East-West divide

The East-West divide refers to the historical and ideological separation between Western democracies and Eastern communist states during the Cold War, or more broadly, to cultural and economic differences between Western and Eastern regions.

The Cold War sense centered on the division of Europe by the Iron Curtain: The East-West divide shaped international relations for decades.

The term also describes ongoing disparities between developed Western nations and Eastern ones, or within countries between more prosperous western regions and less developed eastern areas: Germany still grapples with the East-West divide thirty years after reunification.