Eastward, mainland Europe widens much like the mouth of a funnel, until the boundary with Asia is reached at the Ural Mountains and Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains. Fewer than a million people are fluent in Romansch. View more property details, sales history and Zestimate data on Zillow. The Balkan peninsula is separated from Asia by the Black and Aegean Seas. Europe is a peninsula of the Eurasian supercontinent and is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south. The European Union has 23 official languages, and the continent has more than 60 indigenous languages. Some of these concepts include the idea of an elected Senate and the stationing of military troops outside a countrys home region.World War I and World War II dramatically affected the political geography of Europe. Latin, the language of Rome, evolved into French in the western region, and Italian in the south. It was a barbarian worldthat is, a non-Greek one, with its inhabitants making bar-bar noises in unintelligible tongues. The empire of ancient Rome, at its greatest extent in the 2nd century ce, revealed, and imprinted its culture on, much of the face of the continent. Europe's shape is in a constant change: The Mediterranean basin is shrinking, the Alps are rising and pushing North, and Scandinavia is still rebounding after having been crushed by the weight of a thick and huge ice sheet in the ice ages. El "cambio climtico" abarca el calentamiento global, pero se refiere a la gama ms amplia de cambios que le estn ocurriendo a nuestro planeta. The Volga River in Russia is Europe's longest river. Kazakhstan and Russia are in Asia. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. The topography of the country is divided very clearly between the hilly Oesling of the . Wcz obsug JavaScript. Mountain ranges, such as the Alps and the Carpathian mountains, have a highland climate with large variations according to altitude and latitude. The southern regions are 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. Political geography is the internal and external relationships between governments, citizens, and territories. I think this makes it easy to assume they are not part of continental Europe. Many of Europe's fjords are located in Iceland and Scandinavia.North European PlainThe North European Plain extends from the southern United Kingdom east to Russia. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Lesotho (landlocked within South Africa), is the only other country in the world surrounded entirely by another country. This rescue package has caused tensions to rise between economically competitive countries and the indebted countries that they are helping to rescue. Updated: 07/28/2022 Table of Contents In 2000 the population was 857 million, using a definition which includes the whole of the transcontinental countries of Russia and Turkey. Arts and Music, Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, Economics, World History. Elevations in those areas are mainly between about 500 and 2,000 feet (150 and 600 metres), and many steep slopes are to be seen. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The financial crisis is defined by debt and high unemployment. Sometimes considered a transcontinental country, it is located at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, [2] and is today generally regarded as part of Europe. To contact our editors please use our contact form. The name Europe may also come from combining the Greek roots eur- (wide) and -op (seeing) to form the phrase wide-gazing.Europe is often described as a peninsula of peninsulas. A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on three sides. Europe is home to the birthplace of democracy and Western culture in the ancient civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The debate surrounding the cartoons also intensified strained relations between the Islamic world and the West.In 2010, the French government dismantled illegal immigrant camps throughout France. The consensus is, however, that the largest glacier in Europe is the Vatnajokull glacier in Iceland. The western part of the continent clearly has a high proportion of coastline with good maritime access and often with . Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. The lowest terrain in Europe, virtually lacking relief, stands at the head of the Caspian Sea; there the Caspian Depression reaches some 95 feet (29 metres) below sea level. Europe occupies some 4 million square miles (10 million square km) within the conventional borders assigned to it. Among the alternative boundaries proposed by geographers that have gained wide acceptance is a scheme that sees the crest of the Greater Caucasus range as the dividing line between Europe and Asia, placing Ciscaucasia, the northern part of the Caucasus region, in Europe and Transcaucasia, the southern part, in Asia. Many of its events encouraged community involvement and civic engagement. The western part of the continent clearly has a high proportion of coastline with good maritime access and often with inland penetration by means of navigable rivers. The region includes the mountains of the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines, Dinaric Alps, Balkans, and Carpathians.High elevations, rugged plateaus, and steeply sloping land define the region. Moose, bear, and elk (Cervus canadensis) are native to the European taiga.Just south of the taiga is a mixture of coniferous and deciduous trees, including beech, ash, poplar, and willow. A convenient division is made by a line linking the base of the peninsula of Jutland with the head of the Adriatic Sea. The city is home to the headquarters of luxury brands such as Valentino, Gucci, Versace, and Prada. The Sami culture of Scandinavia, for example, was deeply connected to the indigenous reindeer herds of the Arctic. The United States and the Soviet Union built up huge nuclear arsenals, with many missiles aimed at targets throughout Europe. The cold water surrounding northern Britain and Scandinavia is home to unique species of cold-water corals. Today, this is the German-speaking region of the country.Around this same time, Roman conquerors took over present-day southern Switzerland. Ive enjoyed my journey through some facts of European geography hope you did too! Enacting regional social policies and economic legislation, especially through bodies like the European Union, may help curb that trend. Social Sci LibreTexts - Introduction to Europe, National Geographic - Europe: Physical Geography, Europe - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Europe - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), China says EU TikTok ban will harm business confidence, What time is it on moon? (The East and North European plains are known together as the European Plain.) All in all, Europe enjoys a considerable and long-exploited resource base of soil, forest, sea, and minerals (notably coal), but its people are increasingly its principal resource. Continental shelvesformer land surfaces that have been covered by shallow seasare a feature of peninsular Europe, while the coasts themselves are both submerged or drowned, as in southwestern Ireland and northwestern Spain, and emergent, as in western Scotland and southern Wales, where raised former beaches are in evidence. Europe's eastern frontier is usually delineated by the Ural Mountains in Russia, which is the largest country by land area in the continent. Topography describes the physical features of an area of land. Ukraine is the world's largest producer of sunflower seeds, and across every part of Ukraine, you'll see stunning fields of these yellow blooms. All rights reserved. The two largest peninsulas are mainland Europe and Scandinavia to the north, divided from each other by the Baltic Sea. Greater Milan is the largest Metropolitan Area in Italy. In partitioning the globe into meaningful large geographic units, therefore, most modern geographers treated the former Soviet Union as a distinct territorial entity, comparable to a continent, that was somewhat separate from Europe to the west and from Asia to the south and east; that distinction has been maintained for Russia, which constituted three-fourths of the Soviet Union. Topography often records the various elevations of an area using a topographical map. Philosophers and politicians have used these writings to uphold and defend the democratic tradition ever since.Roman civilization had a major influence on Western concepts of law, government, and the military. The population within the standard physical geographical boundaries was 701 million in 2005 according to the United Nations. France is known for being a world power and has been an economic and cultural center of Europe for hundreds of years. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. Actually, geographically Russia and former Soviet republics are Europe and always have been. The southeast boundary with Asia is not universally defined, but the modern definition is generally the Ural River or, less commonly, the Emba River. Please enable JavaScript. The creation of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the EU in 1993 greatly enhanced economic cooperation between many of the continents countries. It stands 10,922 feet high on the coast of the Mediterranean island Sicily. It is home to many navigable rivers, including the Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. Europes boundaries have been especially uncertain, and hence much debated, on the east, where the continent merges, without sundering physical boundaries, with parts of western Asia. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons featuring Islamic subjects. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. Europe has a diversity of terrains, physical features, and climates. In this case, the region of Western Europe includes the regions of northern Europe, southern Europe, Central Europe, and the British Isles. 1996 - 2023 National Geographic Society. Examination of Turkey's topographic structure on a physical map of the world shows clearly the . Europes continuing economic achievements are evidenced by its high standard of living and its successes in science, technology, and the arts. Climatically, Europe benefits by having only a small proportion of its surface either too cold or too hot and dry for effective settlement and use. Glaciation is the process of land being transformed by glaciers or ice sheets. With its central European location but geographic remoteness, the Alps region developed into a unique crossroads for Europes dominant languages, and a refuge for its archaic languages. Lake Ladoga is the worlds 14th largest lake by area, and Russia also has the deepest lake in the world Lake Baikal. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. Italian fashion is also an important cultural export. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Establishing fishing limits, protecting threatened habitats, and encouraging sustainable consumption habits are some efforts supported by European conservationists. Early Europeans, in fact, shaped global ideas of citizenship and government. Some of these facts about Europe are newer than others. In many places, including the Mediterranean and North seas, waters have been overfished. Kosovo is a. 2. Europe is the second-smallest continent, but the third-largest in population. It covers an area of 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi). The eastward limits now adopted by most geographers exclude the Caucasus region and encompass a small portion of Kazakhstan, where the European boundary formed by the northern Caspian coast is connected to that of the Urals by Kazakhstans Emba River and Mughalzhar (Mugodzhar) Hills, themselves a southern extension of the Urals. The northern lowlands are areas of glacial deposition, and, accordingly, their surface is diversified by such features as the Valdai Hills of western Russia; by deposits of boulder clay, sands, and gravels; by glacial lakes; and by the Pripet Marshes, a large ill-drained area of Belarus and Ukraine. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. During this time, a number of anti-communist revolutions swept central and eastern Europe. It's a multi-lingual continent. The Grand Canal, Venice, Italy. It borders nine neighbors, more than any other European country. Most extensive between the Baltic and White seas in the north and the Black, Azov, and Caspian seas in the south, the lowland area narrows westward, lying to the south of the northwestern highlands; it is divided also by the English Channel and the mountains and plateaus of central Europe. 84% of people in the Netherlands own at least one bicycle. The Louvre is the most visited attraction in Europe The EU works to create a unified structure for social, environmental, military, and economic policies of its member states.Today, the European Union is composed of 27 member states, with new members mainly coming from central and eastern Europe. Switzerland's administrative capital is Bern, while Lausanne serves as its judicial centre. Examples of such physiographic features can be found in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, the Massif Central of France, the Meseta Central of Spain, and the Bohemian Massif. The Iron Curtain was an ideological boundary that divided Europe into two blocsWestern countries influenced by the United States, and Eastern countries influenced by the Soviet Union. These journeys varied in length, depending on the migration patterns of specific reindeer herds. In order to distinguish herds, families and communities developed a pattern of cuts and notches on the animals ears.Reindeer were also the Samis main method of transporting goods during their nomadic journeys. Inhabited plains, with only the minor interruption of the worn-down Urals, extend from central Europe to the Yenisey River in central Siberia. Indebted countries must now deal with strict budgets and declining incomes while more financially stable countries are forcing taxpayers to help fund the financial rescue.The status of immigrants is also a source of tension and debate in Europe. The tundra, found in Iceland and the northern reaches of Scandinavia and Russia, is a treeless region where small mosses, lichens, and ferns grow. Eastern Europe is everything east of Germany, Austria, and Italy. The U.K. also includes Northern Ireland, which is on another island. Przemek. The euro is the second-most popular currency (behind the American dollar) and is used daily by more than 320 million people. The goals of the program are local, regional, and global. This program must not only highlight the citys unique cultural heritage, but also feature new events that unite a range of cultural practices from across Europe. Related topics are discussed in such articles as those on religion (e.g., Judaism and Roman Catholicism) and literature (e.g., Greek literature; Dutch literature; and Spanish literature). The volcanoes of Lemnos, an island in the Mediterranean, and Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily, were believed to be the forges of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire. Protests developed across the Muslim world, and demonstrators set fire to Danish embassies in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. Topography and bathymetry are shown in a combination of color with shaded relief. Editor of, Professor of Geography, Birkbeck College, University of London, 194770. These revolutions eventually lead to the end of the Cold War, symbolized by the falling of the Berlin Wall in 1989.Contemporary IssuesEurope is now broadly defined in the context of the European Union (EU), an economic and political body officially created by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. 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. Three smaller peninsulasIberia, Italy, and the Balkansemerge from the southern margin of the mainland. It is one of the biggest glaciers in the world, covering almost 9,000 sq km (3,500 square miles). Antwerp is the biggest city of the country. Swiss-Italian is distinguishable from Italian.Romansch, an endangered language, is also derived from Latin. Grades 6 - 12+ Subjects Arts and Music, Economics, Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies, World History Photograph Europe Europe is the western peninsula of the giant "supercontinent" of Eurasia. Other European islands are much smaller. These countries included Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. Sweden has a long history that began with prehistoric hunting camps in the southernmost part of the country. 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