At about 4 million square miles, Europe, including adjacent islands, is the sixth largest continent. It is actually the western fifth of the vast landmass Eurasia, which comprises Europe and Asia.
To distinguish Europe from Asia most geographers use an imaginary line running from the northern extent of the Ural Mountains on the Kara Sea, then south along the Ural River to the Caspian Sea, then west along the Caucasus Mountains to the Black Sea, then along the Bosporus Strait (linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, both forming an arm of the Mediterranean Sea), and the Dardanelles (a strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea, also part of the Mediterranean). The Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar separate Europe from Africa (in addition to the Black Sea and Aegean Sea, the northern Mediterranean includes the Ionian, Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, and Ligurian Seas).
The northernmost point of the European mainland is Cape Nordkinn (North Cape) in Norway; the southernmost is Punta de Tarifa in southern Spain near the Strait of Gibraltar; the westernmost is Cabo da Roca in Portugal; the easternmost is the Ural Mountains in Russia.
To the west of Europe is the Atlantic Ocean (with the North Sea and Baltic Sea as subdivisions) and to the north is the Arctic Ocean (with the Norwegian Sea, Barents Sea, and White Sea as subdivisions).
Europe is commonly discussed as five geographic regions: Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden); the British Isles (present-day United Kingdom and Ireland); western Europe (present-day Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Netherlands); southern Europe (present-day Andorra, Italy, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, and Vatican City); central Europe (present-day Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland); southeastern Europe (present-day Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, and the western part of Turkey); and eastern Europe (present-day Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, and the western part of Russia). Some geographers include Transcaucasia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) as part of Europe, but that region is generally defined as part of southwestern Asia. A tiny portion of Kazakhstan west of the Ural River can be said to be in Europe, but that nation is grouped with Asian nations.
World History
