<P> The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the Roman Empire . The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language ( owing to the older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors ) , whereas the West was much more rural in its character and more readily adopted Latin as its common language . After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in the Arab / Muslim world and among the Eastern and Southern Slavic peoples . Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe , as such , maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance . Even following the Protestant Reformation , Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the perceived civilized world . </P>
where does the term the west come from
the Roman Empire