Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, starting the Early Middle Ages. This event marked a permanent boundary between Latin-speaking western territories and Greek-speaking eastern provinces.
Winston Churchill popularized the term Iron Curtain in his Sinews of Peace address on the 5th of March 1946. He delivered this speech from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri to describe the division between political systems across Europe.
Under the UN geoscheme system, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, and Switzerland are classified as Western Europe. This classification does not imply any assumption regarding political affiliation of countries or territories.
Western European languages mostly fall within two Indo-European language families: Romance and Germanic. Other languages include the Celtic group comprising Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, while Basque stands alone as the only currently living Old European language isolate.
Germany has the highest gross domestic product in all of Europe and holds the largest financial surplus of any country in the region. It also maintains the highest net national wealth of any European state according to available data.