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World Mythology Dictionary: Europe
 
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Greece, Rome, The Celtic Lands, Northern and Eastern Europe




The prehistoric gods and goddesses of what modern archaeology terms ‘Old Europe’, the Aegean, the Adriatic, the Balkans, and the western Ukraine, were concerned with the task of sustaining life. Snakes, birds, and eggs predominate in the cults so far discovered; the chief deities were the mother goddess, whose domain included fertility and the afterlife, and a male god of vegetation, the prototype of the Dionysus. The power of the earth mother over death found pictorial expression in such things as the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly. Since there is no evidence from the New Stone Age that mankind understood biological conception, the ubiquity of phallic symbols connotes a glorification of spontaneous life forces. With the inception of agriculture, however, the first farmers began to observe natural phenomena more closely and more intensively than the previous hunters and food-gatherers had done. A separate vegetation goddess emerged, connected with the Great Mother, but primarily responsible for the sowing of the sacred seeds on which life had come increasingly to depend.

The prehistoric pantheon reflects a society dominated by the mother. The role of woman was not apparently subject to that of man, so that in the Minoan civilization of ancient Crete (c. 2000–1450 BC) the feminine spirit could continue to flourish. This first European civilization was pre-Greek, and certainly owed something to early contacts with Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Even the legendary Minos, from whom Sir ArthurEvans coined the term Minoan when excavating his palace at Knossos, was remembered by the Greeks as the descendant of a West Asian king. His father, ‘cloud-gathering’ Zeus, had abducted his mother Europa from the court of Agenor, King of Tyre.

The outstanding myth-makers of Europe, the Greeks themselves, superimposed their own Indo-European beliefs upon the heritage of ‘Old Europe’ some time during the second millennium BC. The first phase of their power, the Mycenaean era (1550–1150 BC), was named after the great citadel of Mycenae, the seat of Agamemnon in the Peloponnese. The religion of this period was an amalgam of Mycenaean and Minoan practices, in which the Indo-European cult of the sky god Zeus gradually came to dominate the indigenous tradition that exalted the earth goddess. However, the strength of the cult of Hera, literally ‘lady’, was sufficiently strong in the Argolid to cause the assimilation of this local mother goddess as sister and wife of Zeus. It seems conceivable that later legends about her jealousy and quarrelsomeness recall the intense rivalry once existing between their two cults.

Soon after 700 BC Hesiod tried to unravel the complexity belonging to the Greek myths, a characteristic that can be attributed in part to migration and war. The development of the gods is the subject of his Theogony, which seeks universal order through the tracing out of genealogical relationships. The poem relates the progress of Zeus, the events by which this powerful son of Kronos, the first usurper of the world, achieved his own supremacy and established his abode on Mount Olympus. It contains a rich array of gods and heroes dating back to Mycenaean times, when each important city had a mythical genealogy for its ruling house, and in the exploits of the legendary heroes we encounter a singular feature of Greek mythology. Few traditions possess the equivalent of Jason, Heracles, and Asclepius. In India the theory of the avatar always ensures that the divinity of Rama or Krishna is not forgotten, while in ancient Mesopotamia the travail of Gilgamesh marked him off from other priest kings. In Egypt a very circumscribed mythology stemmed from the unusual domination of the pharaoh and the priesthood: it concentrated on the fate of the soul after death. Among the ancient Greeks we find no such other-worldliness, for the gods were encountered as much in the street as in the temple. The gap between immortals and mortals was never great—both were members of the same community. ‘Of one race’, wrote Pindar in the fifth century BC, ‘are men and gods. Born of one mother we draw our breath, though in strength are gods and men far divided.’

The traveller and historian Herodotus, a contemporary of the poet Pindar, believed that most of the Greek gods were borrowed from Egypt, the obvious antiquity of which deeply impressed him. Although he was wrong to single out this country as the origin of Greek mythology, he did perceive that the Eastern Mediterranean had been a cultural continuum for a very long time. Contacts with Asia Minor must have played a part in the meteoric development of Greek civilization.

We are now aware, for instance, of cultural contacts between the Mycenaean Greeks and the Hittites, who controlled most of Asia Minor until 1400 BC. Indeed, the cult of Zeus Labraundos borrowed heavily from the Hittite weather god, the slayer of the dragon Illuyankas. Contacts in Cyprus, where Greeks had settled before 1250 BC, brought to Europe the formidable Aphrodite, descendant of the mother goddess Astarte in the Ras Shamra texts, the archive of the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit. Goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, Aphrodite even introduced the West Asian custom of temple prostitution into the Greek and Roman world. Yet there was soon in existence a sceptical attitude towards mythology, an impatience with the scandalous behaviour of the gods. In the sixth century BC Xenophanes of Colophon, tilting at the blatant human attributes of the Olympian gods, said that if cattle could draw, they would make their own gods in the likeness of cattle. Such a philosophical standpoint did not affect popular Greek religion, though in time it separated logos, thought, from mythos, myth. Reasoning, advocated as wisdom by Heraclitus of Ephesus some years later, became the instrument for comprehending the intelligible universe. As Heraclitus said: ‘This world which is the same for all, no god or man has made; but it is ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living fire, with parts of it kindling, and parts going out.’ By 316 BC Euhemerus, a Sicilian philosopher resident at the Macedonian court, might argue that all the ancient myths were historical events. His Sacred History represented the gods as originally men who had distinguished themselves and who after their death received divine honours from a grateful people.

Conquest of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, an historical event of the first importance that was almost complete prior to the birth of Christ, made imperial Rome the metropolis of the ancient world as well as the inheritor of its several mythological traditions. While none could resist the tramp of the Roman legions, the conquered peoples discovered to their surprise that the citizens of Rome were quite defenceless against foreign religions. This was particularly true of the relationship between Greece and Rome. The process of assimilation had begun in the second half of the fourth century BC when Rome, as a major Italian power, had come into contact with the city-states of the Greek world. Upstart Rome was needled by its lack of tradition, the absence of a glorious past filled with gods and heroes, and to its historians fell the task of creating a worthy chronology. They obliged. Rome at last found itself in possession of a national tradition dating from the Trojan War all the more complete and harmonious because its historians had taken care to make it so. The embellishment of the legend of Roman origins received state recognition in 239 BC, when the Senate granted its protection to the Acarnanians, harassed by the Aetolians, because they alone of the Greeks had held aloof from hostilities against the Trojans, the ancestors of the Roman people. The classic treatment of this myth occurs in Virgil's Aeneid, composed to celebrate the establishment of the Empire by Augustus in 31 BC.

There were other influences on early Romans too. Close at hand were their chief rivals, the Etruscans and the Carthaginians. ‘The might of the Etruscans, before the Romans rose to power’, wrote the historian Livy, a contemporary of Virgil, ‘stretched widely over land and sea … from the Alps to the Sicilian Straits.’ Rome itself had been ruled by Etruscan kings, and the Romans were aware of the role of Etruria in spreading Greek and West Asian culture among the Italic peoples. Our present ignorance of the Etruscan language precludes judgemet: we are uncertain of the original Etruscan homeland, though Asia Minor seems a likely candidate, and apart from the skill of the Etruscans in divination, the observation of the entrails of sacrificial beasts, we know little more than the names of their gods. More details are available on Carthage, the colony founded in Africa by the Phoenicians in 814 BC, but its impact on Rome was entirely negative and can be summed up in one word: Hannibal. The ordeal of the Hannibalic invasion, fifteen years of defeat and devastation (217–203 BC), implanted in the Romans a phobia of great powers within striking distance of the Italian peninsula. Rome sought to patrol the Mediterranean lands, striking down any state that showed any sign of independence, even in 146 BC destroying the reduced cities of Carthage and Corinth. The consequence of this policy was the collapse of the Roman Republic and the founding of the Roman Empire.

The architect of Roman dominion was JuliusCaesar, who spent the decade before he overthrew the Republic in the conquest and annexation of Gaul, the heartland of the Celtic people. In 55 BC he had reconnoitred the southern coast of Britain, though Roman invasion of the island was begun only a century later. The long campaign in Gaul welded his legions into an invincible army, making him the chief war-lord as well as monarch till he was assassinated in 44 BC. He advanced the Roman frontier to the Rhine, created several large provinces, and, not least, brought the majority of the Celts into direct communication with the ancient world.

The Celts first appear in Germany. From the ninth century BC onwards waves of migrants spread into Gaul, the Iberian peninsula, northern Italy, the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Britain. One wandering band even sacked the city of Rome in 386 BC. The geographical dispersal of the Celtic people explains the lack of unity in their mythology, since each group of migrants encountered different local conditions in settlement. The last migration, for instance, was the invasion of Britain in the first century BC by the Belgians. Although the priests known as Druids have acquired a popular status due to the writings of antiquarians, there is little evidence of their dominant position in Celtic religion. The order may have been restricted to Britain and Gaul. JuliusCaesar learned of its teaching that it ‘was invented in Britain and taken from there to Gaul, and … that diligent students of the discipline mostly travel there to study it.’ Moreover, the association of the Druidic grove and Stonehenge has become so established as a piece of British folklore that we do not often recall that this theory is hardly 300 years old. The function of Stonehenge, a pre-Celtic monument, probably dating from 1500 BC at its final stage of construction, is unknown. Because the Celts chose to rely on oral tradition—Julius Caesar noted that the Druids ‘were unwilling, first, that their system of training should be bruited abroad among the common people and second, that the student should rely on the written word and neglect memory’—there are few sources of evidence for their religion, a circumstance ensuring that it will remain forever a mystery. The legendary cycles of medieval Ireland, and the derivative Arthurian tradition in Wales, Brittany, and England, have to represent Celtic mythology.

When in 313 Christianity obtained complete toleration in the Roman Empire, the change of fortune for this West Asian faith had as much effect on the Celts living within the imperial borders as on any of the other peoples. It signalled the general retreat of what Christians termed ‘pagan’ mythology. In 312 the Emperor Constantine had had a dream, in which Christ appeared to him and told him that if he put a Christian sign on the shields of his soldiers, he would triumph over his rival. Having painted the sign on the shields of at least some of his men, he went on to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, where his army won a startling victory. Although Constantine delayed baptism until he was on his deathbed twenty-five years later, the edict of 313 set aside discriminatory legislation, and ordered not only freedom of worship but the restoration of all property confiscated from the Church during previous persecution. With the notable exception of Julian, who reigned 360–3, successive emperors issued decrees against non-Christian sacrifices, adoration of images, entry to temples, and magic. Pagan apologists were on the defensive, conceding much of the Church's case. Christian zealots, moreover, seized the opportunity to destroy ancient cult centres, like the Serapeum at Alexandria. In 391. Bishop Theophilus led his militant congregation in an attack on this temple, said to be the largest in the ancient world, and burned it to the ground. Elsewhere temples were either demolished, the stones being used to erect churches, or converted, the clergy purifying them of pagan associations. One of the first to be consecrated at Rome was the round Temple of Faunus, the Roman Pan, which Pope Simplicius (468–83) named St StephanoRotondo.

A consequence of the policy of adaptation was undoubtedly a lingering paganism. The faithful reported the presence of demons, which the later evolution of the gargoyle may have been intended to frighten away. In 530 on Monte Cassino St Benedict came across a grove sacred to Apollo, where the ancient rites were still observed. When he destroyed the shrine and converted the place to Christian use, Satan appeared to complain, but the Saint kept silence. His companions heard, but could not see, the Devil. In the old western provinces of the Roman Empire the pagan myths openly persisted, especially in the nature cults of the countryside. Christian bishops and saints waged a long struggle against these heretical tendencies, which were partly strengthened by the folklore of the Germanic peoples who poured across the Rhine. Yet medieval Christianity was not without its own legends: among other things the minds of believers were exercised by Antichrist; dies irae, the wrath of the last day; relics; the cult of the Virgin; miraculous events, signs, and portents; as well as the omnipresent forces of the evil. The age of belief made its contribution to the store of world mythology.

In the fifth century the Western Roman Empire was overrun by Germanic peoples fleeing westwards from the Huns. Rome itself was looted by the Visigoths in 410 and by the Vandals in 455. Such was the thoroughness of the second sack that these wandering tribesmen have given their name to those who take pleasure in the wilful destruction of beautiful things. The Vandals had crossed from Spain to Africa in 429, only two to three years after crossing the Rhine, and St Augustine lived long enough to witness their seizure of Hippo, the city that was his episcopal see. His famous treatise De Civitate Dei, or City of God, can be regarded as an attempt to make sense for Christians out of the collapse of Roman authority. Especially galling was the rumour that the fall of Rome was a punishment inflicted by the non-Christian gods for the suppression of their worship in 391–2.

While St Augustine refuted heretical theories of history, the northern invaders completed their conquest of the western provinces. The defeat of the Huns by a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at Troyes in 451 as well as the death of the Hun war leader Attila two years later were insufficient to save the Western Roman Empire, the victim of internal weakness rather than the strength of Germanic arms. It was unable to withstand the movement of peoples and the hegemony of Western Europe passed into the hands of its traditional enemies. Ever since JuliusCaesar had advanced the frontier to the Rhine, the Romans knew that the warlike tribes roaming the forests across that river inhabited another mythological world. Writing in 98, Tacitus mentions the Germanic legend of tribal origin: ‘In their ancient ballads, their only form of recorded history, they celebrate Tvisto, a god sprung from the earth, and they assign him a son called Mannus, their progenitor through his three sons.’ The Romans were fully aware too that Scandinavia equalled a vagina nationum, ‘a womb of nations’, continually sending forth new waves of migration. What they could not know was that the Germanic settlers of the north belonged to the Indo-European language group from which the Italic tongue had descended. In a similar manner the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who had occupied Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman legions in 423, were confronted in the later Viking invasions with an assault by less distant, but more ferocious, cousins.

The original Indo-European speakers dispersed from an unknown homeland about 2500 BC. The branch known to the Romans as the Germani traced their own past back to Scandinavia. Descendants of this stock today include Germans, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, English, and any of their extraction. At the time the Roman Empire fell we have little detailed information on Germanic mythology. Other than brief runic inscriptions, there were no written records till the Christian era, those on Iceland only beginning in the year 1000. It happens that mythological literature was for the most part preserved on this island, which after the 874 migration joined to the Viking world. The greatest contribution to the understanding of Germanic legend was made by the Icelandic scholar and statesman Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), whose Prose Edda comprises a handbook for poets on the world of the ancient gods, providing explanations of metaphors based on the old myths. The Viking Age, 750–1050, saw the development of a vigorous cosmology revolving round the heroic deeds of Odin, Thor, and the brother-sister deities, Frey and Freya, and it is this late tradition that Snorri interprets for us. Elsewhere in Western Europe the Germanic conquerors soon converted to Christianity. The reign of Charlemagne (768–814) represents the triumph of the Christian Church; the Frankish kingdom acted as the champion of the Catholic faith, embattled with heretics and pagans alike. In his campaigns against his Saxon kinsmen Charlemagne was conspicuously intolerant of non-Christian practices. While the inhabitants of Scandinavia remained undisturbed, the activities of missionaries carried the faith beyond the borders of the Franks. In 597 Augustine landed on Thanet with a mission to convert the English.

Russia was only converted to Christianity in 989, when the converts joined the Eastern Orthodox Church, not the Roman Catholic Church. This event opened the way for the eastern tradition of Christendom to expand northwards to the shore of the Arctic Ocean and eastwards to the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Greek missionaries found a primitive mythology among the Slavs, but the old beliefs did not long survive the official abolition of pagan worship for the reason that Christianity exercised a civilizing influence. The Slavs and the Balts, their closest linguistic neighbours, appear to have possessed gods with names strikingly reminiscent of Indo-Iranian and Thraco-Phrygian deities. Indeed, the Slavic rai, paradise, has been acknowledged as a direct borrowing from the Iranian ray, meaning heavenly radiance, or beauty. The storm god Perunu, the wielder of the thunderbolt, received sumptuous worship at Kiev till the tenth century, and he is one of the few Slavic deities about whom we have details, albeit from the account of the discontinuation of his cult. The rest of the mythology of Eastern Europe remains lost in the mists of the pre-Christian era.

Lastly, in the northernmost parts of Europe there are still to be found the scattered remnants of an ancient people, the Uralians. The Lapps of Finland, the Samoyeds of Russia, along with several smaller groups inhabiting the tundra, preserve in their folklore the traditions of a people that must have begun to scatter about the fourth millennium BC. Their beliefs are similar to those held by the tribesmen of Siberia, a link strongly suggesting an original shamanism. Evidence of the former activities of medicine-men, spirit-possessed priests, is provided in the accounts given by early visitors to the Lapps. An eighteenth-century Danish traveller witnessed the trance into which such a medium fell, after a series of whirling dances. During the time that he was unconscious of the immediate surroundings—his spirit it was said having journeyed to the land of the dead in order to master the spirit afflicting his patient—the medium could handle burning logs and swing an axe against his knees without suffering the least harm. On his return to consciousness, he announced the nature of the malady and the length of time it would take for the sick person to recover. Traces of sorcery are evident, too, in the ancient beliefs of the Finns, Voguls, and Hungarians, all of whom have descended from Uralian stock. The idea that every living thing was animated by a spirit appears to have been extended by the Hungarians to every limb and organ. Each had its separate soul; a chronicle of 899 records that for magical reasons the Hungarians ate the hearts of captives.

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Sci-Tech Dictionary: Europe
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(′yu̇r·əp)

(geography) A great western peninsula of the Eurasian landmass, usually called a continent; its eastern limits are arbitrary and are conventionally drawn along the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus watershed to the Black Sea.

 
Dictionary: Eu·rope   (yʊr'əp) pronunciation
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The sixth-largest continent, extending west from the Dardanelles, Black Sea, and Ural Mountains. It is technically a vast peninsula of the Eurasian land mass.

 

 
Sci-Tech Encyclopedia: Europe
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Although long called a continent, in many physical ways Europe is but a great western peninsula of the Eurasian landmass. Its eastern limits are arbitrary and are conventionally drawn along the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus watershed to the Black Sea. On all other sides Europe is surrounded by salt water. Of the oceanic islands of Franz Josef Land, Spitsbergen (Svalbard), Iceland, and the Azores, only Iceland is regarded as an integral part of Europe; thus the northwestern boundary is drawn along the Danish Strait.

Europe is not only peninsular but has a large ratio of shoreline to land area reflecting a notable interfingering of land and sea. Excluding Iceland, the maximum north-south distance is (3529 mi) (5680 km); and the greatest east-west extent is 2398 mi (3860 km). Of Europe's area of 3,881,000 mi2 (10,050,000 km2) 73% is mainland, 19% peninsulas, and 8% islands. Also, 51% of the land is less than 155 mi (250 km) from shores and another 23% lies closer than 310 mi (500 km). This situation is caused by the inland seas that enter, like arms of the ocean, deep into the northern and southern regions of Europe, which thus becomes a peninsula of peninsulas. The most notable of these branching arms of salt water are the White Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea with the Gulf of Bothnia, the English Channel (La Manche), the Mediterranean Sea with its secondary branches, and finally, the Black Sea. Even the Caspian Sea, presently the largest saltwater lake of the world, formed part of the southern seas before the folding of the Caucasus. The penetration of the landmass by these seas brings marine influences deep into the continent and provides Europe with a balanced climate favorable for human evolution and settlement.

Europe has a unique diversity of land forms and natural resources. The relief, as varied as that of other continents, has an average elevation of 980 ft (300 m) as compared with North America's 1440 ft (440 m). The shape and the overall physiographic aspect of the great peninsula are controlled by geologic structure which delimits the major regional units.

Climate is determined by a number of factors. Probably the most important are a favorable location between 35° and 71°N latitudes on the western or more maritime side of the world's largest continental mass; the west-to-east trend (rather than north-south) of the lofty southern ranges and the Central Lowlands, as well as of the inland seas, which permit the prevailing westerly winds of these latitudes to carry marine influences deep into the continent; the beneficial influence of the North Atlantic Drift, which makes possible ice-free coasts far within the Arctic Circle; and the low elevation of the northwestern mountain ranges and the Urals, which allows the free shifting of air masses over their crests.

The intricate relief and the climates of Europe are well reflected in the drainage system. Extensive drainage basins with large slow-flowing rivers are developed only in the Central Lowlands, especially in the eastern part. Streams with the greatest discharge empty into the Black Sea and the North Sea, although Europe's longest river, the Volga, feeds the Caspian Sea. Second in dimension is the Danube, which crosses the Carpathian Basin and cuts its way twice through mountain ranges at the Gate of Bratislava and at the Iron Gate. The Rhine and Rhone are the two major Alpine rivers with headwater sources close to each other but feeding the North Sea and the Western Mediterranean Basin, respectively. Abundant precipitation throughout the year, as well as the permeable soils and the dense vegetation which temporarily store the water, provides the streams of Europe north of the Southern Highlands with ample water throughout the seasons. The combined effects of poor vegetation, rocky and desolate limestone karstlands, and slight annual precipitation result in intermittent flow of the rivers along the Mediterranean coast, especially on the eastern side of peninsulas. Only the Alpine rivers carry enough water, and if it were not for the Danube and Rhone, both originating in regions north of the Alps, the only major river of the Mediterranean basin would be the Po. See also Atlantic Ocean; Baltic Sea; Black Sea; Continent; Mediterranean Sea.

 
Geography Dictionary: Europe
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Criteria for defining ‘Europe’, as opposed to the continent of Europe, range from ‘Christendom’ to membership of bodies: from the European Coal and Steel Community to the European Union. European identity is associated with capitalism, rather than a command economy, democracy rather than dictatorship, and the state provision of welfare services.

 
Political Dictionary: Europe
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Europe remains powerful yet ill-defined. Some of its members—Russia and Turkey—extend beyond its accepted geographical limits. Such unity as it possessed by the early twentieth century rested equivocally upon a shared though divisive Christianity and a rationalist philosophical and scientific tradition (both owing much to the Arab world), a common history of sustained internecine warfare, a fiction of racial homogeneity, and an original responsibility for industrialization and modernity. This tense unity was first effectively projected beyond its own boundaries in the sixteenth century, reaching its greatest extent in the early twentieth century before dissolving in the great European civil wars of 1914-45. Its greatest continuing vulnerabilities are to nostalgia and racism. See also European Union.

— Charles Jones

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Europe
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Second smallest continent on Earth. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian seas. The continent's generally accepted eastern boundary runs along the Ural Mountains and the Emba (Zhem) River of Kazakhstan. Its area includes numerous islands, archipelagoes, and peninsulas. Indented by bays, fjords, and seas, continental Europe's irregular coastline is about 24,000 mi (38,000 km) long. Area (approximate, including European Russia): 4,000,000 sq mi (10,400,000 sq km). Population (2007 est.): 700,000,000. The greater part of Europe combines low elevations with low relief; about three-fifths of the land is below 600 ft (180 m) above sea level, and another one-third is between 600 and 3,000 ft (180 and 900 m). The highest points are in the mountain systems crossing the southern part of the continent, including the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, and Balkan mountains. A well-watered continent with many rivers, Europe has few sizable lakes. Glaciers cover a significant area, mostly in the north. Roughly one-third of Europe is arable, with much of that land devoted to cereals, principally wheat and barley. About one-third is forested. Europe was the first of the world's regions to develop a modern economy based on commercial agriculture and industry, and it remains one of the world's major industrial regions, with average annual income per capita among the world's highest. The people of Europe constitute about one-tenth of the world's population. Most of the continent's native languages belong to either the Romance, Germanic, or Slavic language groups. Europe's population is mostly Christian.

Modern humans supplanted the scanty Neanderthal population in Europe about 40,000 years ago, and by the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE the general population groups that would become the historical peoples and countries of Europe were in place. The Greek civilizations were the earliest in Europe, and in the Classical period the Greeks were a conduit for the advanced civilizations of the Middle East, which, along with the unique Greek contribution, laid the foundation for European civilization. By the mid-2nd century BCE the Greeks had come under Roman control, and the vast Roman Empire brought to the conquered parts of Europe the civilization the Greeks had begun. It was through the Romans that Christianity penetrated Europe. The Roman Empire in the West finally collapsed in the 5th century CE, which led to an extensive breakdown of Classical civilization. During the period that followed, known as the Middle Ages, the idea of Europe as a distinct cultural unit emerged. The subsequent Renaissance (15th – 16th centuries) began the modern European traditions of science, exploration, and discovery. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century ended the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church over western and northern Europe, and the Enlightenment period of the 17th and 18th centuries stressed the primacy of reason. In the late 18th century, Enlightenment ideals helped spur the French Revolution, which toppled Europe's most powerful monarchy and spearheaded the movement toward democracy and equality. The late 18th century also marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which led to Europe's military and political dominance over much of the world for the next century. In the early 20th century the European powers were divided by World War I, which led to the effective end of monarchy in Europe and created a host of new countries in central and eastern Europe. World War II marked a waning of world power among the states of western Europe and was followed by the rise of communism in eastern Europe, with the Soviet Union and its satellites sharply divided from the rest of the continent. The Soviet Union collapsed in the late 20th century, leading to the demise of communist regimes throughout Europe. Soviet satellites became independent, and most began to democratize. East and West Germany were reunified. Yugoslavia and its successor states, however, experienced ethnic conflict (see Kosovo conflict; Bosnian conflict). See also European Union; NATO.

For more information on Europe, visit Britannica.com.

 
Classical Literature Companion: Europe
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The continent of Europe was said to have been named from the mythical Europa, although Herodotus (4. 45) found this implausible since she was from Phoenicia and never entered mainland Europe. The name as used by the ancients does not correspond with the modern continent. Not mentioned by Homer, it is first found in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (seventh century BC) where it is an unspecified area (around Greece) distinct from the Peloponnese and the Greek islands. Herodotus and his contemporaries in the mid-fifth century BC considered the whole of the known earth as one continent divided into three main parts, Asia, Libya, and Europe. The last was naturally bounded by the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; its western boundary was signified by the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar) beyond which the Greeks rarely penetrated, while in the east Europe was divided from Asia first by the river Phasis (modern Rioni) which flows to the eastern shore of the Black Sea, and later by the Tanais (modern Don). The northern boundary was the mountain-chain which runs north of Thrace, Italy, and Spain. The Greeks hardly explored beyond south Russia; central and northern Russia and Scandinavia were unknown and fabulous regions. The land exploration of Europe was chiefly accomplished in the first centuries BC and AD by the Roman army surveyors under Julius Caesar and the generals of the emperor Augustus.

 
French Literature Companion: Europe
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Literary periodical created in 1923 by a group round Romain Rolland. Its editors have included Guéhenno and Cassou.

 
Buddhism Dictionary: Europe
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European interest in Buddhism first began to develop during the colonial period. The earliest Buddhist texts to be studied in Europe were Mahāyāna Sanskrit manuscripts collected in Nepal by the British Resident, B. H. Hodgson. Another British civil servant who made an outstanding contribution to the study of Theravāda Buddhism was T. W. Rhys Davids (1843-1922). Rhys Davids became interested in Buddhism during his residence in Sri Lanka and went on to found the Pāli Text Society in 1881. The Society, based in Oxford, England, remains to this day the most important outlet for the publication of texts and translations of Pāli Buddhist literature. Professional scholars from many European countries played an important role in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. In 1845 the Frenchman Eugène Burnouf published his Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism and followed this seven years later with a translation of the Lotus Sūtra. Interest in Buddhism in Germany was stimulated by the publication of Herman Oldenberg's The Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, his Community in 1881. The great Belgian scholars Louis de la Vallée Poussin and (later) Étienne Lamotte also made an enormous contribution through their work with Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese sources. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was the first major Western thinker to take an interest in Buddhism. Due to the absence of reliable sources, Schopenhauer had only an imperfect knowledge of Buddhism, and saw it as confirming his own somewhat pessimistic philosophy. Of all the world religions Buddhism seemed to him the most rational and ethically evolved, and the frequent references to Buddhism in his writings brought it to the attention of Western intellectuals in the latter part of the 19th century. In England, Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) published his famous poem The Light of Asia in 1879. The poem describes the life and teachings of the Buddha in a melodramatic style. The German novelist Herman Hesse often alluded to Buddhist themes in his writings, notably in his 1922 novel Siddhartha which has been translated into many languages (the eponymous protagonist of the novel is not Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha).

In more recent times, immigration has influenced the situation of Buddhism in Europe, although not to the degree it has done in the USA. Although the United Kingdom has received large numbers of Asian immigrants these have come mainly from the Indian subcontinent and are mostly Hindus or Muslims. There are some 19,000 refugees from Indochina in Britain, 22,000 in Germany, and 97,000 in France. The majority of Buddhists in Europe are Caucasians who have converted to Buddhism rather than immigrants who brought their beliefs with them. Although accurate numbers are difficult to come by, in the UK there are around 100 Tibetan centres, about 90 Theravāda centres, and some 40 zen centres, together with a further 100 or so other groups including the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. As in north America, converts to Buddhism come predominantly from the middle classes. The increase in the popularity of Buddhism has been notable although less spectacular than in north America. Estimates suggest there are over a million Buddhists in Europe, with about 200,000 in the UK and an equivalent number in France.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Europe
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Europe (yʊr'əp) , 6th largest continent, c.4,000,000 sq mi (10,360,000 sq km) including adjacent islands (1992 est. pop. 512,000,000). It is actually a vast peninsula of the great Eurasian land mass. By convention, it is separated from Asia by the Urals and the Ural River in the east; by the Caspian Sea and 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 the Strait of Gibraltar separate it from Africa. Europe is washed in the north by the Arctic Ocean, and in the west by the Atlantic Ocean, with which the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are connected.

Physical Geography

The huge Alpine mountain chain, of which the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathians, the Balkans, and the Caucasus are the principal links, traverses the continent from west to east. The highest points 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 lowest point (92 ft/28 m below sea level) is the surface of the Caspian Sea. Between the mountainous Scandinavian peninsula in the north and the Alpine chain in the south lie the Central European Uplands surrounded by the great European plain, stretching from the Atlantic coast of France to the Urals.

A large part of this plain (which is interrupted by minor mountain groups and hills) has fertile agricultural soil; in the east and north there are vast steppe, forest, lake, and tundra regions. South of the Alpine chain extend the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas, which are largely mountainous. The Po plain, between the Alps and the Apennines, and the Alföld plain, between the Carpathians and the Alps, are fertile and much-developed regions. Among the chief river systems of Europe are, from east 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, and the Tagus.

Climate

The climate of Europe varies from subtropical to polar. The Mediterranean climate of the south is dry and warm. The western and northwestern parts have a mild, generally humid climate, influenced by the North Atlantic Drift. In central and eastern Europe the climate is of the humid continental-type with cool summers. In the northeast subarctic and tundra climates are found. All of Europe is subject to the moderating influence of prevailing westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean and, consequently, its climates are found at higher latitudes than similar climates on other continents.

Regions

Europe can be divided into seven geographic regions: Scandinavia (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark); the British Isles (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 Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and the European part of Turkey); and E Europe (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, the European portion of Russia, and by convention the Transcaucasian countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan).

People

Indo-European languages (see The Indo-European Family of Languages, table) predominate in Europe; others spoken include Basque, Maltese, and the languages classified as Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic, Bulgaric, and Turkic. Roman Catholicism is the chief religion of S and W Europe and the southern part of central Europe; Protestantism is dominant in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and the northern part of Europe; the Orthodox Eastern Church predominates in E and SE Europe; and there are pockets of of Muslim predominance in the Balkan Peninsula and Transcaucasia. With the exception of the northern third of the continent, Europe is densely populated. Eleven cities have populations exceeding two million inhabitants; London, Moscow, and Paris are the largest cities.

Economy and Transportation

Europe is highly industrialized; the largest industrial areas are found in W central Europe, England, N Italy, Ukraine, and European Russia. Agriculture, forestry (in N Europe), and fishing (along the Atlantic coast) are also important. Europe has a large variety of minerals; coal, iron ore, and salt are abundant. Oil and gas are found in E Europe and beneath the North Sea. Coal is used to produce a significant, but declining amount of Europe's electricity; in Norway and Sweden and in the Alps hydroelectric plants supply a large percentage of the power. More than 25% of Europe's electricity is generated from nuclear power.

The transportation system in Europe is highly developed; interconnecting rivers and canals provide excellent inland water transportation in central and W Europe. The Channel Tunnel connects Great Britain to France. The countries of Europe engage heavily in foreign trade, and some of the world's greatest ports are found there. Rotterdam with the huge new Europort complex, London, Le Havre, Hamburg, Genoa, and Marseilles are the chief ports.

Outline of History

Historical Currents

The beginnings of civilization in Europe can be traced to very ancient times, but they are not as old as the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Roman and Greek cultures flourished in Europe, and European civilization—language, technology, political concepts, and the Christian religion—have been spread throughout the world by European colonists and immigrants. Throughout history, Europe has been the scene of many great and destructive wars that have ravaged both rural and urban areas. Once embraced by vast and powerful empires and kingdoms, successful nationalistic uprisings (especially in the 19th cent.) divided the continent into many sovereign states. The political fragmentation led to economic competition and political strife among the states.

Modern History

After World War II, Europe became divided into two ideological blocs (Eastern Europe, dominated by the USSR, and Western Europe, dominated by the United States) and became engaged in the cold war. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed as a military deterrent to the spread of Communism and sought to maintain a military balance with its eastern equivalent, the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Cold war tensions eased in the 1960s, and signs of normalization of East-West relations appeared in the 1970s.

In Western Europe, the European Economic Community (Common Market), the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) merged in 1967 to form the European Community. Known since 1993 as the European Union, the organization aims to develop economic and monetary union among its members, ultimately leading to political union. The Eastern European counterpart was the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), which, like the Warsaw Treaty Organization, dissolved with the breakup of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s.

The loosening of political control sparked a revival of the long pent-up ethnic nationalism and a wave of democratization that led to an overthrow of the Communist governments in Eastern Europe. In the former Yugoslavia, ethnic tensions between Muslims, Croats, and Serbs were unleashed, leading to civil war and massacres of members of ethnic groups, or “ethnic cleansing,” in areas where other groups won military control. During the early and mid-1990s most of the former Soviet bloc countries embarked on economic restructuring programs to transform their centralized economies into market-based ones. The pace of reform varied, especially as the hardships involved became increasingly evident. Meanwhile, in Western Europe the European Union, amid some tensions, continued working toward greater political and economic unity, including the creation of a common European currency.

Bibliography

See S. B. Clough et al., ed., The European Past (2 vol., 1964); Denis de Rougemont, The Idea of Europe (tr. 1966); John Bowle, The Unity of European History: A Political and Cultural Survey (rev. and enl. ed. 1970); Richard Mayne, The Europeans: Who Are We? (1972); René Albrecht-Carrié, A Diplomatic History of Europe since the Congress of Vienna (rev. ed. 1973); European Security and the Atlantic System, ed. by W. T. Fox and W. R. Schilling (1973); Stephen Usherwood, Europe, Century by Century (1973); Dennis Swann, Competition and Industrial Policy in the European Community (1983); George Schöpflin, The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1986); Richard Mayne, ed., Western Europe (1987); T. G. Jordan, The European Culture Area (2d ed. 1988); James Dudley, 1992, Understanding the New European Market (1990); B. Gwertzman and M. Kaufman, The Collapse of Communism (1990); T. Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (2005).

 
Geography: Europe
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Continent that is actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia.

 
Wikipedia: Europe
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For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation).
Europe
Area 10,180,000 km2 (3,930,000 sq mi)o[›]
Population 731,000,000o[›]
Pop. density 70/km2 (181/sq mi)
Demonym European
Countries 50 (List of countries)
Languages List of languages
Time Zones UTC to UTC+5
Internet TLD .eu (European Union)
Largest cities List of cities
This box: view • talk

Europe (pronounced /ˈjɜrəp/, /ˈjʊərəp/) is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast.[1] Europe is washed upon to the north by the Arctic Ocean and other bodies of water, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the southeast by the Black Sea and the waterways connecting it to the Mediterranean. Yet the borders for Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are somewhat arbitrary, as the term continent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or a physiographic one.

Europe is the world's second-smallest continent by surface area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2% of the Earth's surface and about 6.8% of its land area. Of Europe's approximately 50 states, Russia is the largest by both area and population, while the Vatican City is the smallest. Europe is the third most populous continent after Asia and Africa, with a population of 731 million or about 11% of the world's population; however, according to the United Nations (medium estimate), Europe's share may fall to about 7% in 2050.[2]

Europe, in particular Ancient Greece, is often considered to be the birthplace of Western culture.[3] It played a predominant role in global affairs from the 16th century onwards, especially after the beginning of colonialism. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, European nations controlled at various times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania, and large portions of Asia. Both World Wars were ignited in Central Europe, greatly contributing to a decline in European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the United States and Soviet Union took prominence. During the Cold War Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East. 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.

Contents

Definition

A medieval T and O map from 1472 showing the division of the world into 3 continents, allocated to the three sons of Noah

The use of the term "Europe" has developed gradually throughout history.[4][5] In antiquity, the Greeks divided the world into three continents, Europe, Asia and Libya (Africa), with the River Nile and the complex system of waterways between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Azov providing the boundaries.[6] Flavius Josephus and the Book of Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as between the Pillars of Hercules at Cadiz, separating it from Africa, and the River Don, separating it from Asia.[7] This division – as much cultural as geographical – was used until the Late Middle Ages, when it was challenged by the Age of Discovery.[8][9] The problem of redefining Europe was finally resolved in 1730 when, instead of waterways, the Swedish geographer and cartographer von Strahlenberg proposed the Ural Mountains as the most significant eastern boundary, a suggestion that found favour in Russia and throughout Europe.[10]

Today Europe can be described culturally, geographically and politically:

  • Geographically, geographers depict Europe as the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, and its boundaries are marked by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the far east are usually taken to be the Urals, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.[1]
  • Politically, Europe's geography comprises the member states of the European Union as well as the European parts of the former USSR, the Balkan peninsula, and a large part of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, including three percent of Turkey. Often the word 'Europe' is used in a geopolitically-limiting way[11] to refer only to the European Union or, even more exclusively, a culturally-defined core. On the other hand, the Council of Europe has 47 member countries, and only 27 member states are in the EU.[12]
  • The people living in areas such as Ireland, United Kingdom, Scandinavia and the North Atlantic and Mediterranean islands, may routinely refer to "continental" or "mainland" Europe simply as Europe or "the Continent".[13]

Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used geographical boundaries[14] (key: blue = transcontinental states• green = historically European but geographically outside Europe's boundaries)

Etymology

Sister project Look up Europe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull. He took her to the island of Crete where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later, Europa stood for central-north Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to the lands to the north.

The name "Europe" is of uncertain etymology.[15] One theory suggests that it is derived from the Greek roots meaning broad (eur-) and eye (op-, opt-), hence Eurṓpē, "wide-gazing", "broad of aspect" (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.[16] Another theory suggests that it is actually based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (cf. Occident),[17] cognate to Phoenician 'ereb "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ma'ariv (see also Erebus, PIE *h1regʷos, "darkness"). However, M. L. West states that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor".[18]

Most major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲), which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲); however, the Turkish people used the term Frengistan (land of the Franks) in referring to much of Europe.[19]

History

Main article: History of Europe

Prehistory

Main article: Prehistoric Europe
Stonehenge
Ggantija, Malta

Homo georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe.[20] Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain.[21] 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.[22]

During European Neolithic, a period of megalith construction took place, with many megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge[23] and the Megalithic Temples of Malta being constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.[24] The Corded ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. The European Bronze Age began in the late 3rd millennium BC with the Beaker culture.

The European Iron Age began around 800 BC, with the Hallstatt culture. Iron Age colonisation by the Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical Antiquity.

Classical antiquity

Main article: Classical Antiquity
See also: Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome
The Greek Temple of Apollo, Paestum, Italy

Ancient Greece had a profound impact on Western civilisation. Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece.[25] The Greeks invented the polis, or city-state, which played a fundamental role in their concept of identity.[26] 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;[25] and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes.[27][28][29]

The Roman Empire at its greatest extent

Another major influence on Europe came from the Roman Empire which left its mark on law, language, engineering, architecture, and government.[30] During the pax romana, the Roman Empire expanded to encompass the entire Mediterranean Basin and much of Europe.[31] 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.[32][33] Christianity was eventually legitimised by Constantine I after three centuries of imperial persecution.

Early Middle Ages

Main articles: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
See also: Dark Ages and Age of Migrations
Roland pledges fealty to Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor.

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.[31] Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".[34] Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Europe.[35]

During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of Celtic, Slavic and Germanic tribes. The Celtic tribes established their kingdoms in Gaul, the predecessor to the Frankish kingdoms that eventually became France.[36] The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Central and Eastern Europe respectively.[37] Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I.[38] 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 centred in the German principalities of central Europe.[39]

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.[40] 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.[41] Fatally weakened by the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantines fell in 1453 when they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire.[42]

Middle Ages

Main articles: High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, and Middle Ages
See also: Medieval demography
Richard I and Philip II, during the Third Crusade

The Middle Ages were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe.[43] The struggle between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament.[44] 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.[43]

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.[45] In Europe itself, the Church organised 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.[46]

The Battle of Crécy in 1346, from a manuscript of Jean Froissart's Chronicles; the battle established England as a military power.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north.[47] Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols.[48] The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which ruled the southern and central expanses of Russia for over three centuries.[49]

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages. The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by 2/3.[50] Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,[51] and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period.[52]

Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone — a third of the European population at the time.[53] This had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, foreigners, beggars and lepers.[54] The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s.[55] During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.[56]

Early modern period

Main article: Early modern period
See also: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Age of Discovery
The School of Athens by Raphael: Contemporaries such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci (centre) are portrayed as classical scholars

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.[57][58][59] 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.[60][61][62] 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.[63][64]

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.[65] 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.[66] 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.[67] The 17th century in southern and eastern Europe was a period of general decline.[68]

Battle of Vienna in 1683 broke the advance of the Ottoman Empire into 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.[69][70] Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492, and soon after the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing colonial empires in the Americas.[71] 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

Main article: Modern history
See also: Industrial Revolution, French Revolution, and Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement of the eighteenth century in which scientific and reason-based thought predominated.[72][73][74] 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.[75] 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.[76][77]

The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain

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.[78][79][80] The Congress of Vienna was convened after Napoleon's downfall. It established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "great powers": the United Kingdom, France, Prussia, Habsburg Austria and Russia.[81] 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.[82] In 1867 the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.[83]

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.[84] Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of Trade Unions[85] and the abolition of slavery.[86] In Britain the Public Health Act 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.[87] Europe’s population doubled during the 18th century, from roughly 100 million to almost 200 million, and doubled again during the 19th century.[88] In the 19th century 70 million people left Europe.[89]

20th century to present

Main articles: Modern era and History of Europe
See also: World War I, Great Depression, World War II, Cold War, and History of the European Union
European military alliances during WWI: Central Powers purplish-red, Entente powers grey and neutral countries yellow

Two World Wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip.[90] Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). The War left around 40 million civilians and military dead.[91] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914–1918.[92] Partly as a result of its defeat Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union.[93] Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn. 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.[94]

Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and 'loans' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy in power.[95][96]

The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945; seated (from the left): Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin

In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany too, following the Anschluss. Later that year, Germany annexed the German Sudetenland, which had become a part of Czechoslovakia after the war. This move was highly contested by the other powers, but ultimately permitted in the hopes of avoiding war and appeasing Hitler. Shortly afterwards, Poland and Hungary started to press for the annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia with Polish and Hungarian majorities. Hitler encouraged the Slovaks to do the same and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic, while other smaller regions went to Poland and Hungary. With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed an important pact. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September.[97][98] The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter.

On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Nevertheless, the Germans knew of Britain's plans and got to Narvik first, repulsing the attack. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark, which left no room for a front except for where the last war had been fought or by landing at sea. The Phoney War continued.

In May 1940, Germany attacked France through the Low Countries. France capitulated in June 1940. However, the British refused to negotiate peace terms with the Germans and the war continued. By August, Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up.[99] In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the ultimately unsuccessful Operation Barbarossa.[100] On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.[101][102] After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. In 1944, British and American forces invaded France in the D-Day landings, opening a new front against Germany. 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,[103] including between 9 and 11 million people who perished during the Holocaust.[104]

The flag of Europe used by the Council of Europe and European Union

World War I and especially World War II diminished the 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 what was later called by Winston Churchill 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.[105] The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa.[106] 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 were redrawn once more.[107]

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.[108] 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.[109] 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, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.[110]

Geography and extent

Main article: Geography of Europe
Further information: List of countries spanning more than one continent
Satellite image of Caucasus Mountains, Black Sea (l.) and Caspian Sea (r.)

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.[1] The first century AD geographer Strabo, took the River Don "Tanais" to be the boundary to the Black Sea[111], 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, the Dardanelles, and the Aegean Sea 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.

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[who?] consider Azerbaijan's and Armenia's southern borders with Iran and Turkey's southern and eastern borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran as the boundary between Asia and Europe because of political and cultural reasons.[citation needed] In the same way, despite being close to Asia and Africa, the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta are considered part of Europe and currently form part of the EU.

Dr. Krishna Ram stated: "But for the fact that a civilization which for five centuries dominated, colonised and subjugated the rest of the world originated there, no one would have considered Europe a separate continent. There is no objective physical reason why Europe should be a full-fledged "continent" while the Indian sub continent is that, a "sub-continent". If it had been India which had given birth to the world-dominating culture, probably it would have been India which also arrogated to itself the distinction of being an entire "continent" all in itself. The Himalayas, after all, are a bit higher than the Urals"[112].

Physical geography

Relief map of Europe and surrounding regions

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 the islands 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

Biomes of Europe and surrounding regions:
     tundra      alpine tundra      taiga      montane forest
     temperate broadleaf forest      mediterranean forest      temperate steppe      dry steppe
The Gulf Stream is orange and yellow in this thermal image of the Atlantic.

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 due to the influence of the Gulf Stream.[113] 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 not only carries 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 on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.[113]

Geology

Main article: Geology of Europe

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.[114]

Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from the British Isles in the west to the 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

Main article: geological history of Europe

The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion 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 1.1 billion 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.[115]

Biodiversity

See also: Fauna of Europe
Biogeographic regions of Europe and bordering regions
Floristic regions of Europe and neighboring areas, according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch

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.

Probably eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest.[116] 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 (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%).[117]

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.

Cave lion became extinct in southeastern Europe about 2,000 years ago

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.).

Once roaming the great temperate forests of Eurasia, European bison now lives in nature preserves in Poland, Russia, and other parts of Eastern Europe

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.

The extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on the islands of the Mediterranean.

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

Main articles: Demographics of Europe, Ethnic groups in Europe, Immigration to Europe, and Aging of Europe
Population growth and decline in and around Europe

Since the Renaissance, Europe has had a major influence in culture, economics and social movements in the world. The most significant inventions had their origins in the Western world, primarily Europe and the United States.[118] 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 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. Abortion remains illegal on the island of Malta where Catholicism is the state religion. Furthermore, three European countries (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland) and the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (Spain)[119][120] have allowed a limited form of voluntary euthanasia for some terminally ill people.

In 2005 the population of Europe was estimated to be 731 million according to the United Nations,[2] 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.[2] According to UN population projection, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high variants, respectively).[2] Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child bearing age is 1.52.[121] According to some sources,[122] 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.[123] A tough new EU immigration law detaining illegal immigrants for up to 18 months before deportation has triggered outrage across Latin America, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez threatening to cut off oil exports to Europe.[124]

Europe is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people, the IOM's report said.[125] The European Union will open the job centres for legal migrant workers from Africa.[126] The centres are part of an EU effort to control a big surge in illegal immigration to Europe while meeting a need for low-skilled labour.[127]

Political geography

Main article: Politics of Europe
See also: Demographics of Europe and List of European countries by population
Europe according to a widely accepted definition is shown in green (countries sometimes associated with European culture in dark blue, Asian parts of European states in light blue).
Modern political map
Regional grouping according to the UN
Regional grouping according to The World Factbook
European Union and its candidate countries
Council of Europe nations
Map showing European membership of the EU and NATO

According to different definitions, the territories may be subject to various categorisations. The 27 European Union member states are highly integrated economically and politically; the European Union itself forms part of the political geography of Europe. The table below shows the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations,[128] alongside the regional grouping published in the CIA factbook. The socio-geographical data included are per sources in cross-referenced articles.

Name of country, with flag Area
(km²)		 Population
(1 July 2002 est.)		 Population density
(per km²)		 Capital
Flag of Albania Albania 28,748 3,600,523 125.2 Tirana
Flag of Andorra Andorra 468 68,403 146.2 Andorra la Vella
Flag of Armenia Armeniak[›] 29,800 3,229,900 101 Yerevan
Flag of Austria Austria 83,858 8,169,929 97.4 Vienna
Flag of Azerbaijan Azerbaijanl[›] 86,600 8,621,000 97 Baku
Flag of Belarus Belarus 207,600 10,335,382 49.8 Minsk
Flag of Belgium Belgium 30,510 10,274,595 336.8 Brussels
Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,129 4,448,500 77.5 Sarajevo
Flag of Bulgaria Bulgaria 110,910 7,621,337 68.7 Sofia
Flag of Croatia Croatia 56,542 4,437,460 77.7 Zagreb
Flag of Cyprus Cypruse[›] 9,251 788,457 85 Nicosia
Flag of the Czech Republic Czech Republic 78,866 10,256,760 130.1 Prague
Flag of Denmark Denmark 43,094 5,368,854 124.6 Copenhagen
Flag of Estonia Estonia 45,226 1,415,681 31.3 Tallinn
Flag of Finland Finland 336,593 5,157,537 15.3 Helsinki
Flag of France Franceh[›] 547,030 59,765,983 109.3 Paris
Flag of Georgia (country) Georgia m[›] 69,700 4,661,473 64 Tbilisi
Flag of Germany Germany 357,021 83,251,851 233.2 Berlin
Flag of Greece Greece 131,940 10,645,343 80.7 Athens
Flag of Hungary Hungary 93,030 10,075,034 108.3 Budapest
Flag of Iceland Iceland 103,000 307,261 2.7 Reykjavík
Flag of Ireland Ireland 70,280 4,234,925 60.3 Dublin
Flag of Italy Italy 301,230 58,751,711 191.6 Rome
Flag of Kazakhstan Kazakhstanj[›] 2,724,900 15,217,711 5.6 Astana
Flag of Latvia Latvia 64,589 2,366,515 36.6 Riga
Flag of Liechtenstein Liechtenstein 160 32,842 205.3 Vaduz
Flag of Lithuania Lithuania 65,200 3,601,138 55.2 Vilnius
Flag of Luxembourg Luxembourg 2,586 448,569 173.5 Luxembourg
Flag of the Republic of Macedonia Macedonia 25,333 2,054,800 81.1 Skopje
Flag of Malta Malta 316 397,499 1,257.9 Valletta
Flag of Moldova Moldovab[›] 33,843 4,434,547 131.0 Chişinău
Flag of Monaco Monaco 1.95 31,987 16,403.6 Monaco
Flag of Montenegro Montenegro 13,812 616,258 44.6 Podgorica
Flag of the Netherlands Netherlandsi[›] 41,526 16,318,199 393.0 Amsterdam
Flag of Norway Norway 324,220 4,525,116 14.0 Oslo
Flag of Poland Poland 312,685 38,625,478 123.5 Warsaw
Flag of Portugal Portugalf[›] 91,568 10,409,995 110.1 Lisbon
Flag of Romania Romania 238,391 21,698,181 91.0 Bucharest
Flag of Russia Russiac[›] 17,075,400 142,200,000 26.8 Moscow
Flag of San Marino San Marino 61 27,730 454.6 San Marino
Flag of Serbia Serbia[129] (2002Census) 88,361 7,495,742 89.4 Belgrade
Flag of Slovakia Slovakia 48,845 5,422,366 111.0 Bratislava
Flag of Slovenia Slovenia 20,273 1,932,917 95.3 Ljubljana
Flag of Spain Spain 504,851 45,061,274 89.3 Madrid
Flag of Sweden Sweden 449,964 9,090,113 19.7 Stockholm
Flag of Switzerland Switzerland 41,290 7,507,000 176.8 Bern
Flag of Turkey Turkeyn[›] 783,562 71,517,100 93 Ankara
Flag of Ukraine Ukraine 603,700 48,396,470 80.2 Kiev
Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom 244,820 61,100,835 244.2 London
Flag of the Vatican City Vatican City 0.44 900 2,045.5 Vatican City
Total 10,180,000o[›] 731,000,000o[›] 70

Within the above-mentioned states are several regions, enjoying broad autonomy, as well as several de facto independent countries with limited international recognition. None of them are UN members:

Name of territory, with flag Area
(km²)		 Population
(1 July 2002 est.)		 Population density
(per km²)		 Capital
Flag of Abkhazia Abkhaziar[›] 8,432 216,000 29 Sukhumi
Flag of Åland Islands Åland Islands (Finland) 1,552 26,008 16.8 Mariehamn
Flag of the Faroe Islands Faroe Islands (Denmark) 1,399 46,011 32.9 Tórshavn
Flag of Gibraltar Gibraltar (UK) 5.9 27,714 4,697.3 Gibraltar
Flag of Guernsey Guernseyd[›] (UK) 78 64,587 828.0 St. Peter Port
Flag of the Isle of Man Isle of Mand[›] (UK) 572 73,873 129.1 Douglas
Flag of Jersey Jerseyd[›] (UK) 116 89,775 773.9 Saint Helier
Flag of Kosovo Kosovop[›] 10,887 2,126,708 220 Pristina
Flag of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Nagorno-Karabakh 11,458 138,800 12 Stepanakert
Flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus 3,355 265,100 78 Nicosia
Flag of South Ossetia South Ossetiar[›] 3,900 70,000 18 Tskhinvali
Flag of Norway Svalbard and Jan
Mayen Islands (Norway)		 62,049 2,868 0.046 Longyearbyen
Flag of Transnistria Transnistria 4,163 537,000 133 Tiraspol

Economy

European and bordering nations by GDP (nominal) per capita in 2006
GDP real growth rate in 2007
Main article: Economy of Europe

As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth. As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its countries. The richer states tend to be in the West, some of the Eastern economies are still emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The European Union, an intergovernmental body composed of 27 European states, comprises the largest single economic area in the world. Currently, 15 EU countries share the euro as a common currency. Five European countries rank in the top ten of the worlds largest national economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (5), the UK (6), Russia (7), France (8), and Italy (10).[130]

Pre–1945: Industrial growth

Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism.[131] From Britain, it gradually spread throughout Europe.[132] The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom in the late 18th century,[133] and the 19th century saw Western Europe industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe's industries.

1945–1990: The Cold War

After World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin,[134] and continued to suffer relative economic decline in the following decades.[135] Italy was also in a poor economic condition but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quickly and had doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s.[136] France also staged a remarkable comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle.[137] The majority of Eastern European states came under the control of the USSR and thus were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).[138] The states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United States under the Marshall Plan.[139] The western states moved to link their economies together, providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it overtaking the UK as Europe's largest economy.

Russia is Europe's key oil and gas supplier.[140]

1991–2003: The rise of the EU

With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1991 the Eastern states had to adapt to a free market system. There were varying degrees of success with Central European countries such as Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia adapting reasonably quickly, while eastern states like Ukraine and Russia taking far longer. Western Europe helped Eastern Europe by forming economic ties with them. After East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany. Yugoslavia lagged farthest behind as it was ravaged by war and in 2003 there were still many EU and NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, with only Slovenia making any real progress. By the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1999 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden.

Language

Simplified linguistic map within the Council of Europe nations
Main article: Languages of Europe

European languages mostly fall within three Indo-European 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.[115] While having much of its vocabulary descended from Romance languages, the English language is a Germanic language.

Romance languages are spoken primarily in south-western Europe as well as in Romania and Moldova. Germanic languages are spoken in north-western Europe and some parts of Central Europe. Slavic languages are spoken in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.[115]

Many other languages outside the three main groups exist in Europe. Other Indo-European languages include the Baltic group (i.e., Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (i.e., Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton[115]), Greek, Albanian, and Armenian[dubious – discuss]. A distinct group of Uralic languages are Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian, spoken in the respective countries as well as in parts of Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Slovakia. Other Non-Indo-European languages are Maltese (the only Semitic language official to the EU), Basque, Georgian, Azerbaijani, and languages of minority nations in Russia.

Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised 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.

Religion

Predominant religions in Europe and neighboring regions:      Roman Catholic Christianity      Eastern Orthodox Christianity      Protestant Christianity      Sunni Islam      Shia Islam      Buddhism      Judaism
Main article: Religion in Europe

Historically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. The majority religion in Europe is Christianity as practiced by Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches. Following these is Islam concentrated mainly in the south east (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan). Other religions including Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are minority religions. Europe is a relatively secular continent and has the largest number and proportion of irreligious, agnostic and atheistic people in the Western world, with a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, Germany (East), and France.[141]

Culture

Main article: Culture of Europe

The culture of Europe can be described as a series of overlapping cultures; cultural mixes exist across the continent. There are cultural innovations and movements, sometimes at odds with each other. Thus the question of "common culture" or "common values" is complex.

See also

Main article: Outline of Europe
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Economics
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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, or Africa.
^ 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 considered a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. However the population and area figures include the entire state.
^ 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: Cyprus is sometimes considered transcontinental country. Physiographically entirely in Western Asia it has strong historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe. The population and area figures refer to the entire state, including the de facto independent part Northern Cyprus.
^ f: Figures for Portugal include the Azores and Madeira archipelagos, both in Northern Atlantic.
^ g: Figures for Serbia include Kosovo, a province that unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, and whose sovereign status is unclear.
^ 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 physiographically 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. However, area and population figures refer to the entire country.
^ k: Armenia is physiographically entirely in Western Asia, but it has strong historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe. The population and area figures include the entire state respectively.
^ l: Azerbaijan is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia. However the population and area figures are for the entire state. This includes the exclave of Nakhchivan and the region Nagorno-Karabakh that has declared, and de facto achieved, independence. Nevertheless, it is not recognised de jure by sovereign states.
^ m: Georgia is often considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia and Eastern Europe. However, the population and area figures include the entire state. This also includes Georgian estimates for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that have declared and de facto achieved independence. The International recognition, however, is limited.
^ n: Turkey is physiographically considered a transcontinental country in Western Asia and Eastern Europe. However the population and area figures include the entire state, both the European and Asian portions.
^ o: The total figures for area and population include only European portions of transcontinental countries.[citation needed] The precision of these figures is compromised by the ambiguous geographical extent of Europe and the lack of references for European portions of transcontinental countries.
^ p: Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. Its sovereign status is unclear. Its population is a 2007 estimate.
^ r: Abkhazia and South Ossetia unilaterally declared their independence from Georgia on 25 August 1990 and 28 November 1991 respectively. Their sovereign status is unclear. Population figures stated as of 2003 census and 2000 estimates respectively.

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Further reading

  • Williams, Glyndwr (1968) "The Expansion of Europe in the Eighteenth Century". London, Blandford Press, SRN 7-137-32723-5.

External links

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