The European

geographic realm lies

on the western flank of

the Eurasian landmass

1

Europe also is endowed with some exceptional locational advantages.

Its relative location, at the crossroads of the land hemisphere, creates

maximum efficiency for contact with much of the rest of the world

A “peninsula of peninsulas,” Europe is nowhere far from the ocean

and its avenues of seaborne trade and conquest. Hundreds of

kilometers of navigable rivers, augmented by an unmatched system of

canals, open the interior of Europe to its neighboring seas and to the

shipping lanes of the world.

The Mediterranean and Baltic seas, in particular, were critical in the

development of trade in early modern times, and in the emergence of

Europe’s early trading cities such as Venice (Italy) in the south and

Lübeck (Germany) in the north.

Europe is a realm of moderate distances and close proximities. Short

distances and large cultural differences make for intense interaction,

the constant circulation of goods and ideas. That has been the

hallmark of Europe’s geography for more than a millennium.

Source: http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu

Source: www.britannica.com

Though territorially

small, Europe is

heavily populated

and fragmented

into 40 states

2

Population: 598,784,265 (2018 est.), Russia is excluded

Area

Population

(2018)

Eastern Europe (147,993,052)

Western

Europe

(194,072,933)

Southern

Europe

(151,860,168)

Northern

Europe

(104,761,581)

Germany (82,293,457)*

United Kingdom (66,573,504)

France (65,233,271)

Italy (59,290,969)*

Spain (46,397,452)*

Ukraine (44,009,214)*

Poland (38,104,832)*

Romania (19,580,634)*

Netherlands (17,084,459)

Belgium (11,498,519)

With asterisks, declining population

Source: worldpopulationreview.com (2018), worldmeters.info (2018)

Europe (including Russia) is the second-smallest continent by

surface area but the third most populous after Asia and Africa. The

population density of Europe as a whole is 143 people per square

mile (compared to Asia's 203/square mile), which makes it the

second most densely populated continent.

Population density: Population density is the number of people per unit of area

Population growth rate: average annual percent change in population

Europe’s natural

environments are highly

varied, and Europe’s

resource base is rich

and diverse.

3

Norway Iceland

Spain

Geologically older, lower,

and more stable than the

Alpine Mountains, the

region extends from

Scandinavia through

western Britain and Ireland

to the heart of the Iberian

Peninsula in Spain.

North German Plain

Southern Poland

Netherlands

This stretches in a lengthy arc

from southeastern Britain and

central France across Germany

and Denmark into Poland and

Ukraine, from where it

continues well into Russia. It is

also known as the Great

European Plain.

Germany

These form the heart of

Europe, which is a region of

hills and low plateaus loaded

with raw materials whose

farm villages grew into towns

and cities when the Industrial

Revolution transformed this

realm.

Southern Limestone Alps [Italy, Austria, Slovenia]

This highland region is named after the Alps, extending eastward from

the Pyrenees on the French-Spanish border to the Balkan Mountains

near the Black Sea, and include Italy’s Appennines and the Carpathians

of eastern Europe.

NATURAL

VEGETATION

MAP OF

EUROPE

Europe’s geographic

diversity, cultural as well

as physical, created strong

identities, specializations,

and opportunities for trade

and commerce

4

Age of Enlightenment &

Expansionism (1650 - 1789) Age of Exploration (1505 - 1650)

Europe’s map is a legacy of its feudal and royal periods, when powerful kings,

barons, dukes, and other rulers, rich enough to fund armies and powerful

enough to extract taxes and tribute from their domains, created bounded

territories in which they reigned supreme.

Europe’s political revolution produced a form of political

territorial organization known as the nation-state, a territorial

state embodied by its culturally distinctive population. The

term nation refers to a people with a single language, a

common history, a similar ethnic background.

Europe’s prominent nation-states of a century ago—France,

Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy—have become multicultural

societies, their nations defined more by an intangible

“national spirit” and emotional commitment than by cultural

or ethnic homogeneity.

European realm is home to peoples of numerous cultural-

linguistic stocks, including not only Latins, Germanics, and Slavs

but also minorities such as Finns, Magyars (Hungarians),

Basques, and Celts.

Europe’s population of around 600 million speaks numerous

languages, almost all of which belong to the Indo-European

language family. But most of those languages are not mutually

understandable; some, such as Finnish and Hungarian, are not

even members of the Indo-European family.

English has become the realm’s unofficial lingua franca (common

language). During a visit to Europe, though, you would find that

English is more commonly usable in the big cities than in the

countryside, and more in western Europe than farther east.

Protestant

Christianity

Catholic

Christianity

Orthodox

Christianity

Sunni

Islam

Europe’s cultural heritage is steeped in Christian traditions, but

sectarian strife between Catholics and Protestants, that plunged

parts of the realm into bitter and widespread conflict, still divides

communities and, as until recently in Northern Ireland, can still

arouse violence. Some political parties still carry the name

“Christian,” for example, Germany’s Christian Democrats.

Recently, a new factor roils the religious landscape: the rise of

Islam. In southeastern Europe, this takes the form of new Islamic

assertiveness in an old Muslim bastion: the (Turkish) Ottoman

Empire left behind millions of converts from Bosnia to Bulgaria

among whom many are demanding greater political representation

and power. In the west, this Islamic resurgence results from the

relatively recent infusion of millions of Muslim immigrants from

former colonies in North Africa and other parts of the far-flung

Islamic world.

For so small a realm, Europe’s cultural geography is sharply varied. The

popular image of Europe tends to be formed by British pageantry, the

French wine country, or historic cities such as Venice or Amsterdam—but go

beyond this core area, and you will find isolated Slavic communities in the

mountains facing the Adriatic Sea, Muslim towns in poverty-mired Albania,

Roma (Gypsy) villages in the interior of Romania, farmers using traditional

methods unchanged for centuries in rural Poland.

British Royalty Roma Gypsies of Romania

Europe is best understood as an enormous functional region, an

interdependent realm that is held together through highly developed,

spatial economic and political networks. It has a huge, intensively used

network of spatial interaction linking places, communities, and

countries in countless ways. This interaction operates on the basis of

two key principles:

A. regional complementarity - means that one area produces a surplus

of a commodity required by another area. When two areas each require

the other’s products, we speak of double complementarity.

(Ex. Industrial Italy needs coal from western Europe; western Europe

needs Italy’s farm products)

B. The ease with which a commodity can be transported by producer

to consumer defines its transferability. Europe is small, distances are

short, and the Europeans have built the world’s most efficient

transport system of roads, railroads, and canals linking navigable

rivers. Taken together, Europe’s enormously diverse economic regions

and its particularly efficient transportation infrastructure make for a

highly interdependent economic realm.

The TGV, France’s version of the Bullet train

High Speed Railroad Map of Europe

Europe’s relatively

prosperous population

is highly urbanized and

rapidly aging

5

Legatum Institute’s Global Prosperity Index of 2017, which is split into

9 sub-indexes (economic quality, business environment, governance,

personal freedom, social capital, safety and security, education,

health, and natural environment) shows that out of the 30 most

prosperous countries (of 149 countries), 20 were European countries.

2014 Rankings

EUROPEAN CITIES

About three of every four

Europeans live in towns

and cities, an average that

is far exceeded in the west

but not yet attained in

much of the east. Large

cities are production

centers as well as

marketplaces, and they

also form the crucibles

[melting pot] of their

nations’ cultures. Europe’s

major cities tend to have

long histories and are

compact, and in general

the European cityscape

looks quite different from

its North American

counterpart.

In 2017, there are an estimated 962 million people aged 60 or over in the

world, comprising 13 per cent of the global population. The population aged

60 or above is growing at a rate of about 3 per cent per year. Currently,

Europe has the greatest percentage of population aged 60 or over (25 per

cent) (UNITED NATIONS, 2018)

Countries with the largest percentage of total population over 65 years in

2017 (Statista, 2018)

When the population pyramid becomes top-heavy, the number of workers whose

taxes pay for the social services of the aged goes down, leading to reduced pensions

and dwindling funds for health care.

Source: CIA World Factbook

No of

births

during a

year per

1,000

persons

Source: CIA World Factbook

No of

deaths

during a

year per

1,000

persons

Source: CIA World Factbook

Local demands for

greater autonomy as well

as cultural challenges

posed by immigration are

straining the European

social fabric.

6

Independence

movements in Europe

seem to enjoy a revival.

But calls for greater

autonomy or even

secession are not just

about cultural identity -

financial discrepancies

between regions also

play a major role.

Unsurprisingly, most of

the regions with strong

separatist tendencies are

amongst the wealthiest in

their respective

countries. Calls for

(more) independence

seem to be loudest when

national financial

equalization mechanisms

lead to results that are

perceived as

disproportional, such as

in Spain or Italy.

Eastern Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Eastern Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Northern Europe

Southern Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Southern Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Southern Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Western Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Western Europe

Source: www.theguardian.com (2018)

Europe’s native

population is

actually

shrinking, but

immigration is

partially

offsetting

Europe’s

population

deficit.

Millions of

Turks, Turkish

Kurds,

Algerians,

Moroccans,

West Africans,

Pakistanis, and

West Indians

are changing

the social

fabric of

Europe.

One key dimension of this change is the spread of Islam in Europe.

Muslim populations in eastern Europe (such as Albania’s, Kosovo’s,

and Bosnia’s) are indigenous communities converted during the

period of Ottoman rule. The Muslim sectors of western European

countries, on the other hand, represent more recent immigrations.

The majority of these immigrants are generally more religious than the

Christian natives. They arrived in a Europe where native populations

are stagnant or declining, where religious institutions are weakened,

and where certain cultural norms are incompatible with Islamic

traditions. Integration and assimilation of Muslim communities into

the national fabric has been slow, their education and income levels

considerably lower than average.

In western European countries particularly, Islamic immigrants are

highly concentrated in metropolitan areas. Thus in cities like

Hamburg, London, and Brussels, the proportion of Muslim

populations is considerably higher than the national average.

In recent years, Europe has

experienced a record influx of

asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in

Syria and other predominantly

Muslim countries. This wave of

Muslim migrants has prompted

debate about immigration and

security policies in numerous

countries and has raised questions

about the current and future number

of Muslims in Europe. Source: http://www.pewforum.org (2017)

Despite Europe’s

momentous unification

efforts, east-west

contrasts still mark the

realm’s regional geogra-

phy.

7

GDP PER

CAPITA

IN USD

(2017)

Population

below poverty

line (%)

(2017)

Unemployment

Rate

(2017)

Annual percentage increase in industrial production (includes

manufacturing, mining, and construction) (2017 est.)

Total expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP (2017 est.)

Literacy Rate

(2017 est.)

• The EU Cohesion Monitor evaluates data from all 28 member states to

measure levels of cohesion within Europe. Contrary to expectations, it found

that the EU’s overall cohesion increased between 2007 and 2017.

• The monitor analyses two kinds of cohesion: structural cohesion, which

measures ties between member states such as trade flows, participation in

common policies, and geographical proximity to other EU states; and

individual cohesion, which measures citizens’ engagement and experiences

with, and views of, the EU.

• The data indicate that there has been substantial growth in structural

cohesion in eastern central EU states, while individual cohesion has risen in

most northern EU states. However, some countries – including France, Italy,

and Spain – have experienced a decline in individual and structural

cohesion.

• The financial crisis and the refugee crisis have affected Engagement (which

measures voter behavior) more than any of the other nine indicators. Along

with a decline in the Resilience indicator, this trend reflects the political divide

between east and west that continues to shape EU policy.

EU Motto: United in diversity

The European Union

(EU) is a historic and

unique effort to achieve

multinational economic

integration and, to a

lesser degree, political

coordination

8

In 1949, the participating governments created the Council of Europe,

the beginnings of what was to become a European Parliament meeting

in Strasbourg, France. Europe was embarked on still another political

revolution, the formation of a multinational union involving a growing

number of European states.

This is a classic example of supranationalism, which geographers

define as a voluntary association in economic, political, or cultural

spheres of three or more independent states willing to yield some

measure of sovereignty for their mutual benefit.

Under the Treaty of Rome, six countries joined to become the

European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958, also called the

“Common Market.” In 1973 the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark

joined, and the renamed European Community (EC) now encompassed

nine members. Membership reached 15 countries in 1995, after the

organization had been renamed yet one more time to become the

European Union (EU).

9

en.wikipedia.org/

Is your 2018

summer holiday

safe? We've

mapped FCO

(Foreign and

Commonwealth

Office) travel advice

to show countries at

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March 22, 2016: 32 killed and hundreds wounded in bombing in

Brussels

November, 2015: 130 people died and hundreds were wounded in a

series of attacks in Paris;

January, 2015: 12 people were killed in the Paris office of the

satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in retaliation for its articles on

Islamic fundamentalism;

May, 2014: four people were killed at the Jewish Museum in

Brussels;

March, 2012: six people, including Jewish schoolchildren, were killed

in Toulouse, France;

Islamist Terrorism in Europe