Eastern European Countries: Full List, Capitals, and Map

Eastern Europe is one of the four subregions of the European continent.

While the term “Eastern Europe” can carry cultural or political interpretations in everyday use, this page follows the official UN statistical classification, which is used for international reporting, global datasets, and regional comparisons.

Under the UN geoscheme, Eastern Europe consists of 10 sovereign countries.

List of countries in Eastern Europe

• Belarus
• Bulgaria
• Czechia (Czech Republic)
• Hungary
• Moldova
• Poland
• Romania
• Russia
• Slovakia
• Ukraine

This UN-defined grouping is widely used by organisations such as the United Nations, World Bank, WHO, and other international bodies to ensure consistency across demographic, economic, and development statistics.

Eastern European countries table

The UN geoscheme recognises the following sovereign states as part of the Eastern Europe subregion:

Note: Russia is a transcontinental country; area shown is total national area.

Countries in Europe Map

Eastern Europe spans large lowland plains, major river systems, and extensive forest and forest-steppe zones, particularly across its eastern and southern areas.

The region includes the East European Plain, one of the world’s largest continuous lowland areas, as well as fertile agricultural zones, broad river basins such as the Volga (Europe’s longest river), the Danube and Dnieper, and long land borders that have historically shaped trade, migration, and geopolitics.

How Eastern Europe is defined

UN geoscheme (most common)

This page follows the United Nations (UN) geoscheme, which defines Eastern Europe as a distinct statistical subregion used for international comparisons.

This definition is used by:

• The United Nations
• The World Bank
• The World Health Organization (WHO)
• Other international statistical and development agencies

Under the UN geoscheme, Eastern Europe consists of the 10 sovereign countries listed above and is the standard framework used for population, land area, economic, health, and development data.

Post-Soviet and Cold War definitions

In historical and political contexts, Eastern Europe has often been defined more narrowly or differently.

During the Cold War, the term “Eastern Europe” was commonly used to describe countries aligned with or influenced by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. In this usage, the region was defined ideologically rather than geographically.

Today, historians and social scientists generally consider this Cold War definition outdated for geographic or statistical purposes.

Central and Eastern Europe

In some academic, political, and EU-related contexts, the term Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is used as a broader grouping.

This classification often combines parts of Eastern Europe with Central Europe for historical or political analysis, but it does not correspond to the UN’s geographic subregions and is not used as a universal framework for global statistical classification.

Physical geography definition

In physical geography, Eastern Europe is often defined by:

• The East European Plain
• Major continental river systems
• Broad forest–steppe transition zones
• Continental climate patterns

This approach focuses on landforms, climate, and ecosystems rather than political boundaries and is commonly used in environmental science and climatology.

Global regions map

To place Eastern Europe within the wider UN classification system, the global regions map below shows how all world subregions are organized.

The UN geoscheme assigns every UN member state to a defined geographic region, allowing consistent international comparisons across continents.

Antarctica is excluded because the framework applies only to UN member states.

Within Europe, the UN recognizes four subregions:

• Northern Europe
• Western Europe
• Eastern Europe
• Southern Europe

Across the entire world, the UN geoscheme identifies 22 geographical subregions in total.