Europe is the6th largest continent, comprising 4,000,000 sq mi (10,360,000 sq km) including nearby islands (1992 est. pop. 512,000,000). It is actually a large peninsula of the excellent Eurasian land mass. By convention, it is divided from Asia by the Urals and the Ural River in the east; by the Caspian Sea and also the Caucasus in the southeast; and by the Black Sea, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles in the south. The Mediterranean Sea and also the Strait of Gibraltar different it from Africa. Europe is cleaned in the north by the Arctic Sea, and in the west by the Atlantic Ocean, with which the North Sea and also the Baltic Sea are connected.

The massive Towering mountain chain, of which the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathians, the Balkans, as well as the Caucasus are the principal links, traverses the continent from west to eastern. The acmes are Mt. Elbrus (18,481 ft/5,633 m) in the Caucasus and Mont Blanc (15,771 ft/4,807 m) in the Alps. Europe’s floor (92 ft/28 m below water level) is the surface area of the Caspian Sea. Between the hilly Scandinavian peninsula in the north and also the Towering chain in the south lie the Central European Uplands surrounded by the terrific European plain, extending from the Atlantic coast of France to the Urals.

A huge part of this plain (which is interrupted by minor mountain groups and hillsides) has productive agricultural soil; in the eastern and north there are vast steppe, woodland, lake, and tundra areas. South of the Towering chain extend the Iberian, Italian, as well as Balkan peninsulas, which are mostly mountainous. The Po plain, in between the Alps as well as the Apennines, and also the Alföld plain, between the Carpathians and the Alps, are productive and also much-developed areas. Amongst the principal river systems of Europe are, from eastern to west, those of the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper, the Danube, the Vistula, the Oder, the Elbe, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Loire, the Garonne, as well as the Tagus.

Europe can be separated into seven geographical areas: Scandinavia (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and also Denmark); the British Islands (the United Kingdom and Ireland); W Europe (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Monaco); S Europe (Portugal, Spain, Andorra, Italy, Malta, San Marino, and Vatican City); Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary); SE Europe (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and also Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and the European part of Turkey); as well as E Europe (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, the European part of Russia, and also by convention the Transcaucasian countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan).