Geography - Europe (Part 1)
Tips & Tricks for Memorizing Countries in Europe
Welcome back to this series on geography!
In the first post on this topic, we covered distances around the world.
The next post gave you some tips on memorization.
We then started by looking at countries in North America and Central America.
And then we traveled to South America.
This post is the first of a few on Europe.
A Pretest
For a quiz on the names/locations of countries in Europe, go here. You can go to this website or this website to take a quiz on country names/locations across the world.
Europe
Below is a map of Europe. There are 44 countries in there, which is probably more than you expected, but it’s also not as many as are in Africa, which boasts 54 countries. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though—we’ll get to Africa in future posts.
To memorize the countries in Europe, we’re going to break it up in chunks going from right to left. For the first set, we’ll memorize the nine countries outlined below—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece.
And to memorize these countries, we’ll use the imagery from the Strongman Competition, specifically, the Atlas Stones event. In this event, competitors lift giant heavy stones onto platforms.
In Greek mythology, Atlas was condemned to hold up the sky on his shoulders for eternity. There have been many interpretations of this in art, most of which are some variation of the following iconic sculpture in front of Rockefeller Center:
For these nine countries, I have a story; it’s three lines, each containing three countries:
A giant STONE (Estonia) sits on the ground. Using your LATS (Latvia), you LIFT (Lithuania) it up and place it on a platform.
The victory BELL (Belarus) rings, and YOU CRANE (Ukraine) your head back to see that your competitor is so slow MOLD (Moldova) is growing on the stone he’s lifting.
As champion, you stand atop a ROMAN (Romania) column, your muscles BULGE (Bulgaria) as you look like a GREEK (Greece) god.
Here are some images to guide you.
A giant STONE (Estonia) sits on the ground
Using your LATS (Latvia)
Lats = your latissimus dorsi muscle
You LIFT (Lithuania) it up and place it on a platform
These three countries actually make up what are called “Baltic states,” named as such because they are countries by the Baltic Sea that gained independence from the former Russian Empire. Alas, they were later then rolled into the Soviet Union (more on that later).
The victory BELL (Belarus) rings
YOU CRANE (Ukraine) your head back to see
Your competitor is so slow MOLD (Moldova) is growing on the stone he’s lifting
As champion, you stand atop a ROMAN (Romania) column
(You might be thinking that Romania is different from Rome, Italy, which it is; but the country of Romania is actually named after the Roman empire).
Your muscles BULGE (Bulgaria)
As you look like a GREEK (Greece) god
Most of these countries were part of the former Soviet Union during the 20th century. You can see the progression of borders and political alliances below.
Though dated, both in when it was created (2014), and when the data was gathered (2001, 2004, 2009, 2011), the chart below from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty shows the degree to which people in these countries still have ties to Russia. You can see how this plays into the war in Ukraine.
So, there you go—nine countries in eastern Europe:
Do you have a way that you remember the countries of Europe? If so, leave it in the comments section!