EUROPE

Portugal

Lusitania

Are we really gonna start this European tour with a misuse of language?
You bet! As you may know, Portugal is sometimes referred to
as Lusitania, but that is taking something of a geographical liberty: two
centuries before Christ, the Roman province called Lusitania only
comprised the area south of the Douro river, as well as a part of modern
Spain. This region includes for around 80% of modern-day Portugal,
which explains why the terms Lusitania and Lusitanic are still
sometimes used to refer to the country as a whole (and Lusophone for
nations that share its language), especially in formal or literary contexts.
But in other usages it’s fallen out of fashion: the 16th century colony
originally known as New Lusitania is today much better (and more
snappily) known as Brazil.

Spain
The Bull Skin

You may have not heard of it, but Spanish people sometimes refer to
their country as La Piel de Toro (The Bull Skin). That’s thanks to the
imagination of Greek geographer Strabonis, who compared the shape of
the country to a bull skin stretched out under the sun – and is also, no
doubt, a reference to the country’s longstanding obsession with bull-
related activities. In fact Spain has been through a bunch of different
names throughout history. The North Africans who first crossed the
Straits of Gibraltar called it Iberia, the “land of rivers”, after “Iber”, a
river. When the Greeks invaded, they called it Hesperia, “land of the
setting sun”. Meanwhile, the Carthaginians, arriving around 300 BC,
came up with Ispania, “land of the rabbits”; later latinised by the
Romans to Hispania, and subsequently España. So, macho Spaniards
take note: your country is actually named, not after the virile bull, but
the bunny.

France
The Hexagon

Stretching about 1000 km from top to bottom, and about the same from
side to side, France is the largest country in Western Europe. Take
out the (not inconsiderable) overseas territories of La Reunion, Mayotte,
Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, plus the island of Corsica,
and the shape of mainland France almost perfectly fits into a six sided
shape: hence, the Hexagon, a term beloved by French politicians and
journalists alike. This is also rather convenient for French
schoolchildren, who learn how to draw their country by first
constructing a hexagon.

Iceland
The Land of Fire and Ice

A country of outstanding natural beauty, Iceland is sometimes called the

“Land of Fire and Ice” because of its extreme landscapes – with glaciers
and volcanic springs located next to each other. A very appropriate
nickname, then, for a country which counts no fewer than 30 active
volcanic systems amounting to a third of the world’s total lava output.
But in fact, while this dramatic monicker is useful marketing for the
Iceland tourist board (and inspiration for George R R Martin), Icelanders
themselves use many different names and paraphrases to refer to their
country: “the queen of the mountain” (Fjalladrottning), “the young
woman of the glacier” (Jökulmær), “the snow land” (Snæland) or “the
ice cover” (Klakinn). How poetic!

Ireland
The Emerald Isle

How did Ireland come to be called the Emerald Isle? Its resplendent

greenery played a big part of course, but there’s more to the story than
that. The expression’s first appearance in print was in a poem by
William Drennan, a chief architect of the Society of United Irishmen,
entitled “When Erin First Rose“, of which one stanza reads, “Arm of
Erin, be strong! but be gentle as brave; And uplifted to strike, be still
ready to save; Let no feeling of vengeance presume to defile; The cause
of, or men of, the Emerald Isle.” When Drennan died in 1820, in a final
symbolic gesture, he insisted his coffin be carried by three Protestants
and three Catholics.

United Kingdom
Albion

The term “Albion” comes from the Latin word ‘alba‘, or ‘white’, used
by many classical Greek writers presumably in reference to the white
cliffs of Dover. Later, in the 12th century, the word became part of
a legend, as a popular folk tale explained how the Giants of Albion were
the original inhabitants of the island. It is only from the seventeenth
century that the term Albion was associated with treachery and infidelity
in the pejorative phrase ‘Perfidious Albion’. You don’t need to wander
too far to find the culprit: you guessed it, it’s the French to blame! The
phrase was first coined by 17th-century theologian Jacques-Bénigne
Bossuet who used the term “perfidious” in its more religious sense of
“the country that lost its faith” and later popularised by his countryman,
playwright Augustin Louis de Ximénès, who wrote in 1793: “Let us
attack perfidious Albion in her waters“. Ah! The joys of neighbourly
relations…

Norway
The Land of the Midnight Sun

The sun at midnight: must be a joke right? Not if you live far enough
north, it isn’t! Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun, is so-called
because the northern tip is located above the Arctic circle, where the sun
shines 20 hours a day from Mid-May to Mid-July. Midnight sun is a
natural phenomenon which reaches its peak during the summer
solstice, duly celebrated by Norwegians each year on 21 June. It’s a
double edged sword for the Norwegians, though, as they suffer long
months of darkness during the winter, which they don’t even get to
hibernate through.

Sweden
The Elongated Country

Yes, you got it right… Swedes have a marvellous and

somewhat equivocal nickname for their country: Det avlånga landet, the
elongated country. It is not a phrase commonly used outside the country,
but Swedes themselves love to point out the fact that their
territory stretches 1600 kilometres from top to bottom. And they go on
and on with different figurative nicknames based on their country’s
shape, such as Landet Falukorv – a typical traditional medium fat
sausage everyone eats in Sweden, to Landet mellanmjölk – a kind of
milk packaging invented there. Younger generations do not bother
with elaborated metaphor: they just call their country En slak kuk, which
elegantly means… a limp penis! All this is quite paradoxical with
another common nickname Swedes give to their country: Landet
lagom, the moderate land where everything is done “just the right
amount”, neither too much nor too little.

Finland
The Land of a Thousand Lakes

Finland is called ‘The Land of a Thousand Lakes‘, but that’s rather an

understatement: at last count there were 187,888 of them – one lake for
every 26 people, and more per square kilometre than any other country,
with some 10% of the inland country covered by water. This would
explain why Finns feel a certain closeness to the element of water, and
why lakes are the source of so many Finns’ livelihood. We can trace
back the origin of the nickname to a verse of a Finnish song whose text
was published in English in 1851; the term was also used in the titles of
several books from the 1890s relating to Finland.

Denmark
Danevang

If you are passionate about Denmark and read some of its literature, you
may come up sooner or later with the word Danevang, sometimes also
spelled Dannevang. This term, known only by Danes, actually expresses
an idea that is somewhat untranslatable. The words Mark (as in ‘Dane-
mark’) and Vang (as in ‘Dane-vang’) both mean ‘field’.
But Danevang sounds a bit more romantic, and often used to express a
kind of national nostalgia, especially for people living abroad. If the
nickname is kept reserved for use by the Danes themselves, we can all
relate to the kind of nostalgia the word invokes: for example, when you
open an old box of Lego that’s been hiding at the back of your closet for
years, and find yourself transported back to your childhood.. Ah, Lego…
maybe that’s why Danish children are also said to be living in ‘the
Happiest Country in the World’!

Netherlands
Holland

Have you ever heard of the figure of speech called a  ‘pars pro toto’?
This fine Latin phrase means that something is referred to by means of
one of its constituent parts  – the term literally translates as “a part
(taken) for the whole”. So why are we talking about this?
Because Holland may be the most famous illustration of the genre: the
term Holland, in fact just one region and former province on the western
coast of the Netherlands, is frequently used to refer to the whole nation.
Some claim that this loose usage misrepresents the country, as the
Holland region only accounts for 32% of Dutch surface area and 37% of
population. But this region has been historically the most powerful
region, dominating foreign trade: hence most of the Dutch traders
encountered by foreigners were from Holland.

Belgium
The Flat Country

No need to ask why: Belgium is a flat country, end of story. Relatively

speaking, anyway. The country ranges from sea level at its northern
coast, to a high point of just 2,277 feet (694 m), at Signal de Botrange, in
Liege province to the east. The rest of the country features a relatively
flat topography consisting of coastal plains in the northwest and gently
rolling hills throughout the country’s central portion. In 1962, this
inspired Belgian songsmith Jacques Brel to compose one of his most
famous melodies, Le Plat Pays (“Mijn vlakke land” in Flemish). Brel
sings that “cathedrals are the only mountains my country has” and that
the sky is “so low” that “a canal gets lost”. All this, Brel claims, made
his people naturally humble…

Luxembourg
The Grand Duchy

It’s quite normal to give inappropriate nicknames to objects, people or,

here, countries – a way of pretending they are exactly the opposite of
what they really are. If you don’t believe me, just ask citizens of the
former German Democratic Republic whether they really lived in a
democracy. Likewise for the Democratic People’s Republic of (North)
Korea – if you can find a citizen prepared to give you an honest answer.
Not that Luxembourg is undemocratic, of course: but you’ll agree that
describing this landlocked country as “grand” is perhaps a slightly
misleading way of referring to the sixth smallest nation in Europe. In
reality, the term has nothing to do with size, but to its ruler who bears
the relatively rare title of Grand Duke, a somewhat more modest title
than that held by the rulers of neighbouring kingdoms.

Germany
The Land of Poets and Thinkers

It may have escaped your notice, but Germany is actually Das Land der
Dichter und Denker –  ‘the country of poets and thinkers‘. Never a
people to fail to blow their own trumpet, this is, fairly obviously, a
nickname they gave themselves. (And common decency means we are
going to skip over the many different and colourful sobriquets Germans
were awarded by their neighbours at various times over the last,
turbulent century). Nonetheless, the nickname ‘The country of poets and
thinkers’  is well deserved: it is hard to deny that many famous cultural
icons have come from Germany, producing popular philosophical
teachings, useful scientific discoveries, and more hummable musical
works than you could shake a conductor’s baton at.

Austria
The Musical Centre of Europe

From roughly 1750 to 1820, the Austrian capital of Vienna became ‘The
Musical Centre of Europe’, and works of the period are often referred to
as being in the Viennese style. Composers came from all over Europe to
train in and around Vienna, and gradually they developed and formalised
the standard musical forms that were to predominate European musical
culture for the next several decades. The Classical period reached its
culmination with the masterful symphonies, sonatas, and string quartets
by the three great composers of the Viennese school: Franz Joseph
Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Later
on, the first stirrings of the Romantic movement can be heard in the
lyrical songs of Viennese composer Franz Schubert, while the city was
also later home to Brahms, Mahler, Liszt, Schoenberg and all three
Strausses. With its 2014 Eurovision triumph, perhaps Austria still lives
up to its reputation…

Switzerland
Helvetia

“Who run the world? Girls!” said Beyoncé once – well, actually several

times if you listen to the whole chorus. She might have been right when
it comes to Switzerland, whose actual nickname, Helvetia, is nothing
less than the female personification of the country. Her name is a
derivation of the ethnonym Helvetii, the name of the Gaulish tribe
inhabiting the Swiss Plateau prior to the Roman conquest. In some
languages the word still serves as the name for Switzerland: including
Irish (An Eilvéis), Greek (Ελβετία/Elvetia) and Romanian, Elveţia. In
Italian, though Elvezia is now archaic, the name survives on in the
adjective elvetico, a common synonym for svizzero; likewise for the
French, who will be heard referring to their neighbours as les Helvètes.

Italy
The Boot

In 1695, the British Thesurus Geographicus referred to Italy as The

Boot for (as far as we know) the first time in history. The description
went as following: “The Figure or Shape of this Country is very
Remarkable, and may be well compar’d to that of a Man’s Leg, the End
whereof seems as it were to kick the Island of Siciliy into the Sea; Italy is
stretched forth toward the South, as it were a Peninsule, in form of a
Boot, into the Mediterranean-Sea…”. In fact three smaller peninsulas
each form a distinct part of the anatomy of what Italians call lo Stivale:
Calabria (the “toe”), Salento (the “heel”) and Gargano (the “spur”).
Though high heeled shoes may not have existed back in 1695, you can
bet that fashion designers took inspiration from the peninsula to design
what would become later a women’s worst nightmare, and a drag
queen’s emblematic accessory!

Malta
The Land of Honey

Malta has been involved in producing honey since time immemorial:

indeed, the word Malta itself comes from the Greek word for the Land
of Honey, “melitos“, suggesting local production of the sweet stuff dates
back milennia. The Romans, too, considered honey one of Malta’s chief
products, naming the place “Melita“, similar to their word for honey,
“melitai“. The climate of Malta – and its mild winters – make the island
the bees knees for producing the stuff: Malta and Gozo house around
2,200 colonies and 220 beekeepers. Maltese honey is very popular with
tourists because of its unique taste; the place even has its own
subspecies, the Maltese honey bee.

Czechia
Bohemia

I hope you’ve all been concentrating! If so, you’ll surely remember the
meaning of the term ‘pars pro toto’. Anyone? No conferring! (Psst: if
you’ve forgotten, you can cheat by taking another look at the section
above on Holland … sorry, the Netherlands).  Got it? Then you will
know exactly how to react when I tell you that the Czechia is sometimes
referred to as Bohemia: actually the westernmost and largest historical
region of the Czech lands; the others being Moravia and Czech Silesia,
whose denizens are apt to get annoyed at the use of the term to denote
the whole country. Forget Freddie Mercury’s Rhapsody: the
term Bohemia actually came from the Romans, who were competing for
dominance in northern Italy in the 2nd century BC with various peoples
including the Boii. The defeated tribe retreated north across the Alps to a
region that Roman authors soon came to call Boiohaemum.

Slovakia
The Heart of Europe

Time for an experiment: open a map of Europe, close your eyes, and put
your finger right in the middle. Where is it? Yes, there you are:
Slovakia! There are actually many controversies over the location of the
geographical centre of Europe, whose definition of course depends on
exactly where you think “Europe” starts and ends – a topic which on its
own generates many passionate if not furious contributions to the
EuropeIsNotDead mailbag. Many countries or cities claim to be the
centre of Europe – and who wouldn’t want such an alluring label?
Depending on how you measure it, you might put the centre in Slovakia,
Poland, Hungary, Estonia or even Belarus; with more than 1,000
kilometres separating the different contenders for the crown, finding the
cartographical “centre of Europe” is like finding a compass needle in a
haystack. That’s why the smart Slovakians avoided controversy and
styled themselves The Heart of Europe: while the heart is not exactly in
the centre of the human body, we certainly couldn’t do without it!

Poland
The Land of Fields

Many ancient European tribes, and subsequently countries, took their

names from the nature of the land they inhabited. Poland, “The Land of
Fields“, is a very good example. The ancient tribes of Polans (‘those
living in the fields’), Polanies, or Polonians, eventually managed to
unite territories to establish the first Polish dynasty, the Piast. The word
survives as dialect: when leaving a building, people living in the
southern and eastern parts of Poland still say they are going “na pole”
(‘to the field’). Why this focus on fields, I hear you cry? Simple: farming
has always been an integral part of Poland’s economy. Even today, the
country enjoys expansive meadows and pastures with soil and climatic
conditions favourable for many different crops.

Lithuania
The Land Of Storks

If one day, your child asks you where babies come from: use the usual
European trick and say the stork brought them. If that doesn’t convince –
maybe your kid is some kind of nerdy child prodigy – just tell them they
come from Lithuania. By the time they’re old enough to learn how to
Google where that is, they’ll have figured out the real answer anyway.
Besides, there’s more than a grain of truth to that story: because, with
the highest nesting density in the world, Lithuania is a significant habitat
for white storks. Not only is the creature the source of the country’s
nickname, it is also the national bird, and a symbol of good luck –
Lithuanians still believe that storks bring harmony to the families on
whose property they nest. To show their gratitude to this magical bird,
the population celebrates Stork Day: on 25 March, they give gifts to
children, and catch snakes to bury them under the doorstep (one of
the weirdest tradition we’ve heard so far); and, who knows, if the Stork
Day party goes really well, they might even arrange for another to visit
in 9 months’ time…

Latvia
The Land of Blue Lakes

Riga, the fairy-tale capital city, was once nicknamed the “Paris of the

East”, but the country as a whole is often known as the ‘Land of Blue
lakes‘. The largest lakes in Latvia are in the Latgale region. This region
is home to the lakes Lubans  (82.1 km2), Raznas, near Rezekne,
and Dridzis, the deepest in the Baltics. A unique protected natural area is
Ezezers with thirty-six islands and Velnezers (the Devil’s lake), famous
for its mysterious colours; many legends are told of its magical waters.

Estonia
Mary’s Land

None of that new-fangled trendiness in Estonia: the country’s nickname

dates back as far as 1215! By the 12th century, the peoples inhabiting
Estonia formed a pagan wedge between increasingly powerful rival
Christian states. Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen, unhappy with this
unchristian state of affairs, toured the Empire to lobby for a Baltic
Crusade. His campaign succeeded, when a Papal Bull declared that
fighting against the Baltic heathens would get you as many Heaven
Points as the mission to the Holy Land – even if the weather wasn’t as
nice. After the conquest, Pope Innocent III dedicated Estonia to the
Virgin Mary to popularise recruitment to his army and the name ‘Mary’s
Land‘ has survived up to modern times. This is noticeable in one of the
names given to the country at the time, ‘Terra Mariana’ or
‘Maarjamaa’ in Estonian, which means ‘Land of Mary’.

Belarus
White Russia

The name Belarus derives from the term White Russia, which first
appeared in German medieval literature. Belo, the Russian word for
‘White’, is the likely source of the country’s name, rather than the
Latin bella, beautiful. Historically, the country was referred to in English
as White Russia, but in fact a better translation would be White
Ruthenia, referring to  the area of Eastern Europe populated by Slavic
people and the various states that occupied it. Yet another theory is that
the name may have had its origins in the efforts made by Russia’s tsars
to distinguish themselves from their predecessors in Rome and
Byzantium. Muscovite rulers, including the Tsar, wore white robes to
distinguish themselves from the purple of the Roman rulers and the red
of the Byzantines. Either way, the nickname suggests this country has
more in common with far-flung Albion than you might think!

Ukraine
The Bread Basket of Europe

Among all the associations foreigners have with Ukraine, the oldest is as
‘The Bread Basket of Europe‘. And it’s still valid today. It earned the
nickname because of the country’s fertile black soil, from which
sprouted vast fields of wheat, barley, rye, oats, sunflower, beets and
other grain and oil crops. Today, still, nearly one out of four workers in
Ukraine is employed in agriculture or forestry. In the past, however, this
title was to cause the country immense hardship when Stalin decided the
country should be responsible for feeding the whole Soviet Union.
Collectivisation and unachievable grain targets were the main causes of
the Great Famine, otherwise known as Holodomor, that in 1932 and
1933 killed as many as 7.5 million Ukrainians.

Romania
The Land Of Count Dracula

It’ll come as a surprise to no-one that Romania is ‘The Land of

Dracula‘: not least as it is the location for Irish writer Bram Stoker’s
well-known 1897 novel. But did you know that Count Dracula was
actually inspired by one of the best-known figures of Romanian history,
Vlad Dracula, nicknamed Vlad the Impaler, who was the ruler of
Walachia at various times from 1456-1462? This uncouth gentleman had
the most unfortunate habit of impaling his enemies; he also impaled
monks on sticks to help them to go to heaven; the road to hell, as they
say, is paved with good intentions. Far from tugging at the heartstrings
of any passing animal-lovers, any donkeys braying after the death of
their masters would also get the impaling treatment. While stories of
Vlad’s cruelty are to be treated with caution – his brutal acts were very
probably made up, or at least exaggerated, by the Saxons – the
invention of printing certainly helped them to spread, making the
popular tales of this (allegedly) dastardly tyrant one of the first
bestsellers in Europe…

Moldova
Bessarabia

You must have heard the name Bessarabia at least once; but can you
locate it on a map? If not, don’t worry, you’re in good company. The
term used to denote a region in Eastern Europe, covering part of
modern-day Moldova, with a small bit of Ukraine. According to the
traditional interpretation, it derives from the Wallachian Basarab
dynasty, who allegedly ruled over the southern part of the area in the
14th century. The region has been invaded and occupied by many
different powers: the Ottomans, the Russians, the Romanians, the Soviet
Union and then Romania again. With the region itself so long
downtrodden, the name itself sank largely into disuse – surviving today
as an alternative name for modern-day Moldova. Because of its location
between Ukraine and Romania and between Poland and the
Balkans, Bessarabia has always served as a route between the west and
the east.

Hungary
The Land of Magyars

Hungarians, who know their country as Magyarország, ‘The Land of

Magyars‘, are unique among the nations of Europe in that they speak a
language that is not related to any other major European language –
except Finnish, as you may know. The word ‘Magyar‘ itself possibly
derived from the name of the most prominent and yet mysterious
Hungarian tribe, the Megyer. It is very possible that the proto-Magyars
wandered not a thousand miles but ten times that distance over the
course of many centuries, before arriving in their present, highly
congenial homeland. Although some historians depict the Magyars as a
people of European origin, the greater part of the evidence points to
Asia.

Slovenia
The Sunny Side of the Alps

How dare they! How dare they insinuate that Austria, Germany and even
the South of France are on ‘The opposite Rainy Side of the Alps’? In
fact, as anyone who’s been to Germany on a good day can testify, it’s
been sunny… at least once. More seriously, it is true that Slovenia, with
its combination of Alpine beauty, majestic valleys and turquoise lakes
purified by their limestone surroundings, seems at a first glance to
deserve such a rewarding nickname. But just to be sure, let’s check
at climatedata.eu and make some calculations… So, it seems that
Slovenia is doing fine with on average 1700 hours sunshine per year.
Not bad, I’ll grant. But… you can also count on being caught by rain on
average 115 days in a year. While that figure includes sprinkles as well
as downpours, it’s hardly favourable when compared to sunny Madrid
and its average of 32 rainy days …

Croatia
Our Beautiful

Every nation loves its own country and calls it the most beautiful.
Croatians, however, actually call their state ‘Our Beautiful‘ (“Lijepa
naša“), which is also the title of their national anthem. As such, the
lyrics of the anthem are nothing to shout (or sing) about: “Our beautiful
homeland, O so fearless and gracious. Our fathers’ ancient glory, May
you be blessed forever“. But the Croatian people identify with them
deeply. The lyrics were printed for the first time as “Croatian
Homeland” in the ‘Danica’ newspaper in 1835. But the song became the
official anthem of Croatia only when the Constitution was amended in
February 1972. Sadly, though we have the words, we’ll never know
exactly what the good folk of Zagreb were singing back then: the
original form of the melody remains unknown to this day.

Serbia
Rascia

Serbia has long had the name ‘Rascia‘, with sources dating back to the
late 12th century. Rascia is an exonym – meaning that the term was used
only by non-Serbians, specifically those in Western Europe. It was
derived from the town of Ras, a royal estate, and seat of one of the
eparchies (provinces) of the Orthodox Church. The first attestation is in
a charter from Kotor dated to 1186, in which Stefan Nemanja, the Grand
Prince (1166–1196), is mentioned as “župan of Rascia“. It was one of
the common names for Serbia in western sources, used by the Papacy,
the Germans, the Italians and the French, but never by the Byzantine
Empire itself. The term is often used in modern historiography to refer to
the medieval “Serbian hinterland”, that is, the inland territories rather
than the maritime principalities on the Adriatic.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Heart Shaped Land

Bosnia and Herzegovina likes to advertise itself as ‘The Heart Shaped

Land’. Squint a bit at the map and maybe you’ll find that to be literally
true; we couldn’t see it, but maybe we lack the imagination. But the
reason for the name is perhaps more metaphorical: it’s a country you’re
very likely to fall in love with. The Ministry for Tourism provides a
dramatic description of the country: “it is here that eastern and western
civilisations met, sometimes clashed, but more often enriched and
reinforced each other throughout its long and fascinating history”. In any
case, Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the last undiscovered areas of
the Southern Alps and, whatever shape it’s really in, we strongly
recommend you discover its wide and untouched expanses of wilderness
for yourself; it’s an ideal holiday destination for nature lovers and
adventurers.

Montenegro
The Black Mountain

This one comes easy! With some basic knowledge of Latin, you could
even have made it yourself… Montenegro… Monte-negro… Mountain
Black… Black Mountain! Although the origin of the
name Montenegro is still debated among historians, it can be traced as
far back as the early 1200s, when “Crna Gora” – which in Serbo-
Croatian meant, yup, you guessed it, ‘Black Mountain’ – was used in the
charter of Vranjina Monastery to denote the highlands of Mount Lovćen,
a mountain with dense pine forests in the southwest of the country. That
the nation’s name today is borrowed from the Italian “Montenegro”
rather than the Serbo-Croatian “Crna Gora” reflects Venice’s
dominance over the Balkans during the Middle Ages. Now, you know
why a Balkan country five time smaller than Ireland ended up with such
a mysterious and monumental name!

Kosovo
The Land of Freedom

Kosovo is a partially recognised state in southeastern Europe that

declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008. While Serbia
recognises the Republic’s governance of the territory, it still continues to
claim Kosovo and Metohija as one of its own autonomous provinces. As
such, it is considered by many countries as a disputed territory. The
Constitution of Kosovo specifies that the country is a secular state and
neutral in matters of religious belief. Freedom of belief, conscience and
religion is guaranteed with religious autonomy ensured and protected.
The search for independence and the protection of individual rights: all
these explain maybe why people from Kosovo are so eager to call their
country ‘The Land of Freedom‘.

Albania
The Land of the Eagles

Many legends and tales have tried to explain the origin of the nickname

‘The Land of the Eagles‘, and how the bird of prey came to be so closely
associated with the country. The eagle is one of Albania’s most
important symbols, featuring on the national flag, on postcards, on
traditional costumes and handicrafts, and in the country’s literature and
history… No kidding, the people of Albania seem weirdly devoted to the
creature. So where does this all come from? One famous Albanian folk
story, the Tale of the Eagle, tells of a young boy interacting with the
bird. Amazed by this valiant hunter’s deeds, the people of the land
elected him king and called him Shqipëtar, which is to say Son of the
Eagle (shqipe or shqiponjë is Albanian for eagle); his kingdom became
known as “Shqipëria” or ‘Land of the Eagles’.

Bulgaria
The Land of Roses

If you’ve been to Bulgaria, you’ll probably have heard that this beautiful
country is also called ‘The Land of Roses‘. Astonishingly, Bulgaria is
world leader in the production of rose oil, in particular from the rare
hybrid Rosa Damascena, produced in what is known as the “Valley of
Roses”. The oil extracted from Rosa Damascena is used as a base
element in cosmetics and scents all over the world, since as long ago as
the Middle Ages! But be warned, if you want to bring some back as a
souvenir, bear in mind it is also a highly pricey product, mainly used for
high-end perfumes. If you visit the Balkans in the end of May and the
beginning of June you should definitely take part in the old Bulgarian
tradition of picking roses!

North Macedonia
The Land Of the Sun

Macedonians are good humoured: they love to say that “only the sun is
older than Macedonia“! The nickname ‘The Land of the Sun‘ does not
refer to the country’s weather – though sunshine is always
welcome – but rather to the stylised yellow symbol featured on their
flag. This eight-rayed sun represents “the new sun of Liberty” mentioned
in the national anthem. It was adopted in 1995 after the previous flag
wound up their Greek neighbours, inflaming a long-running controversy
regarding the new country’s relationship to the ancient kingdom, and to
the present-day region of Greece, both known by the same name. The
Macedonian Sun is undoubtedly the oldest symbol in the country that
still survives as cultural symbol of the Macedonians.

Greece
Hellas

Is it better to name a country like the locals do, or using the

nomenclature of the imperial invaders? Sadly, in the case of Greece,
we’ve taken the second approach. In English the country’s name is
derived from the Latin word Graecia (literally meaning ‘the land of the
Greeks’) and not Hellas, as the Greeks call themselves. Eheu! But it’s
easy to see why: ancient Romans not only took control of Greece in 146
BC, and subsequently most of Europe’s territory, but their Latin tongues
also invaded many European languages; thus, ‘Greece‘ generally got
favoured over ‘Hellas‘. There are still some visible traces of this old
name in our modern vocabulary, in particular when we use Hellenic as a
synonym for Greek in newspapers and elsewhere. But to be
frank, Hellas has a strong claim to being more than a mere nickname…

Cyprus
The Island of Love

We are slowly coming to an end with this list of European country’s

nicknames. But we’ve saved the best till (almost) last! Who wouldn’t
like his or her country to be called ‘The Island of Love‘ or, alternatively
‘The Island of Aphrodite‘? Such romanticism is far more appealing than
describing mere colours, shapes or fashion accessories! As you may
guess, Cyprus owes this salacious title to Greek mythology. According
to legend, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility, was born on its
shores. But she wasn’t brought by a stork, Lithuanian or otherwise: she
emerged from the gentle jade-colored sea foam at Petra tou Romiou, a
boulder that juts up from the south coast of Cyprus as majestically today
as it did then. The name Aphrodite, in fact, means “foam born”. She was
the most ancient goddess in the Olympian pantheon.

Turkey
Anatolia

What is Anatolia, exactly? It is the peninsular region between the Black

Sea in the north and Mediterranean Sea in the south. It is entirely located
in modern-day Turkey but does not cover its entire territory. The word,
itself, comes from Greek Anatolḗ which means simply ‘east’, or the
place of sunrise. The oldest known reference to Anatolia appears on
Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of the Akkadian
Empire (2350–2150 BC). The Turkification of Anatolia began under the
Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottomans
between the early 14th and early 20th centuries. Since the foundation of
the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Anatolia has been within Turkey, its
inhabitants being mainly Turks and Kurds.