Europe - Facts & List Of Countries

Europe is ranked sixth in size of the world's seven continents, consisting of forty five countries which cover an area of 9,908,599 square kilometers.

Europe is the only continent positioned solely in the Northern Hemisphere and covers 2% of the world's surface area and 6.8% of the world's land area.

Europe is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to it's west, the Arctic Ocean to it's north and the Mediterranean Sea to it's south. Other large bodies of water located within Europe include the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Irish Sea, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the English Channel.

Europe's longest river is the River Danube, at 3, 690 kilometers and the continent's largest body of freshwater is Lough Neagh, situated in Northern Ireland.

Europe's highest peak is Mont Blanc, situated in the Alps Mountain Range, at 4, 810 meters high.

Europe's lowest point is situated at Zuidplas Polder in the Netherlands at seven meters below sea level.

Europe is also home to the world's largest volcanic island, Iceland, the world's largest cold water geyser, at Aldernach in Germany, the world's largest whirlpool, at Bodo in Norway, the world's largest area of inter tidal mudflats located on the Wadden Sea, the world's most northerly located capital city, Reykjyavik in Iceland, the world's most northerly located community, Norway's Svalbard Archipelago, the world's two smallest nations, the Vatican City at 0.44 square kilometers and Monaco at 1.95 square kilometers, the world's only traffic free city, Venice in Italy and the world's lowest elevated capital city, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, at 2 meters below sea level.

Politically Europe also includes the world's largest island, Greenland, which is an autonomous region of Denmark, although geographically the island is actually part of the North American continent.

Europe's geographically largest island is Great Britain.

Politically, Europe also contains a large part of the Russian Federation and Turkey, which geographically are both a part of Asia. This area is now collectively known as Eurasia.

The area of Russia in Europe is by far the largest area of any one single nation positioned within the continent, but the continent's largest country to be wholly positioned in Europe is France, at 543, 965 square kilometers.

Europe has fifteen land locked countries, the second largest number of all the continents after Africa, these countries are - Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland and the Vatican City State. Europe's largest landlocked country is Serbia at 102,173 square kilometers in size.

Europe has an overall population of around 740 million people or 11% of the world's overall population.

The European Union countries have an estimated population of around 500 million people, although due to mass immigration and asylum, this population is probably much higher.

The European country with the largest population, excluding Russia in Europe, is Germany, with a population of 80.5 million people and Europe's least populated country is the Vatican City State with less than one thousand people.

Europe's largest city, by population, not including Istanbul in Turkey or Moscow in Russia, is London in the United Kingdom with 7.4 million people.

Europe's largest city, by area, not including Istanbul in Turkey or Moscow in Russia, is Paris, pictured above, in France, which covers a metropolitan area of 12, 079, 87 square kilometers.

Europe has a diverse culture and a vast ethnic mix within it's nations, with a high instance of immigrants, particularly in western Europe, which include many languages and religious groups.

Europe's main indigenous language groups are Germanic, Romance and Slavic, with German being the single most widely spoken official language within the continent and English being the most widely spoken foreign language within the continent.

Europe has twenty three official languages and several regional, national and language isolates, including Albanian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Finnish, Flemish, Gaelic, Maltese, Sami and Welsh.

Although most of Europe considers itself secular, the predominant religion within Europe is Catholicism, followed by several other Christian faiths, Islam, Hindu and Judaism. Europe also has the highest instance of state religions within any one continent, with nine of it's countries, Denmark, England, Greece, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco and Russia, all having their own Christian state religion.

The continent also has it's own patron saint, St Benedict of Nursia, whose feast day is held on the 11th of July.

Europe also has the highest instance of monarchies in the world, with nine of it's nations, Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom and the Vatican City, all having either a religious leader, a duke, a prince or king or queen as head of state.

Europe, not including Russia in Europe, spans three time zones, UTC, UTC + 1 and UTC + 2 and has ten climatic zones.

Listed below are all forty five countries of Europe, along with their capital city, land area, official language, currency, internet TLD and international telephone calling code, followed by facts about the European Union and the Euro Zone and a European language map and a climate map of Europe.

COUNTRIES OF EUROPE

The European Union was formed in 1958 by six founder nations, see list below, who wanted to secure an economic and trading block in order to bolster the continent's ailing economy which had been devastated by the second world war.

Over the years the union has worked towards an ever closer political and fiscal union with the ultimate aim of becoming a federal European super state, something which is considerably alarming for some of it's members.

At present the union consists of twenty eight member states and it's headquarters are based in Brussels in Belgium.

EUROPEAN EURO ZONE COUNTRIES

Of the twenty eight European Union member states seventeen of them are part of the Euro Zone, this means they have the Euro as their unit of currency.

Below is a list of all the European Union member states showing the year they joined in white text, the year the country changed it's currency to the Euro in the highlighted blue text followed by the name of the country's previously used currency.

NOTE - Not every member state uses the Euro.

AUSTRIA - 1995 - 2002 - Schilling

BELGIUM - Founder member - 1958 - 2002 - Franc

BULGARIA - 2004.

CROATIA - 2013.

CYPRUS - 2004 - 2008 - Pound

CZECH REPUBLIC - 2004.

DENMARK - 1973.

ESTONIA - 2004 - 2011 - Kroon

FINLAND - 1995 - 2002 - Markka

FRANCE - Founder member - 1958 - 2002 - Franc

GERMANY- Founder member - 1958 - 2002 - Deutschmark

GREECE - 1981 - 2002 - Drachma

HUNGARY - 2004.

IRELAND - 1973 - 2002 - Punt

ITALY - Founder member - 1958 - 2002 - Lira

LATVIA - 2004 - 2014 - Lat .

LITHUANIA - 2004 - 2015 - Litas .

LUXEMBOURG - Founder member - 1958 - 2002 - Franc

MALTA - 2004 - 2008 - Lira

NETHERLANDS - Founder member - 1958 - 2002 - Guilder

POLAND - 2004.

PORTUGAL - 1986 - 2002 - Escudo

ROMANIA - 2007.

SLOVENIA - 2004 - 2007 - Tolar

SLOVAKIA - 2004 - 2009 - Koruna

SPAIN - 1986 - 2002 - Peseta

SWEDEN - 1995.

UNITED KINGDOM - 1973.

Although not member states of the European Union, the following four countries use the Euro as their official unit of currency.

Andorra.

Monaco.

San Marino.

Vatican City.

EUROPEAN NATIONS NOT IN THE EU

The following European countries and territories are NOT part of the EU -

Albania.

Andorra.

Belarus.

Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Canary Islands.

Channel Islands.

Gibraltar.

Greenland.

Iceland.

Isle of Man.

Lichtenstein.

Macedonia.

Moldova.

Montenegro.

Norway.

Northern Cyprus.

San Marino.

Switzerland.

Vatican City State.

The following Eurasian countries are also NOT part of the EU at this present time -

Russia.

Turkey.

Ukraine.

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