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Comment by kutakbash | Hacker News Reader

>Southern North America (eg. Mexico)

>Northern part of South America

>Souther part of South America

Looks needlessly fragmented and imprecise. What is 'Southern part of South America'? Cono Sur? Then Brazilians from Minas Gerais and Porto Alegre are in different groups? Was that the intention? Why 'Southern North America' and not Central America? Where does Caribbean belong? Middle Asia (say, Kazakhstan)? Is Spain Western Europe or Southern Europe? Is Czech Republic Eastern Europe or Western Europe (since you don't offer 'Central Europe' as an option and some Czechs may be unhappy with identifying as Eastern Europeans)? Is Estonia in Eastern Europe? It damn well is in Eastern Europe, but some Estonians identify Estonia as Scandinavian.

Next time you guys should use some well established scheme such as this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme and just link to it in the post so no one is confused.

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"Is Czech Republic Eastern Europe or Western Europe (since you don't offer 'Central Europe' as an option and some Czechs may be unhappy with identifying as Eastern Europeans)?"

Same with Poland. The Western-Eastern distinction is an artifact of the Cold War, but it doesn't correspond well with the civilizational affiliations and historical experience of Central European nations.

Eg. Poland has rich traditions of democracy and civil freedoms - its Golden Liberty, and later, the first constitution in Europe - while Eastern Europe was typically autocratic.

Then there's being mostly catholic (and not orthodox), then there's the use of Latin alphabet (whereas Eastern Europe tends to use cyrillic), etc.

I'd say this whole regional distinctions thing is utterly mythologized and politically motivated. It's more like branding than anything tangible. No one wants to be associated with the less well off parts of the world and some want to add flair of objectivity to their purely political claims. Like current Russian and Kazakhstani govts pushing all things 'Euroasian', or German strategists inventing Mitteleuropa back then.

I rest my case as for Central Europe. The main line of division is along Roman vs. Byzantine legacy, and this point of view is not hard to defend

Of course pushing forward the category of Central Europe may stem from a variety of motivations, like some people just fearing the stigma of being "Eastern" as you say.

But this does not by itself invalidate the legitimate justifications for using the concept of Central Europe and it's certainly not enough of a reason to drop it altogether

I was shocked as well when I read that this survey was part of a randomized double-blind study sponsored by the NIH.

Ha ha good one. Being pedantic is a curse, yes.

I'm from Estonia and I had to vote 'Other'. I don't identify myself as an eastern european nor as a scandinavian. I'm from northern europe, as also classified by your linked UN geoscheme. [1] There is no northern europe poll option however.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme

I wonder if mostly anyone from "cold war Eastern Europe" countries identify as an Eastern European any more?

Estonians and other Baltic states don't, Poland doesn't. Czech Republic probably doesn't. What about Slovenia, or Croatia, or Macedonia? Or Hungary?

Also maybe Russians identify as Russians and not Eastern Europeans.

Russians have entry of their own and then are free to vote Eastern Europe too (poll is multi-select).

I could put all the countries in the Eastern European Timezone as Eastern Europe, but it would put Finland in there as well which would be wierd.

Normally it is considered that Venezuela is the northern country of South America, so for me that fragmentation is correct. I just will add Central America to include the Caribbean and countries below Mexico.

I mean, just calling it "central america" would have helped.

Thats what I thought too.

Central America is everything from Guatemala to Panama and doesn't include Mexico.

Interestingly, the UN includes Mexico in Central America, but it seems to be one of the few official organizations to do so:

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm

Agree. Southern part of South America is very confusing, how south is southern? Is São Paulo south enough? Should I live in Patagonia to mark that?

I wasn't aware of that scheme, I'll remember it for another time, it would pollute the data too much to change it all now.

I guess it would also ruin compatibility with previous polls. Sigh.

So, where would Costa Rica belong, I'm confused.

Yeah, I felt confused, I live in southern Brazil. Is it south enough for the continent?

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