[t]

Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the
Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean
to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe shares
[9][10]
the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia.
Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural
Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and
[11]
the waterway of the Bosporus Strait.

Europe covers approx. 10,186,000 square kilometres (3,933,000 sq mi), or 2% of

Earth's surface (6.8% of Earth's land area), making it the second-smallest continent
(using the seven-continent model). Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty
sovereign states, of which Russia is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of
the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of
about 745 million (about 10% of the world population) in 2021; the third-largest after
[1][2]
Asia and Africa. The European climate is affected by warm Atlantic currents, such
as the Gulf Stream, which produce a temperate climate, tempering winters and
summers, on much of the continent. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are
more noticeable producing more continental climates.

The culture of Europe consists of a range of national and regional cultures, which form
the central roots of the wider Western civilisation, and together commonly reference
ancient Greece and ancient Rome, particularly through their Christian successors, as
[12][13]
crucial and shared roots. Beginning with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in
476 CE, Christian consolidation of Europe in the wake of the Migration Period marked
the European post-classical Middle Ages. The Italian Renaissance spread in the
continent a new humanist interest in art and science which led to the modern era. Since
the Age of Discovery, led by Spain and Portugal, Europe played a predominant role in
global affairs with multiple explorations and conquests around the world. Between the
16th and 20th centuries, European powers colonised at various times the Americas,
almost all of Africa and Oceania, and the majority of Asia.

The Age of Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the
continent culturally, politically, and economically from the end of the 17th century until
the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain
at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural, and social change
in Western Europe and eventually the wider world. Both world wars began and were
fought to a great extent in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European
dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United
States took prominence and competed over ideological dominance and international
[14]
influence in Europe and globally. The resulting Cold War divided Europe along the
Iron Curtain, with NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East. This divide
ended with the Revolutions of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dissolution of the
Soviet Union, which allowed European integration to advance significantly.
European integration has been advanced institutionally since 1948 with the founding of
the Council of Europe, and significantly through the realisation of the European Union
[15]
(EU), which represents today the majority of Europe. The European Union is a
supranational political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation and is
[16]
based on a system of European treaties. The EU originated in Western Europe but
has been expanding eastward since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. A
majority of its members have adopted a common currency, the euro, and participate in
the European single market and a customs union. A large bloc of countries, the
Schengen Area, have also abolished internal border and immigration controls. Regular
popular elections take place every five years within the EU; they are considered to be
the second-largest democratic elections in the world after India's. The EU is the third-
largest economy in the world.

Etymology
Further information: Europa (consort of Zeus)

Reconstruction of an early world map made by Anaximander of the 6th century BCE, dividing the
known world into three large landmasses, one of which was named Europe

The place name Evros was first used by the ancient Greeks to refer to their
northernmost province, which bears the same name today. The principal river there –
[17]
Evros (today's Maritsa) – flows through the fertile valleys of Thrace, which itself was
[18]
also called Europe, before the term meant the continent.

In classical Greek mythology, Europa (Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē) was a

Phoenician princess. One view is that her name derives from the Ancient Greek
elements εὐρύς (eurús) 'wide, broad', and ὤψ (ōps, gen. ὠπός, ōpós) 'eye, face,
countenance', hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean 'wide-gazing' or 'broad of
[19][20][21][22]
aspect'. Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed
[19]
Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. An alternative view is that
of Robert Beekes, who has argued in favour of a pre-Indo-European origin for the
name, explaining that a derivation from eurus would yield a different toponym than
Europa. Beekes has located toponyms related to that of Europa in the territory of
[23]
ancient Greece, and localities such as that of Europos in ancient Macedonia.

There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for west, this being
either Akkadian erebu meaning 'to go down, set' (said of the sun) or Phoenician 'ereb
[22]
'evening, west', which is at the origin of Arabic maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Martin
Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any
[24]
form of the Semitic word is very poor", while Beekes considers a connection to
[23]
Semitic languages improbable.

Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the
continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲/欧洲), which is an
abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲) (zhōu means
"continent"); a similar Chinese-derived term Ōshū (欧州) is also sometimes used in
Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, Ōshū Rengō (欧
州連合), despite the katakana Yōroppa (ヨーロッパ) being more commonly used. In
some Turkic languages, the originally Persian name Frangistan ("land of the
Franks") is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as
[25]
Avrupa or Evropa.

Definition
Further information: Boundaries between the continents § Asia and Europe
See also: List of transcontinental countries
Contemporary definition
[u]
Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries
Key: blue: states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia; green: countries not geographically in
Europe, but closely associated with the continent
 Alb.
Andorra
Austria
Azer.
Belarus
Belg.
Bosnia
Bulgaria
Channel
Is.
Croatia
Czech.
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Gib. (UK)
Germany
Georgia
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
 IoM
San
Mar.
Kazakhstan
Kos.
Latvia
Liech.
Lithuania
Lux.
Malta
Moldova
Monaco
Mont.
Netherlands
N. Mac.
Norway
Svalbard (Nor)
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Franz Josef Land (Rus)
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switz-
erland
Turkey
Ukraine
United
Kingdom
Far. (Dk)
Vatican
Armenia
Cyprus
Greenland (Dk)
Adr-
iatic
Sea
Arctic Ocean
Baltic
Sea
Aegean
Sea
Barents Sea
Bay of
Biscay
Black
Sea
Caspian
Sea
Celtic
Sea
Greenland Sea
 Baffin Bay
Gulf of
Cádiz
Ligurian
Sea
Mediterranean Sea
North
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Sea
Norwegian
Sea
Strait of Gibraltar
The prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the
mid-19th century. Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water to the north,
west and south; Europe's limits to the east and north-east are usually taken to be the
Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the south-east, the Caucasus
Mountains, the Black Sea, and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the
[26]
Mediterranean Sea.

Definitions used for the boundary between Asia and Europe in different periods of history.
 A medieval T and O map printed by Günther Zainer in 1472, showing the three continents as
domains of the sons of Noah – Asia to Sem (Shem), Europe to Iafeth (Japheth) and Africa to
Cham (Ham)

Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is
considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually
assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark. Nevertheless,
there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus is
[27]
closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is considered part of Europe politically and it
is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of North-western Africa for
[28]
centuries, but now it is considered to be part of Europe as well. "Europe", as used
[29]
specifically in British English, may also refer to Continental Europe exclusively.

The term "continent" usually implies the physical geography of a large land mass
completely or almost completely surrounded by water at its borders. Prior to the
adoption of the current convention that includes mountain divides, the border between
Europe and Asia had been redefined several times since its first conception in classical
antiquity, but always as a series of rivers, seas and straits that were believed to extend
an unknown distance east and north from the Mediterranean Sea without the inclusion
of any mountain ranges. Cartographer Herman Moll suggested in 1715 Europe was
bounded by a series of partly-joined waterways directed towards the Turkish straits, and
the Irtysh River draining into the upper part of the Ob River and the Arctic Ocean. In
contrast, the present eastern boundary of Europe partially adheres to the Ural and
Caucasus Mountains, which is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent compared to any
clear-cut definition of the term "continent".

The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural,
linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp
dividing line. The geographic border between Europe and Asia does not follow any state
boundaries and now only follows a few bodies of water. Turkey is generally considered
a transcontinental country divided entirely by water, while Russia and Kazakhstan are
only partly divided by waterways. France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain are also
transcontinental (or more properly, intercontinental, when oceans or large seas are
involved) in that their main land areas are in Europe while pockets of their territories are
located on other continents separated from Europe by large bodies of water. Spain, for
example, has territories south of the Mediterranean Sea—namely, Ceuta and Melilla—
which are parts of Africa and share a border with Morocco. According to the current
convention, Georgia and Azerbaijan are transcontinental countries where waterways
have been completely replaced by mountains as the divide between continents.

History of the concept

See also: Boundary between Europe and Asia
Early history

Depiction of Europa regina ('Queen Europe') in 1582

The first recorded usage of Eurṓpē as a geographic term is in the Homeric Hymn to
Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a
part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BCE by Anaximander and
Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the
Phasis River (the modern Rioni River on the territory of Georgia) in the Caucasus, a
[30]
convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. Herodotus mentioned
that the world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts—Europe, Asia,
and Libya (Africa)—with the Nile and the Phasis forming their boundaries—though he
also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the
[31]
boundary between Europe and Asia. Europe's eastern frontier was defined in the 1st
[32]
century by geographer Strabo at the River Don. The Book of Jubilees described the
continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as
stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from
[33]
Northwest Africa, to the Don, separating it from Asia.

The convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of
[34] [35]
the Roman era used by Roman-era authors such as Posidonius, Strabo, and
[36]
Ptolemy, who took the Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary.
The Roman Empire did not attach a strong identity to the concept of continental
divisions. However, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the culture that
developed in its place, linked to Latin and the Catholic church, began to associate itself
[37]
with the concept of "Europe". The term "Europe" is first used for a cultural sphere in
the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the
sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox
churches and to the Islamic world.

A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th
century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of
Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with
Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France,
[38][39]
Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy.
The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: Europa
[dubious – discuss] [40]
often figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin. The
transition of Europe to being a cultural term as well as a geographic one led to the
borders of Europe being affected by cultural considerations in the East, especially
relating to areas under Byzantine, Ottoman, and Russian influence. Such questions
were affected by the positive connotations associated with the term Europe by its users.
Such cultural considerations were not applied to the Americas, despite their conquest
and settlement by E