adjectives - How should "Northern Europe" be capitalized?


Europe should obviously be capitalized, since it is a proper noun. Should the northern part of the example sentence "I was traveling through northern Europe." be capitalized?


In country names such as North Holland, north is actually part of the name and not an adjective, and should therefore be capitalized.


However, in this case, there is no part of Europe officially named "Northern Europe", but is instead just used as a general (and varied, depending on you count them) list of countries roughly situated towards the north. What are the rules for capitalization in such a case?




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