The smallest continent of the northern hemisphere, stretching westward from the Ural Mountains in Russia and surrounded on three sides by sea.

Physical

The structure of Europe is complex. In the north-west, mountains of old, hard rock occupy most of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the north-west of the British Isles, and Brittany in France; much of this area is covered by barren rocks and moorland. Most of it is separated by the shallow North and Baltic seas from the North European Plain, which spreads from England and France across the north of the continent to Finland and the Baltic states and down to the Black Sea. Southern Europe is hilly or mountainous, except for two plains: a triangular plain in northern Italy and the broad one of the middle Danube. From west to east is a curving chain of ranges—the Pyrenees, Alps, and Carpathians—while pointing southward are the Apennines and the parallel ranges of the Balkan Peninsula. They form barriers, yet are so cut by rivers and valleys that no part of Europe is completely isolated. The extreme south is volcanic, being close to the edge of the Eurasian plate.

History

Throughout its history Europe has exerted an influence disproportionate to its size. Its most important ancient civilizations developed in the Mediterranean region. Greek civilization reached its zenith between c.500 and c.300 bc, to be succeeded by that of Rome. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the late 4th century, shortly before the empire’s western section succumbed to Germanic invaders. The eastern section lived on as the Byzantine empire, centred on Constantinople, which eventually fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

During the Middle Ages a politically fragmented Europe underwent varying degrees of invasion and colonization from Moors, Vikings, Magyars, and others. The attempt of the powerful Franks to re-establish the Western Roman empire soon failed, but the year 962 marked the foundation of what later became the Holy Roman Empire. The Roman Catholic Church became the unifying force throughout the continent; but in the wake of the Renaissance, the 16th century bought about a religious schism (the Reformation) in western Christendom and ushered in an era of national and international politico-religious warfare.

Post-medieval Europe was characterized by the rise of strong individual nation-states such as Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, and eventually Russia. Their influence on the rest of the world was the result of their acquisition of vast empires outside Europe. Imperial expansion continued through the age of European revolutions, of which the French Revolution was the most momentous. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries north-western Europe became the first region of the world to undergo industrialization (see industrial revolution).

The modern history of Europe is largely that of its constituent nations. In the 20th century European history has been dominated by World War I and World War II. Since the end of World War II the European Community and its successor, the European Union, have brought an altogether more hopeful era to the peoples of Europe.