the next european sub-region we will take a look at is western europe western europe has eight countries not including the czech republic we're not going to include that that's traditionally part of eastern europe the author as i mentioned earlier somewhat ambivalent about where to put a few of the countries this really is the heart of the eu the two major uh countries in the eu france and germany are here and taken as a whole it's one of the greatest concentrations of populations cities industry and technological development in the entire world it is an amazing place of thriving culture and industry now the people uh you see here the populations of the various countries i put these up simply for comparison purposes just like i did with the with uh middle and south america and uh with the other european countries i don't expect you to remember numbers if you need to remember numbers i'll tell you what to remember all of the countries are nation states except belgium and switzerland now that it would be a statement there's a statement that would be completely and totally accurate prior to all of the immigration in europe over the last 30 40 50 years all the countries do have aging populations so there is a old age dependency factor in the population and in in the economy as well and there are significant numbers of migrants now in all of the countries they come in for a number of different reasons as listed here and that has resulted in some backlash just like it has in the united states just like it has in malaysia and a number of different countries where there is a more prosperous economy those countries are going to see an influx of migrants all right i mentioned uh aging population is a good example and here is old age dependency ratio uh and you can see it's increasing for the various developed countries even in india it's going to be increasing as time goes on foreign residents immigrants in europe there's a lot some countries like here luxembourg although it's a small country almost half the population are non-citizens foreigners foreigners turks brought in or that came in to germany in the 1950s to take jobs because there were more jobs available than there were people to fill them they came in as guest workers and they stayed and now there are german-born turks and they're they're citizens they're apart they're germans now even though they are turkish ethnicity the migration has resulted in a backlash uh and it's not just in germany it's throughout europe that one finds an anti-immigrant sentiment some generalizations all the countries are representative democracies three of them are constitutional monarchies all the rest are parliamentary republics um caveat on that france while it has a form of a parliamentary republic the president of france has actual real political power unlike say the president of ireland or the president of germany who were simply figureheads they're heads of state but they're figureheads in france uh mackerel the president has real power in the sense that he is in charge of foreign affairs in the military among a few other things uh ukraine has the same basic system as does russia they're parliamentary republics but the president has actual political power so it's a little bit different they're modified parliamentary republic in terms of resources coal the area has a lot of coal france belgium germany and i may make a statement here uh coal is also found in great quantity in eastern europe in poland in the czech republic and in ukraine we'll get to that a little bit later but i wanted to bring that up now to let you know that coal is found in many places in europe iron is abundant in eastern france and neighboring luxembourg there are many many other metallic or deposits through scattered throughout western europe uh and then of course hydroelectric power uh is important in france switzerland and austria because of the the alps all right some other generalizations and this is a slide that you really should pay attention to in terms of agriculture just like the countries we've already talked about all of them have scientific high-tech mechanized agriculture all these countries produce all mid-latitude crops they're not limited now to cold or cool climate crops they grow all sorts of mid-latitude crops switzerland and austria because of the mountains their agricultural potential is limited particularly switzerland france on the other hand is the outstanding member of this region in terms of agriculture france produces just about everything and it does it in quantity in western europe france is the number one agricultural country in europe as a whole france and ukraine are the two large agricultural countries in terms of industry all of the countries have diversified industrial economies except switzerland and austria the reason they don't is because they lack some of the necessary resources to have developed a diversified industrial economy although austria is beginning to diversify in that in that regard there are light industries uh throughout the region and again all of them are highly sophisticated taking a look at the individual countries what do they speak in germany well obviously german what about religion the northern part of the country is private primarily protestant christian in religion uh the central and southern poor part is primarily roman catholic now you notice a significant uh division in the map and that's a result of the war the second world war that orange area east what was eastern europe eastern germany rather was part of the soviet military occupation zone while as the pink and red part were the military occupation zones for the united kingdom france and the united states western germany western germany developed as a free market economy while eastern germany developed as a marxist state and it shows in the difference in the economic status of the two regions that's slowly evening out but the division is still there there's a protestant church in dresden it's as in eastern germany and central berlin the capital here's central berlin again with the famous brandenburg gate and here is the reichstag this is the parliament building germany is a parliamentary republic one of the sad aspects of germany of course is what happened during the second world war uh the holocaust uh six million jews were eliminated uh worked to death gassed to death beaten to death um and of course it's true that there were many other people besides jews that suffered similar fates one of the things that germany invented was the audubon and this for better or worse was invented in 1930s during the nazi time and it was a way to move uh the military quickly and efficiently across the landscape uh products in terms of the primary sector of the economy that is taking something directly from the earth germany produces just about everything all kinds of agricultural products all kinds of minerals you can see a little bit of oil here uh wood products it's got resources in abundance german agriculture mechanized high-tech uh the one thing that's the problem with germany is that it cannot produce enough food to feed itself it has to import food it produces about 80 of what's necessary and that's because of the terrain and the fact that it's densely populated german resources and industrial areas all right there's a little problem with this slide natural gas here is the red area bituminous coal that's black coal is black lignite coal which is brown coal is brown salt is yellow and then the red dots are industrial areas the tumen is called black coal i think i mentioned when we were talking about north america that's used for bed allergy because it burns really hot the brown coal which germany has a lot of doesn't burn as hot but it's used to boil water for the production of electricity german industrial sites what does germany produce in terms of industry industrial products everything they they have a completely diversified industrial economy uh there we are uh with the heavy industry with sarland and a uh automobile test track and an automobile factory all heavy industries and camera factory uh the light industry another light industry is tourism here we are in the bavarian alps and cunyxie again in the bavarian alps unfortunately i deleted the picture of marion plotz in uh munich which is the site of oktoberfest but anyway you know about it now all right the benelux countries benelux belgium netherlands and luxembourg belgium and netherlands they sit on the at the mouth of the rhine river an estuary and therefore they're also called the low countries because they're low in elevation parts of netherlands of course are below sea level uh the three countries together um extremely highly productive in the top 20 economies in the world from belgium and the netherlands even though they're small countries with relatively small populations and luxembourg uh it's got one of the highest uh gdps per capita in the gni per capita gross national income in the entire world netherlands constitutional monarchy and it's had been it's has a history of expanding its land by land reclamation although they've stopped doing that now for environmental reasons three major cities here uh amsterdam uh rotterdam and the ha form a triangle and it's called the ronstadt uh which is a big conservation of cities and here you see a map of the netherlands it's got some natural gas got a little bit of coal doesn't have an awful lot but it since it's situated right close to iron ore in france and luxembourg coal in germany and belgium and it's always been a trading nation uh it's developed a diversified industrial economy does everything the two major industrial centers here amsterdam and rotterdam and here's rotterdam taken showing europort this is one of the major uh one of the largest ports in the entire world and it's the major port for europe rotterdam itself is an interesting city some unique architecture this building here is called the pencil building for obvious reason this building it looks kind of like a horseshoe is the market hall and inside glass face on both ends inside uh there's a two level market and then one down a subterranean area it's a market as well and what are these square wind square things they're windows for apartments fascinating multi-use building and then what are these odd things here these pointy things those are the cube houses very strange architecture but fascinating and um now one of them uh you can tour inside which is what i did and this isn't taken inside all right belgium another constitutional monarchy and like uh rotterdam it one of its major cities antwerp is a major port ah there is a cultural fault line here and that is between the walloons in the south who speak french and the flemish in the north that speak dutch it belgium is kind of an artificial country it was cobbled together uh after the napoleonic wars uh brussels the capital uh is the headquarters of the european union all right there's the fault line flanders in the north wallonia in the south uh in times past these people and i mean within the last 50 years have had riots over the issue of language uh belgium uh the resources what do you see coal coal coal more coal that's the basis for the beginnings and the continuation of belgian industrialization luxembourg now here is a giant of a country i'm being facetious 998 square miles which means that it is less than one-third the size of monterey county it's constitutional marquee the monarch is the grand duke and its financial services and information technology industries make it one of the most wealthy countries in the world it's in the top five in terms of gross national income per capita all right let's move on to france france like england developed early on as a centralized state around a major city and a monarch france has stayed until fairly recently a highly centralized country it is decentralizing though giving more authority to its various regions and departments now this is a slide to remember comparing the two big countries uh in on the continent france and germany france is bigger france although it's got a lot more coastline has very little in the way of good ports the arab is about the only one that's really good and its rivers are not particularly uh navigable the sen is navigable for some distance and the rhone is also but not like the rhine river for instance or the danube which is in germany germany is more industrialized than france is but both of these countries are in the top 10 industrial economies in the world because germany has more people and it's smaller it has a more extensive transportation system now uh france is still focused on paris paris is by far the primate city it's got somewhere between 13 and 15 million people in front of notre dame cathedral there is a metal plaque in the pavement and that is the milestone the zero milestone for everywhere in france everywhere is measured in france is measured from that milestone in terms of religion it's roman catholic of a generalization i gave you a generalization when we saw germany where northern germa northern uh the northern countries north germany and uh you know the united kingdom are basically protestant well western europe southern europe and part of the northeastern europe are primarily roman catholic this of course was taken before the the fire all right tourism important in france the eiffel tower and this is the iphone this is uh the eiffel tower from the montparnasse tower and looking out and behind you you see la defense this is a collection of high-rise buildings which is the center of banking finance insurance business headquarters uh the greatest concentration of all those things in in europe is right there now you notice that the high rises outside the central part of the city here we've got low rise buildings that's for historic preservation these buildings most of them were built in the 19th century uh they're beautiful in terms of architecture the champs-elysees with the york tree off in the distance um this street is interesting in that it on that street is the most famous restaurant in the entire world this restaurant is known throughout the world what restaurant is it mcdonald's i kid you not there is a mcdonald's on the chandelier i went in there just to see what the menu is like and i have to admit it's a lot more varied than you find here and no i did not eat there there's way better places to eat all right this is taken from the top of the arctic tree off looking up the avenue chaldegaal to la defos i mentioned french agriculture excellent excellent uh soil numerous different micro climates and so this country produces just about everything wine grape grapes and wine of course are made from france famous a vineyard near lake geneva and right near the alps in the south uh wheat in provence uh france is one of the top ten wheat producing countries in the world and farther south near the mediterranean camarge rice is produced the country produces just about everything in terms of mineral resources uh coal and iron in the north and numerous different minerals around the country you noticed all the use uranium that has given france the basis for a nuclear power industry it's most of their electricity is generated from nuclear power in terms of industry diversified here's an example of heavy industry steel mill and then automobile production another heavy industry all right let's move on to the alpine states two countries switzerland and austria both of them land locked which means that they have to get their goods out to the world market by going through another country which can be problematic at times depending on where where and when one wants to move good good move goods and product all right linguistic differences are primarily found here in switzerland because there's the french swiss the german swiss the italian swiss and the roman swiss although they don't think of themselves that way they think of themselves as swiss that's their litter loyalty it's not so much ethnicity not much in the way of resources in switzerland other than hydroelectric power uh austria has some metallic ores and some coal as well as hydroelectric power switzerland it is the leader of the two in terms of gdp and gdp per capita it it has light industry because it doesn't have the resources for heavy industry and specializes in high quality precision manufacturers such as medical equipment scientific equipment and also pharmaceuticals of course it's known as a banking center it's had that reputation for years and years and years you know secret bank accounts and what have you uh although they're opening that up now so they're not so secret anymore and then tourism is a major industry here all right you can see why swiss agriculture is not particularly important it's steep sided valleys very little in the way of flat land so crops are not easily grown tourism a big industry uh lake luzerne lake luzerne again and then from the air austria uh the historic center of the austro-hungarian empire uh has had a checkered history since the breakup of the austro-hungarian empire was a republic uh prior to nazi times became part of the third reich uh in the second world war uh and slightly before um it still has a patina of that historical era on it in terms of economy mostly here we see small farms not large ones but there are some large ones and there are it's all highly productive again high-tech mechanized agriculture industry again is mostly light industry because of the lack of resources but again it is beginning to diversify somewhat services are particularly important just like they are in switzerland consulting finance law and tourism austria resources you see some coal not much in the way of coal some oil and natural gas out here in the far east in terms of industry mostly it's centered in the capital city the major city of vienna dairy cattle in the alps in western austria grain harvesting in eastern austria and then this is part of the diversification that's going on we have a steel mill not too far outside of vienna and it's uh to a large extent robotically controlled tourism i showed you a picture of this before uh it was a different different from a different angle a skywalk you stand out walk over nothing which is kind of cool and then vienna itself is well worth visiting uh this is a romanesque church um carl's kirka it's a giant catholic church and then schonbrunn palace which is definitely worth a visit and that will wrap it up for western europe and next we will take up southern europe