Mazower's "The Balkans": "Introduction: Names" - 2

Notes on:  "The Balkans:  A Short History" by Mark Mazower (e-Book, 2007, Random House)

Introduction:  Names (pg 12)

As I dive in, my first misconception (which is, apparently, one among many misconceptions, and points of contention, about the region and its peoples) is in the geographic definition of "The Balkans."  In my previous post, based on supposition only, I included Romania and Hungary as possible candidates for inclusion.  From both the book and the detailed, excellent Wikipedia article here, there are three basic geographic definitions of "The Balkans":

1. The first is based on the history and meaning of the word itself. The diverse possible origins of the word include Ottoman Turkish (and related words found in other Turkik languages) which may have come earlier from Persian.  At the origin of the use of the term "The Balkans" in common European use in the 19th century, the term implied wooded mountains and/or a wooded pass through mountains.  Combine that with the Britannica topographic map and you can see that this region includes the mountainous Adriatic coastal region countries of the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece and Bulgaria.
   
   Bringing this concept further in time, from the other excellent Wikipedia article on "The Balkan Mountains" here, the Bulgars in the 7th century applied this term (meaning "mountain") as the name for the east-west mountain range through central Bulgaria to the north of Sofia -- which it retains today.
   
   
   (Image Published to Wikipedia here)
   
   
   (Image Published to Wikipedia By Bulgaria-geographic map-en.svg: IkonactBalkangebirge Balkan topo de.jpg: RosarioVanTulpe~commonswikiderivative work: Rowanwindwhistler (talk) - Bulgaria-geographic map-en.svgBalkangebirge Balkan topo de.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45687543 here)
2. The second geographic definition is based on the series of rivers extending from the head of the Adriatic east to the Black Sea.
   
   (Image published to Wikipedia By Captain Blood~commonswiki - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=675499 here)
3. And the third geographic definition "The Peninsula's most extensive definition, bordered by water on three sides and connected with a line on the fourth"
   
   (Image published to Wikipedia here)