For example, the south of France and northern Italy experienced extremely heavy rain and 1000km/h winds in November 2016.
根据这个句子是不是可以理解为：表示在某国的东/南/西/北部，可以有两种不同的说法：
the south of France / southern France
the north of Italy / northern Italy
the east of Germany / eastern Germany
the west of Russian / western Russian
你的理解是对的，以下几个表达都是正确的：
