Europe

Europe is the smallest of the mostly-inhabited continents, but one of the most influential. It covers about 10,180,000 km² (3.93 million square miles), roughly 7% of Earth’s land area, and is home to around 745 million people across 44 sovereign countries.

Where is Europe?

Europe occupies the western fifth of the giant Eurasian landmass. Its conventional boundary with Asia runs along the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, which separates Europe from Africa.

European geography

Europe is dominated by the Alps, which arc through France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia; the highest Alpine peak is Mont Blanc (4,808 m). The Pyrenees separate Spain from France, and the Carpathian and Balkan ranges shape Eastern Europe. Europe’s highest point is Mount Elbrus in Russia (5,642 m). The longest river is the Volga (3,531 km), followed by the Danube and the Rhine. Europe has a deeply indented coastline with major peninsulas (Iberian, Italian, Balkan, Scandinavian) and seas including the Baltic, North, Adriatic, Aegean, and Mediterranean.

Regions of Europe

• Western Europe, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Monaco, Liechtenstein.
• Northern Europe (Scandinavia and the Nordic countries), Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland.
• Eastern Europe, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), and European Russia.
• Southern Europe, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, and the Balkan nations (Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo).
• Microstates, Vatican City (the world’s smallest country), San Marino, Andorra.

People, languages, and religions

Europe’s languages mostly belong to the Indo-European family. The biggest groups are the Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian), the Germanic languages (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish), and the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Serbian, Bulgarian). Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian belong to the unrelated Uralic family; Greek, Albanian, and the Celtic languages are independent branches; Basque is unrelated to any other language. Christianity is the largest religion, with the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and various Protestant branches all having European homelands.

Famous landmarks

Europe is packed with iconic sites: the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, the Acropolis in Athens, Big Ben in London, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Tower Bridge, Stonehenge, the canals of Venice, the fjords of Norway, and the Northern Lights in the Arctic Circle.

Explore European countries

Choose any of Europe’s 44 sovereign countries below for its complete fact file.