All About Europe
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Europe - France - Hungary
Area: 10,180,000 km² (3,930,000 sq mi)
Population: 710,000,000
Density: 70/km² (181/sq mi)
Demonym: European
Government: 48 countries, 27 of which are in the European Union (EU)
Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea.
Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2% of the Earth's surface. The only continent smaller than Europe is Australia. Of Europe's 48 countries, Russia is the largest by both area and population, while the Vatican is the smallest. Europe is the third most populous continent after Asia and Africa with a population of 710,000,000 or about 11% of the world's population. However, the term continent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europe's precise borders, area and population.
Europe is the birthplace of Western culture. European nations played a predominant role in global affairs from the 16th century onwards, especially after the beginning of colonization. By the 17th and 18th centuries European nations controlled most of Africa, the Americas, and large portions of Asia. World War I and World War II led to a decline in European dominance in world affairs as the United States and Soviet Union took preeminence. The Cold War between those two superpowers divided Europe along the Iron Curtain. European integration led to the formation of the Council of Europe and the European Union in Western Europe, both of which have been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Physiographically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of the continent of Eurasia; its limits are well defined by sea to the North, South and West, and by a slightly arbitrary boundary discussed below on the east and south-eastern side. The Ural mountains are usually taken as the eastern limit of Europe; certainly points beyond are not usually considered to be part of the continent.
Politically, Europe comprises those countries in the European Union, but may at times be used more casually to refer to both the EU together with other non-EU countries generally, in the same region.
In addition, people in countries such as Ireland, United Kingdom, Scandinavia and the Mediterranean islands, may routinely refer to "continental" or "mainland" Europe (or simply "the Continent"), as a term for the main land mass.
In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull, and took to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north.
The majority of major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the continent—e.g. Chinese uses the word Ōuzhōu, which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu. However, for centuries, the Turks used the term Frengistan (land of the Franks) in referring to Europe.
Recent History
The first half of the 20th century was dominated by two world wars and an economic depression. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. All European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between two series of alliances: the Entente Powers (led by France, Russia and the United Kingdom, joined later by Italy and the United States) and the Central Powers (led by Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire). The war's casualties, both civilian and military, were around 40 million. World War I changed the map of Europe. Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, after which the Tsarist monarchy was replaced by the communist Soviet Union. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn or eliminated altogether. The Treaty of Versailles was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.
Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred from the First World War, brought about the worldwide Great Depression during the 1930s, precipitated by the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Fascist movements developed throughout Europe during the economic crisis, placing leaders Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy in power.
The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference. Seated are Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin.Hitler began slowly expanding Germany's size after coming to power, incorporating Austria with the Anschluss in 1938 and later Czechoslovakia after already annexing the Sudetenland in a move that was highly contested by the other powers but ultimately permitted in hopes of appeasing Hitler. His invasion of Poland in 1939, backed by Soviet troops, prompted France and the United Kingdom to declare war, starting World War II in Europe. In 1940 Germany quickly conquered the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway. Aided by their newly declared allies Italy, they occupied France, but failed in their bombing offensive on Britain. In 1941 they unexpectedly turned on their former Soviet allies with an ultimately unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British and Free French forces. By 1944 the Germans were being attacked on two fronts: by Soviet forces in the east and by British and U.S. forces in the west. Berlin finally fell in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the world, including between 9 and 11 million people who perished during the Holocaust.
The flag of Europe used by the Council of Europe and European Union.World War I and especially World War II ended the pre-eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by an "iron curtain". The United States and Western Europe established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe established the Warsaw Pact.
The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year long Cold War, centered on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonization, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa. In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps of Eastern Europe had once more to be completely redrawn.
European integration also grew in the post-World War II years. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market. In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency. Beginning in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to its current size of 27 European nations.
Geography and extent
A satellite composite image of EuropeMain article: Geography of Europe
Physiographically, Europe is the northwestern constituent of the larger landmass known as Eurasia, or Afro-Eurasia: Asia occupies the eastern bulk of this continuous landmass and all share a common continental shelf. Europe's eastern frontier is now commonly delineated by the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The first century AD geographer Strabo, took the Tanais River to be the boundary, as did early Judaic sources. The southeast boundary with Asia is not universally defined. Most commonly the Ural or, alternatively, the Emba River serve as possible boundaries. The boundary continues to the Caspian Sea, the crest of the Caucasus Mountains or, alternatively, the Kura River in the Caucasus, and on to the Black Sea; the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean; Iceland, though nearer to Greenland (North America) than mainland Europe, is generally included in Europe. There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe is. For detailed description of the boundary between Asia and Europe see transcontinental nation.
Because of sociopolitical and cultural differences, there are various descriptions of Europe's boundary; in some sources, some territories are not included in Europe, while other sources include them. For instance, geographers from Russia and other post-Soviet states generally include the Urals in Europe while including Caucasia in Asia. Similarly, numerous geographers consider Azerbaijan's and Armenia's southern border with Iran and Turkey's southern and eastern border with Syria, Iraq and Iran as the boundary between Asia and Europe because of political and cultural reasons. In the same way, despite being close to Asia and Africa, the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta are considered part of Europe.
Physical geography
Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions, however, are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut, spine of Norway.
This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-regions like Iceland, Britain and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.
Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe.
Tara River Canyon, the deepest canyon in Europe is located in Montenegro.
Shoreline in Mediterranean Greece.
Europe's longest river, the Volga River, at Yaroslavl.
Päijänne lake and white nights in Finland.
Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe, is located in northeastern Iceland.
Aletsch Glacier, the largest glacier in Continental Europe, is located in Switzerland
Cape Roca, a cape that forms the westernmost point of mainland Europe, is located in Portugal
Climate
Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies.
The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe. This is due to the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf Stream does not only carry warm water to Europe's coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean.
Therefore the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (60.8 °F), while it is only 12 °C (53.6 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie at about the same latitude. But January temperatures in Berlin average about 15 °F (8 °C) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 40 °F (22 °C) higher than the average temperatures in Irkutsk.
Demographics
The population growth/decline of European countriesSince the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, Europe has had a major influence in culture, economics and social movements in the world. European demographics are important not only historically, but also in understanding current international relations and population issues.
Some current and past issues in European demographics have included religious emigration, race relations, economic immigration, a declining birth rate and an aging population. In some countries, such as the Republic of Ireland and Poland, access to abortion is currently limited; in the past, such restrictions and also restrictions on artificial birth control were commonplace throughout Europe. Furthermore, three European countries (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland) have allowed a limited form of voluntary euthanasia for some terminally ill people.
In 2005 the population of Europe was estimated to be 728 million according to the United Nations, which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world's population. A century ago Europe had nearly a quarter of the world's population. The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly. According to UN population projection (medium variant), Europe's share will fall to 7% in 2050, numbering 653 million. Within this context, significant disparities exist between religions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child bearing age is 1.52. According to some sources, this rate is higher among Muslims. In 2005 the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people, despite having one of the highest population densities in the world. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe's total population growth.
Political geography
Territories and regions
See also: Demographics of Europe and List of European countries by population
Regions of Europe as delineated by the United Nations (other categorisations may vary):
Northern Europe
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Southern EuropeThe countries in this table are categorised according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations, and data included are per sources in cross-referenced articles. Where they differ, provisos are clearly indicated.
Economy of Europe
European nations by GDP per capita in 2002Main article: Economy of Europe
As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth. The European Union, or EU, an intergovernmental body composed of most of the European states, is one of the two largest in the world. Of the member states in the EU, Germany has the largest national economy, being 3rd largest globally, and the UK has the 2nd largest, at 5th place globally. Fifteen EU countries share a common unit of currency, the euro. Major economic sectors in Europe include agriculture, manufacturing, and investment. The majority of the EU's trade is with the United States, China, India, Russia and non-member European states.
European Languages
European languages mostly fall within three language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin language of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.
Romance languages are spoken primarily in south-western Europe as well as Romania and Moldova which are situated in Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken more or less in north-western Europe and some parts of central Europe. Slavic languages are spoken in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.
Many other languages outside the three main groups are spoken in Europe. The English language is unique among Germanic languages, having much of its vocabulary descended from Romance languages. The Celtic language group is also a distinct group like the Romance, Germanic and Slavic language groups, and though it has largely disappeared from daily use, there are still varying numbers of speakers of each of the six Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, and Welsh, Cornish and Breton.
Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognized political goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.
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