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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.

Template:Europe Labelled Map

Definition

The term 'Europe' has multiple uses. Its principal ones are geographical and political.

• 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.

Etymology

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 (Greek: Template:Polytonic, Eurṓpē; see also List of traditional Greek place names) 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 dominant etymological theory suggests the name Europe is derived from the Greek roots meaning broad (eur-) and eye (op-, opt-), hence Eurṓpē, "wide-gazing" (compare with glaukōpis (grey-eyed) Athena or boōpis (ox-eyed) Hera). Broad has been an epithet of Earth itself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion; see Prithvi (Plataia). A minority, however, suggest this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set", cognate to Phoenician 'ereb "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ma'ariv. See also Erebus, PIE *h₁regos, "darkness".

The majority of major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the continent—e.g. Chinese uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲), which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲). However, for centuries, the Turks used the term Frengistan (land of the Franks) in referring to Europe.

History

Prehistory

Homo georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe. Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Spain.Neanderthal man (named for the Neander Valley in Germany) first migrated to Europe 150,000 years ago and disappeared from the fossil record about 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared around 40,000 years ago. During the latter part of this period, a period of megalith construction took place, with many megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge being constructed throughout Europe.

In terms of human society, Prehistoric Europe was inhabited first by nomadic bands, subsequently followed by tribal cultures. Early city-states and states spread broadly from the Fertile Crescent outward around 5000 BC. This led to the various Persian empires and the city-states of Ancient Greece around 700 BC, followed by the Roman Republic that was founded around 500 BC in modern-day Italy. The Roman Republic evolved into the Roman Empire, whose fall in 476 AD led to the northward spread of organized states gradually throughout the rest of Europe over the following millennium.

Classical antiquity

Ancient Greece had a profound impact on Western civilization. Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The Greeks invented the polis, or city-state, which played a fundamental role in their concept of identity. These Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes.

Another major influence on Europe came from the Roman Empire which left its mark on law, language, engineering, architecture, and government. During the pax romana, the Roman Empire expanded to encompass the entire Mediterranean Basin and much of Europe. Stoicism influenced emperors such as Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, who all spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes. Christianity was eventually legitimized by Constantine I after three centuries of imperial persecution.

Dark Ages

During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, and, later still, the Vikings and Normans. Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages". Isolated monastic communities in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled written knowledge accumulated previously; very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from European popular currency.

During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of Celt, Slav and Germanic tribes. The Celtic tribes established their kingdoms in Gaul, the predecessor to the Frankish kingdoms that eventually became France. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Central and Eastern Europe respectively. Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centered in the German principalities of central Europe.

The Eastern Roman Empire became known in the west as the Byzantine Empire. Based in Constantinople, they viewed themselves as the natural successors to the Roman Empire. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia and brought the Christian church under state control. Fatally weakened by the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantines fell in 1453 when they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire.

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism already developed in France in the Early Middle Ages, but soon spread throughout Europe. The struggle between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament. The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.

The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. The East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In Europe itself, the Church organized the Inquisition against heretics. In Spain, the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada in 1492, ending over seven centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula.

Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, which killed an estimated 25 million people - a third of the European population at the time. Successive epidemics led to increased religious fervor, a result of which was widespread persecution of Jews.

Early modern period

The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Italy in the fourteenth century. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries and the Islamic world. The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church and an emerging merchant class. Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Great Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes - one in Avignon and one in Rome - claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had suffered greatly. The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther, a result of the lack of reform within the Church. The Reformation also damaged the Holy Roman Empire's power, as German princes became divided between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths. This eventually led to the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), which crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Germany. In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia, France rose to predominance within Europe.

The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention, and scientific development. In the 15th century, Portugal and Spain, two of the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in the 1498, and soon after the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing colonial empires in the Americas. France, the Netherlands and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

18th and 19th centuries

The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual eighteenth century movement in which scientific and reason-based thought predominated. Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic: the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror. Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of Europe before collapsing in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo.

Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French model for administration, law and education. The Congress of Vienna was convened after Napoleon's downfall. It established a new balance of power in Europe centered on the five "great powers": the United Kingdom, France, Prussia, Habsburg Austria and Russia. This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and Great Britain. The revolutions were eventually put down by more conservative elements and few reforms resulted. In 1867 the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unification of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.

The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technology resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment and the rise of a new working class. Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labor, the legalization of Trade Unions and the abolition of slavery. In Britain the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities Karl Marx's Manifesto of the Communist Party was published in London in 1848.

20th century and present

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, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.re|Germany]] and the Ottoman Empire). The war's casualties, both civilian and military, were around 40 million.

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.

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.

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

Physiographically, Europe is an arbitrarily chosen portion of the northwestern constituent of the larger landmass known as Eurasia, or Afro-Eurasia: in the viewpoint of the Western nations of this mass, Asia occupies the eastern bulk of this continuous landmass 'over there', though both east and western peoples are actually located within a common continental shelf and are part of a common tectonic plate, the Eurasian_Plate. Europe's eastern frontier is in dispute; some delineate it 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, which actually straddles the Eurasian_Plate and the North_American_Plate, though nearer to Greenland (North America) than mainland Europe, is generally included in Europe. This highlights further the arbitrary boundaries of 'Europe' today. 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. A 1389 A.D. Chinese map painted on 17 sq. meters of silk does not show a boundary between 'Europe' and 'Asia' (The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu, or Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire). It shows one continent. This was the view from the Eastern peoples. Europe is purely a Western, political, creation, artificially dividing a continent according to views held by the Western peoples.

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.

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 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than the average temperatures in Irkutsk.

Geology

The Geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary.

Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from England in the west to Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea the North Sea, the Baltic Sea complex and Barents Sea.

The northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded geologically as the "main continent", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older geology of Western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.

Geological history

The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2250 million years ago, followed by the Volgo-Uralia shield, the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1100 million years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around 190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around 50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe, and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe's present shape dates to the late Tertiary period about five million years ago.

Biodiversity

Having lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks.

The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.

Eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area (excluding the micronations) is Iceland (2%), while the most forested country is Finland (72%).

In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce-pine-birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.

Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Spain, etc.).

Other important European carnivores are Eurasian lynx, European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes as (vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians , different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey).

Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others.

Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.

Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention), which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states.

Demographics

Since the Renaissance, 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

The 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.

According to different definitions, such as consideration of the concept of Central Europe, the following territories and regions may be subject to various other categorisations.

Name of region and territory, with flag	Area (km²)	Population (1 July, 2002 est.)	Population density (per km²)	Capital
Eastern Europe:
Belarus	207,600	10,335,382	49.8	Minsk
Bulgaria	110,910	7,621,337	68.7	Sofia
Czech Republic	78,866	10,256,760	130.1	Prague
Hungary	93,030	10,075,034	108.3	Budapest
Moldova	33,843	4,434,547	131.0	Chişinău
Poland	312,685	38,625,478	123.5	Warsaw
Romania	238,391	21,698,181	91.0	Bucharest
Russia	3,960,000	106,037,143	26.8	Moscow
Slovakia	48,845	5,422,366	111.0	Bratislava
Ukraine	603,700	48,396,470	80.2	Kiev
Northern Europe:
Åland (Finland)	1,552	26,008	16.8	Mariehamn
Denmark	43,094	5,368,854	124.6	Copenhagen
Estonia	45,226	1,415,681	31.3	Tallinn
Faroe Islands (Denmark)	1,399	46,011	32.9	Tórshavn
Finland	336,593	5,157,537	15.3	Helsinki
Guernsey	78	64,587	828.0	St Peter Port
Iceland	103,000	307,261	2.7	Reykjavík
Ireland	70,280	4,234,925	60.3	Dublin
Isle of Man	572	73,873	129.1	Douglas
Jersey	116	89,775	773.9	Saint Helier
Latvia	64,589	2,366,515	36.6	Riga
Lithuania	65,200	3,601,138	55.2	Vilnius
Norway	324,220	4,525,116	14.0	Oslo
Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (Norway)	62,049	2,868	0.046	Longyearbyen
Sweden	449,964	9,090,113	19.7	Stockholm
United Kingdom	244,820	61,100,835	244.2	London
Southern Europe:
Albania	28,748	3,600,523	125.2	Tirana
Andorra	468	68,403	146.2	Andorra la Vella
Bosnia and Herzegovina	51,129	4,448,500	77.5	Sarajevo
Croatia	56,542	4,437,460	77.7	Zagreb
Gibraltar (UK)	5.9	27,714	4,697.3	Gibraltar
Greece	131,940	10,645,343	80.7	Athens
Italy	301,230	58,751,711	191.6	Rome
Macedonia	25,333	2,054,800	81.1	Skopje
Malta	316	397,499	1,257.9	Valletta
Montenegro	13,812	616,258	44.6	Podgorica
Portugal	91,568	10,084,245	110.1	Lisbon
San Marino	61	27,730	454.6	San Marino
Serbia	88,361	9,663,742	109.4	Belgrade
Slovenia	20,273	1,932,917	95.3	Ljubljana
Spain	504,851	45,061,274	89.3	Madrid
Vatican City	0.44	900	2,045.5	Vatican City
Western Europe:
Austria	83,858	8,169,929	97.4	Vienna
Belgium	30,510	10,274,595	336.8	Brussels
France	547,030	59,765,983	109.3	Paris
Germany	357,021	83,251,851	233.2	Berlin
Liechtenstein	160	32,842	205.3	Vaduz
Luxembourg	2,586	448,569	173.5	Luxembourg
Monaco	1.95	31,987	16,403.6	Monaco
Netherlands	41,526	16,318,199	393.0	Amsterdam
Switzerland	41,290	7,507,000	176.8	Bern
Central Asia:
Kazakhstan	150,000	600,000	4.0	Astana
Western Asia:
Azerbaijan	7,110	175,200	24.6	Baku
Georgia	2,000	37,520	18.8	Tbilisi
Turkey	24,378	8,000,000	453.1	Ankara
Total	10,176,246	709,608,850	69.7

Economy

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 France the 2nd largest om Europe and the 5th globally (France overtook the UK in late after the Pound had fallen to an 11 year low against the Euro. 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.

Language

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.

Religions

The prevalent religions of Europe are the following:

• Christianity
  • Roman Catholicism: Countries or areas with significant Catholic populations are Andorra, Austria, west Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, south and west Germany, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Latgale region in Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, south Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, central and south Switzerland, west Ukraine, and Vatican City. There are also large Catholic minorities in the United Kingdom (especially in Northern Ireland), and most European countries.
  • Eastern-Rite Catholicism also known as "Uniatism", is found in western Ukraine, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, Hungary, the Republic of Macedonia, Romania,Russia, Serbia and Slovakia, southern Italy (Sardinia and Sicily) and Corsica, France.
  • Orthodox Christianity: The countries with significant Orthodox populations are Greece, Russia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Armenia, Serbia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, easternmost Hungary, a small minority in Southern Italy, Kazakhstan, sizable minorities in Albania, Latvia and Lithuania, small minority in Poland, Finland (Karelia).
  • Protestantism: Countries with significant Protestant populations include Denmark, Estonia, Finland, north and east Germany, Iceland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden; east, north and west Switzerland; and the United Kingdom. There are significant minorities in France, the northwestern Piedmont region of Italy, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and a small minority in Poland.
• Islam: Countries with significant Muslim population are Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, several republics of Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Crimea in Ukraine, and, from Western Europe, France.

Other religions are practiced by smaller groups in Europe, including:

• Judaism primarily in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and Italy. At one time Judaism was practiced widely throughout the European continent, though it has dwindled in numbers since the expulsion, extermination, and exodus of Jews during the later portion of the second millennium.
• Hinduism mainly among Indian immigrants in the United Kingdom. In 1998 there were an estimated 1,382,000 Hindu adherents in Europe alone .
• Buddhism thinly spread throughout Europe and growing rapidly in recent years, about 3 million.
• Indigenous European pagan traditions and beliefs, many countries (a fast-growing neopagan movement in France, Germany, ROI and UK is noted), and one neopagan faith Asatru recognized as a minority religion in Iceland (since 1973), Norway and Sweden.
• Rastafari, communities in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and elsewhere.
• Sikhism, nearly 1 million adherents of Sikhism in Europe. Most of the community live in United Kingdom (750,000) & Italy (70,000). Around 10,000 in Belgium & France. Netherlands and Germany have a Sikh population of 12,000. All other countries have less than or 5,000 Sikhs.
• Jainism, small membership rolls, mainly among Indian immigrants in the United Kingdom.
• Voodoo, mainly among black Caribbean and West African immigrants in the United Kingdom and France.
• Traditional African Religions (including Muti), mainly in the United Kingdom and France.
• Other religions with few (or under a million) adherents in Europe: Animism, Christian Scientists, Eco-religion, Gnosticism, Paganism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mennonites, Moravian Church, Mormonism or Latter-day Saints, Pantheism, Polytheism, theological relativism, Scientology, Seventh-day Adventists, Universal Life Church, Unitarians, Wiccan, and Zoroastrianism.

Millions of Europeans profess no religion or are atheist, agnostic or humanist. The largest non-confessional populations (as a percentage) are found in the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the former soviet countries of Belarus, Estonia, Russia and Ukraine, although most former communist countries have significant non-confessional populations.

Official religions

A number of countries in Europe have official religions, including Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, the Vatican City (Catholic), Greece (Eastern Orthodox), Denmark, Iceland, and Norway (Lutheran). In Switzerland, some cantons are officially Catholic, others Reformed Protestant. Some Swiss villages even have their religion as well as the village name written on the signs at their entrances.

Georgia has no established church, but the Georgian Orthodox Church enjoys de facto privileged status. In Finland, both the Finnish Orthodox Church and the Lutheran Church are official. England, a part of the UK, has Anglicanism as its official religion. Scotland, another part of the UK, has Presbyterianism as its national church, but it is no longer "official". In Sweden, the national church is Lutheranism, but it is also no longer "official". Azerbaijan, France, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain and Turkey are officially "secular".

See also

• History of Europe
• Culture of Europe
• Politics of Europe
• Economy of Europe
• Geography of Europe
• Geology of Europe
• Eurolinguistics
• List of European languages by country
• Prehistoric Europe
• Continental Europe
• Extinct animals of Europe
• Council of Europe

• Euro and the Eurozone
• OSCE
• OSCE countries statistics
• The European miracle
• Europe as a potential superpower
• Euroregion / Eurodistrict
• European American
• Euroscepticism

Lists and tables

General

• Flags of Europe

• List of European countries by geographical area

Demographics

• Demography of Europe
• Area and population of European countries
• European Union Statistics
• List of European countries by population
• European ethnic groups

• Largest European metropolitan areas
• Largest urban areas of the EU
• Largest cities of the EU

Economics

• Economy of the European Union
• Financial and social rankings of European countries

• List of European countries by GDP

Politics

• Date of independence of European countries
• Capital cities of Europe

• International Organisations in Europe
• Alternative names of European cities

Notes

 a: Continental regions as per UN categorisations/map. Depending on definitions, various territories cited below may be in one or both of Europe and Asia, Africa, or Oceania.
 b: Includes Transnistria, a region that has declared, and de facto achieved, independence; however, it is not recognised de jure by sovereign states.
 c: Russia is generally considered a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe (UN region) and Northern Asia, with European territory west of the Ural Mountains and both the Ural and Emba rivers; population and area figures are for European portion only.
 d: Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey are Crown dependencies of the United Kingdom. Other Channel Islands legislated by the Bailiwick of Guernsey include Alderney and Sark.
 e: Montenegro declared independence from the union of Serbia and Montenegro on June 3, 2006.
 f: Figures for Portugal include the Azores west of Portugal but exclude the Madeira Islands, west of Morocco in Africa.
 g: Figures for Serbia include Kosovo, a region that has declared, and de facto achieved, independence; however, it is not recognised by the UN as a de jure sovereign state.
 h: Figures for France include only metropolitan France: some politically integral parts of France are geographically located outside Europe.
 i: Netherlands population for July 2004. Population and area details include European portion only: Netherlands and two entities outside Europe (Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, in the Caribbean) constitute the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is the official capital, while The Hague is the administrative seat.
 j: Kazakhstan is sometimes considered a transcontinental country in Central Asia (UN region) and Eastern Europe, with European territory west of the Ural Mountains and both the Ural and Emba rivers; area figures are for European portion out of total.
 k: Armenia and Cyprus are sometimes considered transcontinental countries: both are physiographically in Western Asia but have historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe.
 l: Azerbaijan is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia (UN region) and Eastern Europe; population and area figures are for European portion (north of the crest of the Caucasus and the Kura River) out of total. This excludes the exclave of Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh (a region that has declared, and de facto achieved, independence; however, it is not recognised de jure by sovereign states).
 m: Georgia is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia (UN region) and Eastern Europe; population and area figures are for European portion (north of the crest of the Caucasus and the Kura River) out of total. Also includes Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that have declared, and de facto achieved, independence; however, they are not recognised de jure by sovereign states.
 n: Turkey is generally considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia (UN region) and Southern Europe: the region of Rumelia (Trakya)—which includes the provinces of Edirne, Kırklareli, Tekirdağ, and the western parts of the Çanakkale and Istanbul Provinces—is west and north of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles; population and area figures are for European portion (including all of Istanbul) out of total population.
 o: The total area figure includes only European portions of transcontinental countries.
 p: The total population figure includes only European portions of transcontinental countries.

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References

• National Geographic (2005). National Geographic Visual History of the World. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. ISBN 0-7922-3695-5.

External links

• Template:Wikitravel
• An animated map of Europe at the time of the Congress of Vienna
• An animated map of Europe at the end of the First World War

• "Europe". The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online. 2005. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Europe at Night at NASA Earth Observatory
• Council of Europe
• European Union

• Continents
• Europe