic and Vatican City

I don't really mind keeping Czech Republic, but the main sources such as the UN and the CIA World Factbook are now using Czechia intead, the trend is that more sources have started to use Czechia, not the other way around.

Holly See is the country name used by the UN, I reckon it would be better if we include Vatican City's UN name in the brackets.

Ref:

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/non-member-states

4. Short description

The current title isn't the best representation of the list. Our list also includes European-based dependencies and other territories while the overseas territories of European countries based on other continents, such as French Guiana, are excluded.

5. Parent state

I don't really mind using UK over United Kingdom, but again, apart from those two "big lists" above, most Wikipedia articles relating to dependencies/territories tend to insert the full name of a territory's parent state in the brackets instead of its abbreviations (e.g. Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom etc. instead of Neth., Nor., UK etc.). Again, I edited for consistency purposes.

Ref:

List of island countries

Latin America and the Caribbean

N. Mortimer (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. My thoughts are as follows:

If the dashes have to be there, they should be tiny like they are in the big lists. When they were first added,[2][3] they had that full m-dash breadth which if copied would make the table unnecessarily wider, but thankfully they eventually shrank. Recently there's been a push to make tables easier to read in mobile, where horizontal space is at a premium. This also explains trimming column headers down to nothing in some cases - the newer Template:Static row numbers eschews a name for the column it creates. This point applies to the full name vs abbreviation question as well - the first example you give is crushed in Vector view and much worse on a small device.

It is confusing with 'dependency' and 'territory'. Territory unfortunately is both specific (Gibraltar is a territory but Isle of Man is not a territory]]), and general (Russia has territory in North Asia). For better or worse, the ISO 3166-1 is used to tell what should be on these lists (with exceptions voted in), and one of the main characteristics we rely on is how they distinguish independent and dependent entries (yes, they're sometimes wrong). And if something is dependent, it's a 'dependency'. So the word is chosen well. Although I agree that 'territory' has some merit.

I would not be surprised if Czechia rises above its alternate in the coming years. Kyiv certainly did. But on Wikipedia, that discussion was properly held at the talk page for Kiev, to avoid the same discussion occurring on different pages. See the summary of the Czechia/Czech Republic discussions near the top of Talk:Czech Republic.

The short description has a different job to the introductory sentence. Start typing "List of European Countries" in the Wikipedia search bar and the drop-down will show a few different results that can all be distinguished from one another, on title alone. It's the introductory sentence that defines the scope of the article as precisely as a complete sentence reasonably can.

___

I want to point out your correct use of Åland is a genuine improvement, so that one should stand. About the others, you've sort of convinced me about the dashes, wait and see on the name changes, slightly against 'territory', and pretty firm the SD shouldn't be a parrot. And table width is a real concern, not just for phone users, but for legibility in general. Wizmut (talk) 09:31, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and put the dashes back in. Your suggestion to bring this table in line with the big area table is a good one.

I also removed the wonky {left} tags I put in and changed the use of white space to make everything align a little more simply. The excel formula to get the contents of the rank column automatically is now

=CONCAT(IF(A3=1,SUM(A3:A$3)," – ")," ",IF(J3="T","T",IF(J3="C","C"," ")))

Assuming the A column is full of 1s and 0s denoting UN status, and the J column has Ts and Cs and blanks. The final " " added is a specific whitespace character. Wizmut (talk) 11:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Both Gibraltar and the Isle of Man are dependencies. Please see dependent territory for clarification. As I've said before, territory is the more generic word to denote non-sovereign political entities. There are generally three types of territories:

1. Dependency (aka dependent territory or external territory) – a country-like region, examples: Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

2. Area of special sovereignty (aka special territory or autonomous territory) – an integral part of a country which has a special status, examples: Åland and Svalbard.

3. Internal territory (aka domestic territory or mainland territory) – an integral part of a country which has no special status, examples: Yukon and the Northern Territory.

In most articles (including this one), both dependent territories and areas of special sovereignty have been included alongside other sovereign states in the stats table. They are generally under the heading "Countries and Territories" or "Countries and Areas" instead of "Countries and Dependencies". This format also aligns with most sources.

Ref:

https://unsdg.un.org/un-in-action/country-level?tab=countries-listing

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/

https://www.state.gov/countries-and-areas-list/

https://www.gov.uk/world

https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-the-total-areas-of-the-worlds-countries-dependencies-and-territories-2130540

N. Mortimer (talk) 08:15, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with you about "territory" being the more appropriate word to use in stats tables. I can see that your contribution was mainly a positive one, my friends were just being harsh to you.

However, I do want to point out one thing, there is no need to link those countries which acted as the administering powers of their territories, these are well-known Western countries. 58.160.77.124 (talk) 13:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Artsakh

Artsakh doesn't exist anymore as such. Its removal from other lists seems to be sticking, so there seems to be a quiet consensus that it's not a current item anymore. Wizmut (talk) 01:04, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead mate. 58.160.77.124 (talk) 09:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Italian islands

From a geographical point of view, only Lampedusa and Lampione are African islands. Linosa and Pantelleria are considered geographically Italian. Andrys8 (talk) 15:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Question

What does the "C" and "T" stand for on the list?

United Kingdom is a transcontinental country!

Why is the Uk not listed as a transcontinental country when it has overseas territories in all seven continents (the only country in the world to have this.) The UK is listed as a transcontinental country in the Wikipedia page of transcontinental country. If we are saying self governing dependencies are not included, why is Denmark included then when Greenland is self governing?

I agree. If Denmark is listed as one, so to should the UK. (Side note- when starting a new talk page conversation, you should have placed this at the bottom of the page, not at the top.) Archives908 (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Apologies! Thank you for the correction. Also, just to point out the UK is listed as a transcontinental country on the other languages of this same page! So there is no reason not to list it as one on this page. 82.8.188.143 (talk) 15:50, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that! Agreed- not sure why Wizmut is reverting your WP:GF edit? Especially considering that British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies are found beyond geographic Europe, similar to that of Denmark. Perhaps they can provide some further explanation here? Archives908 (talk) 16:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to the talk page.

For Denmark, the country and the ISO disagree. Denmark considers the Kingdom to be the sovereign, but the ISO sees enough autonomy to consider them separate (see ISO 3166-1).

So far as I know the UK doesn't consider its dependencies to be part of the UK. And I don't see anywhere that calculates the area or population of the UK as if it included them.

The article on transcontinental country is not a source. One of the source says "The United Kingdom has overseas territories",[4] but it doesn't say that they're in the UK. There's often a distinction. Guadeloupe is integral to France, but Saint Pierre and Miquelon is not. The ISO indicates that the UK proper is entirely within the British Isles, by listing the UK dependencies separately.

Some UK territories also give their own opinion that backs this up. "The Isle of Man is not, and never has been, part of the United Kingdom".[5] "Guernsey is not part of the UK".[6] The UK House of Commons says that the British Overseas territories "together with the UK and Crown Dependencies like Jersey and Guernsey, form one undivided realm" [7]. Wizmut (talk) 16:51, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply Wizmut- I am not a subject expert in this field so I'm bowing out of this conversation. To the IP editor- now is your opportunity to respond and present your case. Hopefully the two of you can reach WP:CON! Regards, Archives908 (talk) 17:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Also to the IP, please add your signature to your comments (the very first one) by adding 4 tildes at the end of your sentence. See WP:SIG. Archives908 (talk) 17:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

While they are not considered apart of the UK, each of territories are considered soverign terrrorities of the United Kingdom and primarily issues such as defense, security and international issues are governed from Westminister directly. The Lord's library states "The government has a legal and constitutional responsibility for its overseas territories. Every overseas territory has its own constitution." [1] and the Foreign & Commonwealth office says when regarding it's Overseas Terrorities. " As a matter of constitutional law the UK Parliament has unlimited power to legislate for the Territories." By these matters I would consider these oversea territories as a part of the United Kingdom due to the strong constitutional link these territories have with the country and are considered by the United Kingdom to be a part of its sovereign territory.

I am confused by the ISO point regarding Greenland you are making so if you could explain it more that would be appreciated but Greenland's sovereignty is listed as Denmark just like how all of the Overseas Territory are listed as not independent and their sovereignty as United Kingdom.

The interpretation of that they are not apart of the UK is that there are not one of the four constituent countries that make up the UK. Which is why Crown Isles and Isle of Man are not part of the UK but the UK Government can intervene with governance like it can with Scotland or Wales which are parts of the UK yet have devolved powers.

If we use the logic that because its not apart of the UK, we could easily say once British colonies became self-governing they were no longer apart of the British Empire just because they were not directly apart of the UK which most sources do not recognize this to be true. It is the same scenario with Puerto Rico and the US. While not apart of the 50 states and DC , all citizens of Puerto Rico are considered American citizens and Puerto Rico sovereignty is under the USA. All Overseas Citizens are eligible for British Citizenships. Their sovereignty is under the UK despite how independent they may be.

They have oversight over the territories, they are considered a sovereign part of the UK's territories with international representation in terms of defence and foreign relations. Most of them are listed in the UN list of Non-Self Governing dependcies[3] which is in the similar relationship that countries like Netherlands and Denmark have with theirs. The only difference is this overseas territories are not constituent countries but that should not ignore the strong political link they have with the UK and the administrative oversight they have. 82.8.188.143 (talk) 18:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Also just a quick addition, if they are not considered a part of the UK, what would you consider them to be in your opinion? As they are still seen as the UK's territory so they under UK rule as I see it which effectively the same as other autonomous regions as other countries. In other articles mentioning the UK, they consider the territories with statistics e.g Countries by number of timezones, the United Kingdom is listed to having 8 despite the UK(GB and NI) are only in UTC. Another example is countries by their EEZ, the overseas territories are included. The UK would not have the fifth largest EEZ without the territories. Lastly other language versions of this page have the UK as a transcontinental country. 82.8.188.143 (talk) 19:06, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I don't really agree with Denmark's status on the table but I think it's fuzzier based on arguments I've seen in the past. I can't defend any position that isn't in line with the ISO. I don't think the Faroes can be considered both separate and also contributing to Denmark's status as transcontinental, but I pick my battles.

For practical purposes in this table, 'transcontinental country' is being used to indicate that some of the area in the calculation of a given entry is being left out because it's included in another entry (perhaps on another continent table). So people don't try to say that Europe is 70% Russia, or 0% Russia. Otherwise we need not even mention it.

Country lists on WP have used the ISO 3166-1 to decide all sorts of tertiary issues that are unrelated to the topic of the table (area of individual countries). If we didn't have that, then every list article would have a thousand and one arguments going on about who counts as what, none of which is related to the topic at hand.

Here are just some of the arguments that come up: Is the EU a country? Are the UK constituents each a country? What parts of France are integral? Is Antarctica owned by several countries? Does Palestine exist, and how many states is it? Are any of Tasmania, Kaliningrad, Hawaii, Alaska, Corsica, Reunion, Sardinia, and Sicily distinct enough to be countries? Is Taiwan a country? What's going on with Hong Kong/Macao (not to mention Macau)? Is Niue independent? Is the Sovereign Order of Malta different from Malta?

These questions all have multiple contradictory answers, some of which are equally true. So we don't try to answer them ourselves, we defer to a standard. The ISO makes a big distinction between sovereign states and their dependent territories, and lists them separately. I would say we should follow the ISO when it gives a clear answer. Wizmut (talk) 21:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Apologies I am still confused by the ISO answer. So are we following whether the ISO recognizes the sovereign territory as a country? If so then many of those countries listed as transcontinental countries would not be considered as such. Netherlands for example, all of their non-European territories have been given a unique code for the ISO-3166-1. France and Denmark also have this despite in France's case the consider those territories as apart of France and have representation in the French senate. I might be misunderstanding or missing your point so please correct me if I am wrong. Also I do understand that area of these overseas territories can be seen negligible relative to the area of the UK but still could be considered as if someone comes to this page they may not be able to learn more about the UK oversea territories in the same way they could about the other European territories. 82.8.188.143 (talk) 12:39, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

For France and NL, they each have some islands that are "integral" and some that are not. Similar to how Hawaii is integral but Puerto Rico is not; France has integral Guadeloupe and dependent Saint Barthelemy; NL has integral Bonaire and dependent Aruba.

Denmark I already mentioned as flouting the preferred consensus. I would favor Greenland being considered a dependency, same as the ISO does. Wizmut (talk) 16:00, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, this page can't say everything about each country. It's just a list of distinct geographic regions in Europe at a specific governmental level. If they want to know about the whole world then they have access to the big list, which indeed gets 4x the views as this one. Wizmut (talk) 16:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

So by these standards should we not be consistent and remove everything from every page that includes the overseas territories as the UK and many if not all pages include or reference not as separate entries but often include them as as contributing to the UK statistics and influence (such as the EEZ or the list of transcontinental countries)? 82.8.188.143 (talk) 14:59, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The question of whether the British Overseas Territories are part of the UK has been discussed at Talk:United Kingdom[8] with the result that our article says Although not part of the United Kingdom, the three Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man and 14 British Overseas Territories across the globe are subject to the sovereignty of the British Crown. The discussions at Talk:British Overseas Territories have also touched on whether the territories were part of the EU, when the United Kingdom was. NebY (talk) 15:20, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

This is a list, and the first sentence defines the nature of (this mere) list: "List of European countries and dependencies by area in Europe" "European countries" is a bit vague, but it merely defines who is on the list (vs being excluded from it) rather that trying to make a descriptive statement about each country. We should not read anything more into it than that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:50, 3 August 2024 (UTC)