The Original Latin Countries of Europe. Italy, Romania, France, Spain, Portugal.

Latin Europe is the part of Europe in which Romance languages are predominant. Countries or areas in which such language is officially recognized and/or de facto spoken as a minority language are sometimes included. Their languages share a common background, all being descendants of Vulgar Latin.

The heart of the Latin Europe is situated in southwestern Europe and comprises of four countries around the northwestern Mediterranean Basin (also known as the Latin Arch): Italy, France, Spain (including the Canary Islands) and Portugal (including the archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores). During the middle ages modern day Germany would be included in this list. These countries have Roman Catholicism as the prevalent religion. This definition, in a larger sense, also includes smaller political entities of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City(all of these states are members of the Latin Union except the Holy See that has permanent observer status), along with adjacent Wallonia (in Belgium), Romandy and Italian- and Romansh-speaking Switzerland. Istria county in Croatia and Italian-speaking municipalities of Slovenia, often seen linguistically and culturally integral with neighbouring Italy. On the other hand, in particular contexts, the usage of "Latin Europe" may well be ambiguous such as inclusion of Israel. 1PDF (222 KiB)
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