Geography of Eastern Europe

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Geography of Eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe

• Eastern Europe is a region comprising many ethnic
  groups and countries that have always found
  themselves between powerful neighbors. In 1900,
  the region was caught mainly between the empires
  of Germany and Russia. Today, the countries are
  larger and better organized than before. Yet,
  ethnic conflicts still emerge.

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Eastern Europe

• Eastern Europe can be divided into six landform
  regions. The plains of Poland are part of the
  great North European Plain. It was partly
  smoothed by glaciers during the ice ages. Here,
  two great rivers, the Oder and the Vistula, flow
  northward across it to the Baltic Sea.

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Eastern Europe

• To the south are the Carpathian Mountains. The
  Carpathians continue eastward across Poland then
  head south into Romania and Bulgaria.
• Low, rugged mountains of Dinaric Alps and Rhodope
  Mountains are in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
  Communications among the peoples of these
  mountain valleys has often been difficult. This
  isolation has encouraged the cultural survival of
  many ethnic groups.

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Eastern Europe

• Physical map

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Eastern Europe

• All of the countries of Eastern Europe have
  expanded their economies since WWII.
• Eastern Europe has only a modest supply of
  mineral resources.
• Eastern Europe has much rich farmland.
• Quality of life in Eastern Europe varies from
  country to country.

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Eastern Europe

• Situated on the east and west banks of the Danube
  River, Budapest is one of the largest and most
  beautiful cities of Eastern Europe. At one time
  the cocapital (with Vienna) of Austria-Hungary,
  it rivaled Vienna in the magnificence of its
  architecture and in its gracious way of life.

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Eastern Europe

• Bulgaria The Republic of Bulgaria occupies the
  eastern portion of the Balkan Peninsula. In 1946,
  some 1,200 years after it was founded as a
  kingdom, it came under Communist control, which
  lasted until the great political upheaval in
  eastern Europe in 198990 and the demand for
  greater freedom

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Eastern Europe

• Political map

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Eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe

• The countries bordered by the Baltic and Barents
  seas on the north the Adriatic, Black, and
  Caspian seas and the Caucasus Mountains on the
  south and the Ural Mountains on the east make up
  Eastern Europe.