File talk:Europe religion map en.png

This map is beautiful! This being Wikipedia, though, I do have a few nits to pick:

1. It looks like the entire Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been entirely noted as being a Sunni area. It would be more accurate to mark the areas dominated by Croats as Catholic.

2. Armenia is lumped in with the other Orthodox countries; however, it's an Oriental Orthodox state and thus is from a separate religious tradition. A Serb could take communion in a Romanian Orthodox church, and a Romanian in a Russian Orthodox church, and so on; but the Armenian church does not share communion with the others. Also, the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan is also Armenian Orthodox.

--Jfruh (talk) 17:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Subtle definitional differences

What exactly does this map seek to represent? The predominant religions in contemporary Europe, or historically-predominant religions? In the Czech Republic and Estonia, Christianity is a minority religion, considering that the majority of the population are atheists or non-religious. If the map represents current religious demographics, then these regions should be coloured in as "non-religious" or athiest. If, one the other hand, this maps show traditional religious believes, or religious heritage, then it's OK as it is, but it should be captioned different on all of the articles which use it. It is currently captioned as "Predominant religions in Europe", which makes its content incorrect. Ronline ✉ 13:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Color correction

The pastel shades are difficult to distinguish on LCD displays. Some stronger shades would probably be easier on the eyes. -- Beland 07:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I also find them difficult to distinguish with my poor colour vision. Contrasting shades in addition to contrasting hues will help the most people with colour vision problems to distinguish the colours. For example, making the Protestant areas a little darker or lighter would make a HUGE difference in helping me tell them apart from the Catholic areas. (unregistered user, 28 Feb 2007)

If I have time, I will correct the colors. -- San Jose 11:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

That'd be great. I'm colourblind myself to some extent, and I cannot see *any* difference between "Protestant" and "Catholic" on this map. :) -- Schneelocke 09:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I would classify the colors as inhuman – I'm not color-blind the least, but the bright weak colors were annoying, and yet hard to distinguish. Rursus 13:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

A new version uploaded, modified by GIMP: 1) darkening, 2) increasing the colors, 3) rotating color spaces twice, so that a) the difference between "protestant" and "catholics" differed by blueness and greenness (not perfect but better than nothing) b) shia is yellow, while sunni is violet. There's still the problem of "protestant" and Eastern Orthodox being almost equally bright on the red-versus-green dimension, which should be problematic for red-green color "blindness". Rursus 13:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Besides: the colors aren't less ugly now - they're just easier to discern. Rursus 13:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Besides: the map should be replaced by an SVG image. Rursus 13:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Source?

What is the source of the data about which religion is dominant where? -- Beland 07:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Inaccurate

In the Czech Republic most of people are atheist, look at Census data or at Demographics of the Czech Republic. - Darwinek 10:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Also in Chechnya/Ichkeria and Daghestan almost 100% people are Sunni Muslim, yet those countries are shown as Christian. --Al-Bargit 16:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

But atheism is not a denomination with separate organizations or temples. There are human-ethicians in Sweden, who have an organization, and they may be regarded as a denomination. I think the pictured dominant religions are referring to number of organization member, and a really crude classification of the organizations – IMHO Calvinists differs from Swedish Church and Anglicans more than Swedish Church and Anglicans from Roman Catholicism. Rursus 14:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I strongly disagree. A large part of not being religious or being an atheist is NOT taking part in organised religious activities. Most of us aren't active atheists, we just don't care about religious matters. And in places where the majority of people are members of no denomination, that ought to show in a map like this. /85.194.44.18 17:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Tried to clean up image

I created a new image to try to make it a little better. It is image:EuropeMajorReligions.png. I'm not sure if it's entirely correct, some of the colors were pretty hard to distinguish in the original. Feel free to change it if you want. --Sbrools ^{(talk . contribs)} 22:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry (after your effort), but the Turks are generally Sunni, not Shia. Also: Germany is divided between Roman Catholicism and Lutheran Protestantism. Rursus 14:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Now instead of whining, I tried to improve the image here: HERE!. Image still needs improvements (among others a full SVG remake), feel free to ... Rursus 19:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You still didn't get the Armenians right --Proski 01:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Bulgarian muslims

Kărdžali, Razgrad, and Smoljan oblasts are shown as having a muslim majority; while that is true for Kărdžali and Razgrad, in Smoljan muslims are not a majority but a plurality. http://www.nsi.bg/Census/Religion.htm Smoljan Total: 140 066, Orthodox: 41 599, Catholic: 100, Protestant: 93, Muslim: 58 758, Other: 97, None: 39 003, Not answered: 416

In the census paper http://www.nsi.bg/Census/Card6.htm there are seperate choices for Sunni and Shia, but these seem to have been aggregated on the webpage. This made me think of an interesting problem. Now this map seems to color a region by the plurality, also ignoring people that do not affiliate themselves with a religion. This would be a problem, for example, if of the muslims in Smoljan province 30 000 were sunni and 28 758 shia (which in reality they're not, they're probably much, much less; shias may be more than sunnis in Razgrad oblast, though - this needs to be checked, as currently it's colored sunni). Do you color it orthodox by virtue of them being a plurality among people who identify with a religion, subdivided into orthodox, catholic, protestant, sunni, shia, and others; or do you color it sunni, by virtue of muslims being a plurality among people who affiliate themselves with a religion, when divided into christians, muslims, and other, and sunnis being a plurality among muslims?

What I'm describing above may actually be a problem in Razgrad (orthodox outnumbering sunnis and shia individually, but muslims outnumbering orthodox christians). But I haven't found any hard data. There is also second-tier administrative unit that's majority catholic, Rakovski municipality, but the maps seems to take into account highest-level divisions only.

Krum Stanoev 10:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, someone should color Rodopi and possibly Xanthi sunni too. ( the Greek provinces just south of the southern Bulgarian ones) Krum Stanoev 13:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

And will whoever is capable of editing this image _please_ finally make a color for buddhist and color Kalmykia appropriately. Krum Stanoev 13:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

A few possible lapses

1. Armenian Orthodox aren't in communion with other Orthodox and form their own separate church.

2. Catholics in the Latgalia province of Latvia (southeastern Latvia). The marked area in image does not include all the territory of Latgalia.

3. Protestants in eastern Hungary.

4. Protestants in the Székelyföld.

5. Catholics in western Ukraine and Belarus.

6. Orthodox in eastern Poland and Estonia.

7. Pagans in isolated parts of Russia.

8. A less-rigid Russo-Finnish border: some Orthodox on the Finnish side, some Protestants on the Russian side. Biruitorul 06:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I've also noticed Israel is identified as a protestant area, this seems pretty erroneous. --NEMT 06:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

And also: 8. Atheists in Czech Republic! Thank you. --83.131.12.76 12:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Alsace

I'm pretty sure it has a protestant majority, not a Roman Catholic one. Matthieu 12:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

From the article: "Most of the Alsatian population is Roman Catholic, but largely because of the région's German influence, a significant Protestant community also exists." --NEMT 17:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Kalmykia

The map fails to note Kalmyk people of Kalmykia who are Tibetan Buddhists. -- Petri Krohn 12:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I was just about to say the same thing when I looked at the map. I suggest that the map be updated to reflect the Tibetan Buddhist Kalmyk population centers.

Armenia

Also, if I recall correctly, the Armenian Apostolic Church is not an Eastern Orthodox religion, but an Oriental Orthodox religion.

Who cares, both are Orthodox...

Alevis of Turkey

If I recall correctly, the major Alevi population centers in Turkey (whether in Anatolia or in Thrace) are derived from Shia Islam, not Sunni Islam. - Gilgamesh 00:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Scotland and its Catholic population

Doesn't Scotland have a significant population of Catholics? RSieradzki 23:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It does, about 16%, according to Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. The largest church in Scotland is, however, the reformed Church of Scotland (42%), according to the same article. --Salocin ^Talk 15:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

britain=protestant; germany=protestant & catholic?

that's an obvious mistake. britain has the most romance history, state, language and church in the "north of europe", not that north europeans consider the britons to be nordic anyways. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiblastfromthewikipast (talk • contribs) 01:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Kazakhstan and Muslims inside Russia

Kazakhstan is shown as Orthodox country, which is a mistake. Large number of Muslims, lives in Crimea, Urals and Volga's delta, however. alongside with Russian orthodox. It's difficult to say in whcih areas Muslim outnumber Christians or vice versa. O, yeah, Kalmykia is also wrongly indicated... --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ (see also:ә? Ә!) 15:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Lviv oblast of Ukraine

Interesting fact that it's marked as "Roman Catholicism". Really it's Eastern Catholic Churches includes big part of Western Ukraine. So, another inaccuracy is marked only Lviv Oblast. Why not Galicia (Central Europe) or whole Western Ukraine?

Fifty-six percent of the religious organisations active in the Lviv Oblast adhere to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church is the second largest religious body. The followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchy) are mostly from the Polish, and Russian or non-Galician Ukrainian minorities respectively.[1]

--Oleh Kernytskyi (talk) 14:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Picture authore, please do something!

Why is different color of Ternopil Oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast? Also Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is Catholic in-law but really Orthodox Church. So where are two ways. 1. Set as Catholic all Greek Catholic teritories or 2. Check Lviv Oblast as Orthodox. --Oleh Kernytskyi (talk) 23:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

FYROM

Why is Fyrom marked as Macedonia??? Iaberis (talk) 05:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Refer to the main page on Macedonia for this. This issue has been talked over and over again. --Ubardak (talk) 09:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is New England so called? Why is New York stealing the name of York (or the Duke of York)? Why aren't the Danish getting angry with New Zealand because of their name? Stop moaning. A sovereign country can use the name of its choosing regardless of silly Greek complaints.--217.201.204.236 (talk) 23:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Britain

I think it is misleading do have Britain listed as purely protestant. The UK has a large Catholic Population - which by some estimates outnumbers the Anglican population. Perhaps it is time to come up with a "mixed chistian" category. Oh and much of N. Ireland is Catholic deminated areas. 202.67.95.215 (talk) 09:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Armenia

Actualy armenian church isn't ortodox church. Thay folow monophisite traditions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.118.205.130 (talk) 11:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo

Map of Kosovo

This map should be modified in order to fully reflect the newborn Republic of Kosovo. That is, Kosovo's official border line should appear on the map.--Arber (talk) 13:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

see Image talk:Europe countries map en.png -- 217.238.228.58 (talk) 15:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

No it shouldn't. Recognizition by barely 15 countries isn't enough. Maybe when all 196 UN countries recognize independence but that's never going to happen. Just because a country unilaterally declares independence in defiance of international law doesn't mean that it IS a country. 213.230.130.56 (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Jewish communities

Jews have lived on the continent for more than a thousand years. Perhaps some indication should be made of areas of large Jewish population.Bless sins (talk) 19:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)