European stereotypes, what is your opinion?

As written in some previous posts, travelling is very important when speaking about stereotypes. They can be really offensive sometimes, but they can be curious as well. It’s always interesting to know the most peculiar ones and also their cultural roots.

Europe has lots of them, mainly because of the fact that is made up by several countries, each one different from all the others mostly from a cultural and a historical point of view. Describing each country’s stereotypes would be very interesting, but really long. Even mentioning some of them would not give justice to their cultural roots.

First of all, it’s very important to mention that stereotypes are not universally accepted. Dividing the stereotypes by European areas would be much more effective and as interesting as analysing each country’s ones. Because of historical reasons, they may change from the place you’re looking at a country or at a certain area. Speaking in the most general way possible, Europe can be divided into the following main areas: southern Europe (including Spain, Portugal and Italy), central Europe (including for example Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria), the Balkans, the Baltic region (which includes the Scandinavian peninsula and Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania for example), eastern Europe (including for example Bulgaria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Slovak, Hungary etc.) and transcontinental Europe (which includes mainly Russia and Turkey).

Starting from this division, it’s easier to approach to cultural stereotypes.
Talking about southern Europe, its inhabitants are known as easy going and friendly people (a bit noisy sometimes, though not for everybody). They take their time to do everything, from work to life in general, and live more relaxed, still reaching good results though. Food, music and art are maybe the main three prides of these countries. Spain, France and Italy are specially famous for being the motherlands of the ones who are considered the most passionate and romantic lovers.


Moving to central Europe, those countries are famous for job-related culture and offers. Germany’s population is famous to be made by really hard-working people. They’re also known to love cars (sometimes more then people as it’s believed).

Going to the South again, this time in the eastern part, there are the Balkans. They host many different countries, each of them has specific cultural features. But what they apparently have in common is that their inhabitants are known to be kind and sometimes brave people (for example Serbs), who strongly believe and support their traditions.

To talk about the Baltic region is a little bit more difficult, so it’s necessary to distinguish the Scandinavian peninsula plus Denmark, from the other countries. Scandinavian people are in fact known to be a bit cold-hearted, but beautiful and stunning human being thanks to their fair eyes and hair colou. When other countries talk about them, they are usually referred as myth culture-based people. On the other hand, the population of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are seen as rational and determined people and they’re hardworking as well.


Moving up to the eastern part of Europe, we can find a varied set of countries, each one pretty different from the others in some way. What they mainly have in common is the beauty which characterized mostly the female population: women from this area are recognized (almost worldwide) as really beautiful. Moreover, eastern European people are apparently well known for their humorism (which could be a little bit sadist in Slovakia).

Last but not least, it’s a bit tricky to talk about the two big countries which belong to the transcontinental Europe: they’re in fact really huge and set on many cultures, all very individual. Talking about Turkey, it is believed to be the country of very friendly people, which are seen as the main bridge to the Arabic culture, bringing some good food, music and characteristic traditions to Europe.

Do you have an opinion about stereotypes? Do you know the stereotype for your country? 

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About Peartree Languages

Peartree Languages is a language school located in Cardiff.