Atlantic Europe is a geographical and anthropological term for the western portion of Europe which borders the Atlantic Ocean. The term may refer to the idea of Atlantic Europe as a cultural unit and/or as an biogeographical region.
It comprises the British Isles (UK and Ireland), Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, the western part of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), France and Scandinavia and northern Germany.
Weather and overall physical conditions are relatively similar along this area (with the exception of parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic), resulting in similar landscapes with common endemic plant and animal species. From a strictly physical point of view most of the Atlantic European shoreline can be considered a single biogeographical region. Physical geographers label this biogeographical area as the European Atlantic Domain, part of the Euro-Siberian botanic region.
Read more about Atlantic Europe: Atlantic Europe in Politics
Famous quotes containing the words atlantic and/or europe:
“There was not a tree as far as we could see, and that was many miles each way, the general level of the upland being about the same everywhere. Even from the Atlantic side we overlooked the Bay, and saw to Manomet Point in Plymouth, and better from that side because it was the highest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)