Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus as to the precise area it refers to, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic connotations. There are “almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region”. A related United Nations paper adds that “every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct”. One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural (and econo-cultural) entity: the region lying in Europe with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox, and some Turco-Islamic influences.This definition is fulfilled by Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Although some view such definitions as outdated,”The geopolitical conditions (…) are now a thing of the past, and some specialists today think that Eastern Europe has outlived its usefulness as a phrase.”The Economist: Eastern Europe a bogus term – South Eastern Europe – The Sofia Echo they are still heard in everyday speech and used for statistical purposes by various supranational organizations.United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)Population Division, DESA, United Nations: World Population Ageing 1950-2050
