The geographical scope of this atlas spans 30 European countries for which maps, graphs and figures are designed to provide comparative and overall indications. These countries are the 27 member states of the European Union (referred to as EU 27) plus one candidate country, Croatia, as well as Norway and Switzerland. The atlas refers to the 15 states that were members of the European Union until April 30th, 2004 as EU 15, to the 25 states that were members of the EU until December 31st, 2006 as EU 25.
The 12 countries that joined since May 1st, 2004 are referred to as "recent member states". Countries are designated by their Internet URL extension. Therefore, Germany is designated as DE, Greece as GR, Spain as ES, etc.
When relevant, European data are compared with figures from countries in other regions, like the United States of America (US), Canada (CA) or Japan (JP). Finally, a glossary at the end of the atlas provides definitions for the specific terminology used in texts or titles.
|
