Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent

Low context culture

Low context culture and the contrasting "high context culture" are terms presented by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his book Beyond Culture. Low context culture refers to a culture’s tendency not to cater towards in-groups...

 and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".

One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural (and econo-cultural) entity: the region lying between Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 and Western Asia, with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

, Orthodox

Eastern Christianity

Eastern Christianity comprises the Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Northeastern Africa, India and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity. The term is generally used in Western Christianity to...

 and minor and limited Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 influences.