Template talk:Countries and territories of the Mediterranean Sea

message: Should the following countries/territories be listed in this template? Please cast your votes;
===Armenia===
Support
#Gramaic
Oppose
# Mustafaa 22:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polls 

message: Support
#Gramaic
Oppose
# Mustafaa 22:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Armenia]]

message: Support
#Gramaic
#Mustafaa 22:25, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[West Bank]]

message: From Ronline: Firstly, I must say I find this box highly irrelevant. Of course we can group these countries together, but this is a very irrelevant grouping. If this gets accepted, then I could just make a grouping of "Countries that have flat tax systems" and put an infobox on every country page for that, or "Countries which are landlocked", etc, etc. What I mean to say is that a lot of these countries don't have much in common. My main issue is concerning Romania, as well as to an extent Bulgaria. None of these countries have been considered Mediterranean, historically. Romania has a small Black Sea coast, and while it's climate and flora/fauna in that part (called Dobruja) may be similar to Mediterranean, the majority of the country isn't like that. Transylvania and Moldavia, which together make up the majority of the country, are made up of mountains, forests and hills and have a cold, temperate climate with heavy snows. Wallachia, the southern part, is warmer but still not close to Mediterranean "status". Flora and fauna in Romania, except for Dobruja, is mostly Central European (though Romania is a Southeastern European country). Even Dobruja itself doesn't have a true "Mediterranean" climate. I'm also making a case for Bulgaria, which is also different to Mediterranean countries. I was just surprised to see these two, especially Romania on here, because I feel that it's wrong to place them in this category because geographically, climatically, etc they are out of place. So, to be democratic, 
====Support (the inclusion of Romania in this category) ====
====Oppose====
*Ronline 9 July 2005 10:44 (UTC)
*--Lanternix (talk) 10:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Romania]]

message: *Ronline 9 July 2005 10:44 (UTC)
*--Lanternix (talk) 10:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: Support
Oppose
# --Lanternix (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Bosnia]]

message: Support
Oppose
# --Lanternix (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Slovenia]]

message: Support
Oppose
# --Lanternix (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Montenegro]]

message: Support
Oppose
# --Lanternix (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Croatia]]

message: I've just noticed Slovenia and France (!) is on here too. OK, I'm really having a hard time now seeing the relevance of this category. To not even go into politics and economics, but just staying in geography and climate, there are major differences between the climates of Slovenia, which is basically an Alpine country with a small Adriatic coastline, and Algeria, which is mostly arid. Not to mention France, which in the northern part is so different to Mediterannean climate. I understand France has a Mediterranean coastline, but that's not enough. I really don't see the point. I suppose if they had something in common in culture then you could argue something. I think we all agree that culturally, politically, economically, they're all very different. Then I suppose you could argue that "Well, they have a geographic similarity". But even that I think is very loose. I mean, yes, they can be grouped together in some sort, but it's such a weak grouping that it doesn't deserve its own template. As I said before, I could now make all these loose groupings (such as "Countries through which the Danube flows") and make templates for them all. Each country probably fits into 100 groupings based on various indicators. Are we going to have factboxes for them all? Surely not. All we need are relevant factboxes that define each country - things like "Countries in Europe", "Countries in the EU", etc. Things that relate to significant aspects of countries, not minor ones. In short, not things like these. Ronline 9 July 2005 10:44 (UTC)
: Yes, there is little point to be seen. I told this to Gramaic already, but nobody backed me up. I'm happy to see finally it's not just me who thinks it's needless.
: TFD? --Joy [shallot] 9 July 2005 15:33 (UTC)
I'm sorry but the mediterranean area is very far to be a loosy artificial grouping. If you had read the works of Fernand Braudel you would have probably a different opinion.  
The mediterranean area is not only a climatic definition (although climate has a important role over the mediterranean nations, it is not the only aspect. Geography and history have played a central role during centuries: even if nowadays the area is marqued by very different politic, economic and religious aspects on both sides; the mediterranean sea have long-time being a playground for economic and cultural exchanges... Long time before the southern European civilisation had relations with northern Europeans. This geographical/historic aspect  had developped  specific relations between the main cultural groups that now sourround the mediterranean sea: romance/catholic in north-west; greco/orthodox in the nort-east; arabo/muslim in south.  Closed seas are often something that plays similar roles; the best exemple is the caribean: caribean nations can be very different language or culturally speaking but, sharing a common basin had created historic and cultural mutual influences that created a sort of common feeling, despite the strong ethnic or economic differences.
You also seemed to be shocked that France is a mediterranean country...  That's the way it is, even if the mediterranean climate concerns only about a quarter of the land.  Mediterranean climate concerns only some parts of Spain; it still is a mediterranean nation.  Contrary to what you think, culturally speaking France share much more with its mediterranean neighbours than with any other of its neighbours: romance language(instead of Germanic), roman catholicism (instead of protestantism), wine-based culture (instead of beer culture). All these aspects are of mediterranean roots and share with the other latin countries of south-western Europe such as Spain , Italy or Portugal. 
This grouping is as much significant than the concept of "Europe".  Europe is climatically much diverse than the med is... And culturally speaking there is not much homogeneity between, say, Portugal and Finland... Even major neighbours like France and Germany doesn't share much culturally speaking. Said that both countries are reguarded as "European" and it does have a signification for them.  The same way being part of the mediterrean has signification for most of the countries here: France for exemple, outside of being bordering the med and having its linguistic and religious cultural roots coming from there; It has for long-lasting relations with the Maghreb shores; emigration relation with them, but also with Portugal, Spain or Italy.
France has been the first country to be involved in the inter-mediterranean political relations (conférence de Barcelone, Mediterranean union).  International events such as the mediterranean games (equivalent of olympic games with mediterranean countries) have always been involving France as a major mediterranean nation.
The article is interesting, said that I think it should be included in the main article on the mediterranean.  We could say that "mediterranean" has many meanings; each one could be formed by existing articles:
- purely oceanographic meaning about the sea itself
- climatic meaning, concerning the climatic characteristics of the med sea.
- geopolitical, historical and cultural; about the historic, geographical, political, cultural or social relations about the bordering countries (this article).
 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 (talk) 18:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you are catholic, but most of the French are not so longer. In the contrary of the Mediterranean countries where the faith remains strong. In fact, Southern Europe is a reality on a lot of things. France doesn't share a lot with Italy or Spain, while even if they were ennemies, there is a lot of common culture between the three hatred brothers UK-Germany-France. You want to find some cultural similarities by picking up some isolate examples, but they are anecdotal. By istory, climate, or culture...France is very few mediterranean, excepted tourism...
Even if a lot of french people don't believe in god (about 30/40%), the huge majority of them still are from Catholic cultural background at about 85% (while protestant background are less than 2%). Being a country deeply influenced by catholicism for centuries surely had a strong impact of cultural characteristics on french society - included the way secularism is thought (the famous "french "laicité" is considerably different from how secularism is considered in predominantly protestant-rooted nations. That said, the idea of countries like Italy or Spain being very religious is nowadays dated. The most religious nations in Europe are not especially in southern Europe: the Spaniards that declare to believe in god are only about 55% which is much less than Ireland (70%) or than Poland (80%), despite the fact that those countries are in northern Europe. Romania has much more people that declare to believe in god to any of the countries that are situated below it... More Germans consider to belive in god than french people that doesn't make Germany a more a country more "culturally southern" than France! 
The degree of religious practice is something that doesn't really follow any patern in Europe; some very religious countries are in southern Europe (Portugal) others in northern Europe (Ireland); others in eastern Europe (Romania, the most religious country in Europe). 
In central Europe you find at once a very religous country (Poland); with one of the least religious country just south of it (Czech republic)... It doesn't help those those countries of being part of the same cultural area of Europe; both being Slavic speaking and shaped by a majoritary catholic tradition.
To the question "does religion occupy an important place in your life?"; More Germans answered "Yes" than Spaniard... 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_belief_in_god.svg
In what consist this "common culture" of the "English-German-french brothers" you speak about? I'm really curious.  If you consider that language, religious background, ways of life, food, architecture, urbanity, etc are anecdoctical, what are the cultural aspects that are not anectotical in your opinion?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 (talk) 21:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Other countries

message: I've added the overseas territories of the UK and Spain to the article, and tidied up the presentation. Astrotrain 18:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: well you did it bad. -- tasc talkdeeds 18:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Territories

message: What is wrong with you? your version is ugly, it's not possibe to read it and it's in table! why on earth to start edit war? -- tasc talkdeeds 19:33, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you should try to start a more constructive discussion, rather than a badly worded insult. Astrotrain 21:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why don't you try to start a 'constructive discussion'? What was exactly an insult? Saying that your version is ugly? -- tasc talkdeeds 07:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit war