Europe

Europe is one of the smallest of the world’s seven continents in area but one of the largest in population. All of the continents except Australia have more land than Europe. But only Asia and Africa have more people. About one-tenth of the world’s people live in Europe. Europe is more densely populated than all the other continents except Asia.

Europe extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the south and from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. The continent of Europe occupies the western fifth of the world’s largest land mass. Asia occupies the rest of this land.

The countries of Europe include the world’s largest country, Russia, as well as the world’s smallest, Vatican City. Russia lies partly in Europe and partly in Asia. By world standards, most European countries are average or small in size. The five smallest countries—Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City—are smaller in area and population than many cities.

Europe has long ranked among the world’s leading industrial and agricultural centers. The continent has many rich deposits of coal and iron ore. It also has some of the richest farmland in the world.

The many cultural landmarks and natural beauties of Europe attract visitors worldwide. Exhibits in such museums as the Louvre in Paris and the Hermitage Museum in Russia thrill art lovers. Masterpieces of architecture include the temples of ancient Greece and Rome and the Gothic cathedrals of France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Europe’s historic Rhine River winds past steep cliffs dotted with the ruins of castles built hundreds of years ago. Other attractions on the continent include the snow-covered Alps of Switzerland, the colorful tulip fields of the Netherlands, the canals of Venice in Italy, and the sunny beaches of the Riviera of France and Italy.

Europe has had a great impact on the history of the world. It is the birthplace of Western civilization. From the time of the ancient Greeks, Europe’s political ideas, scientific discoveries, arts and philosophies, and religious beliefs have spread to other parts of the world. The civilizations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the Latin American countries largely developed from European civilization.

The most important European civilizations of ancient times developed in the region around the Mediterranean Sea. The earliest of these civilizations began about 3000 B.C. on islands in the Aegean Sea, east of Greece. The two most influential ancient European civilizations were those of the Greeks and the Romans. Greek civilization reached its height in the 400’s and 300’s B.C. The Greeks made lasting contributions to art, science, philosophy, and government. The Romans, who lived on the Italian Peninsula, adopted much of Greek civilization. They began to expand their territory in the 200’s B.C., and they eventually built an empire that included much of Europe and parts of Africa and Asia.

The Roman Empire ended in western Europe in the A.D. 400’s, and a period of European history called the Middle Ages began. During this era, the Roman Catholic Church had enormous influence in the politics, education, arts, and religion of western and central Europe. In eastern Europe, the Eastern Orthodox Churches gained great influence.

The early 1300’s marked the beginning of the Renaissance, a period in which Europeans made great achievements in the arts and learning. By the time the Renaissance ended, about 1600, Europe was moving into an age of rapid economic, political, and scientific progress. By the early 1700’s, Great Britain (now also called the United Kingdom), France, and several other European nations had become the world’s leading powers. These nations established colonies in Africa, Asia, and North and South America, and they gained great wealth through trade with the colonies.

The Industrial Revolution, which marked the start of modern industry, began in Europe during the 1700’s. The continent soon became the manufacturing center of the world, and European nations established more and more overseas colonies. Colonies supplied raw materials to European industry and served as markets for Europe’s manufactured goods. Most of Africa and about a third of Asia came under European colonial rule. But during the 1900’s, European nations lost almost all their colonies.

World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) started in Europe. The wars brought great destruction to the continent. They also led to changes in the form of government in many European nations and to the creation of several countries.

Communist governments were established in much of Europe after World War II. The continent soon became divided between Communist countries of eastern Europe and non-Communist countries of western Europe. From the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s, Europe was a center of the Cold War struggle between the world’s Communist and non-Communist forces. The mutual fear and suspicion inspired by the Cold War lasted until at least 1989, when countries throughout eastern Europe began to end one-party rule. In 1991, the Soviet Union, then the world’s most powerful Communist country, dissolved. It split up into several independent, non-Communist countries.

During the late 1900’s and early 2000’s, many of the continent’s countries took steps toward unity. A number of them formed an association called the European Union (EU). Through the EU, they cooperate with one another in some political matters and work to unite their resources into a single economy.

This article provides a broad overview of the people, ways of life, arts, land, climate, wildlife, economy, and history of Europe. Many separate World Book articles have more detailed information. A list of these articles appears in the Related information feature that accompanies this article.

People

The people of Europe represent a variety of cultural backgrounds. For centuries, they have spoken different languages and followed different cultural traditions.

Most Europeans are descended from nomadic peoples who lived on the continent during ancient times. Many of these groups moved from place to place and mixed with other groups they met, sometimes through trade and other times through conquest. For example, the ancestors of the British people included such groups as the Angles, Danes, Jutes, Romans, and Saxons.

In the last half of the 1900’s, large numbers of people from former European colonies in Asia and Africa migrated into Europe. Large migrations from other parts of the world also flowed into Europe, including large numbers of Turks into Germany. In urban areas in France, Germany, and other nations, ethnic minorities have gained more political and economic influence. However, people of Asian or African descent still make up only a small percentage of the continent’s population.

Population.

Europe ranks as the third largest continent in population, behind Asia and Africa. About 730 million people, or about a tenth of the world’s population, live in Europe.

About 115 million people live in the part of Russia that lies in Europe. No other European country has nearly as many people. Vatican City ranks as the smallest country in Europe and in the world. It has only about 1,000 inhabitants.

Europe has an average of about 180 people per square mile (70 people per square kilometer). Europe and Asia rank as the two most densely populated continents in the world. In Europe, as in all continents, the people are not distributed evenly. For example, large areas of northern Europe are nearly uninhabited. In much of western Europe, however, people live close to one another. For example, the Netherlands has about 1,092 people per square mile (422 per square kilometer), making it one of the world’s most densely populated countries.

Ethnic groups.

The peoples of Europe include widely varying ethnic groups. An ethnic group consists of a large number of people with the same cultural background. Members may be united by the same language, the same religion, a common ancestry, or all of these characteristics. Ethnic groups can provide their members with a sense of belonging. They can establish standards of behavior for their members and can also preserve artistic, religious, and other traditions.

Many European countries now have several different ethnic groups living in them. Since the mid-1900’s, for example, people from northern and western Africa have moved to France, while Indonesians have migrated to the Netherlands. Large numbers of people from Turkey, Morocco, and Suriname also live in the Netherlands.

In some cases, members of neighboring ethnic groups dislike and distrust each other. These feelings often lead to fighting among groups, both within and between countries. Such conflicts in modern Europe have included fighting between the English and the Irish in Northern Ireland, between the Spanish and the Basques of northern Spain, and between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Violence also has arisen between Europeans and immigrants from other parts of the world. For example, conflicts have occurred in French cities between certain groups of French people and Muslim immigrants from northern Africa.

However, many European ethnic groups have gradually forgotten their differences and now think of themselves as members of a national group, such as Germans or Italians. Because of the closer economic and political ties created within the European Union, some people have even begun to think of themselves less as members of national groups and more as Europeans.

Languages.

About 50 languages and more than a hundred dialects (local forms of languages) are spoken in Europe. Languages have caused both unity and division throughout the continent. People generally feel a sense of unity with others in their language group and feel separated from people who speak other languages.

Almost all European languages belong to the Indo-European language family. No one knows where the first Indo-European languages originated, but they probably began in the area north of the Black Sea. This family of languages has three major branches in Europe: Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Romance. Most people in eastern Europe speak Balto-Slavic languages, which include Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, and Russian. The Germanic languages—such as Danish, English, German, and Swedish—are spoken chiefly in northwestern Europe. The Romance languages, spoken mostly in southwestern Europe, include French, Italian, and Spanish.

A few countries in Europe speak languages outside the Indo-European family. Hungarian, known as Magyar, belongs to the Finno-Ugric language group. This group also includes Estonian, Finnish, and Sami. People in the European part of Turkey speak Turkish, a Turkic language. Most people on the island country of Malta speak Maltese, which developed from West Arabic and has many words borrowed from Italian. The Basque language of northern Spain, known as Euskara, has an unknown origin and is called a language isolate. See also Language (Language families).

Religions.

Christianity has long served as Europe’s major religion. This faith began in the Middle East, but it developed primarily in Europe. Since the mid-1900’s, however, Christianity and other religions have become less influential in many parts of Europe. Only a small percentage of Europeans now attend religious services regularly.

Roman Catholics make up most of Europe’s Christians. Catholics live chiefly in southwestern and northeastern Europe. The continent’s other Christians are about evenly divided between the Eastern Orthodox and Protestant faiths. Members of the Eastern Orthodox Churches live chiefly in Greece, Russia, and in southeastern Europe. Protestantism remains the chief form of Christianity in most of northwestern Europe.

Europe also has several million Jews and Muslims. Jews live in most parts of the continent. Muslims make their homes chiefly in southeastern European countries, including Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkey, which are considered both European and Asian. Large populations of Muslim immigrants inhabit many western European cities, mainly in France and Germany.

During the Middle Ages, Christian monasteries and universities were centers of learning and preserved much of the heritage of the Greek and Roman cultures. Medieval Islamic and Jewish scholars also contributed to the preservation and advancement of learning in Europe, especially in Spain and Sicily. Through the centuries, religious organizations supported schools for young people and sponsored many of Europe’s greatest artists.

Christianity, in particular, helped to shape European culture, philosophy, and law. The Christian idea of the equality of every person before God eventually became a foundation of the modern social and political concepts of equality.

Many problems also have been caused in the name of religions. A number of violent and bloody events in European history have resulted, in part, from religious conflict, though they had political and social causes as well. During the Middle Ages, for example, the Roman Catholic Church conducted wars known as the Crusades against Muslims.

After the birth of Protestantism in Germany in the early 1500’s, Europe experienced more than 100 years of warfare between Catholics and Protestants. Bitterness between Catholics and Protestants still exists in a few parts of Europe today. For example, disputes between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland helped produce much violence in the last half of the 1900’s.

In World War II (1939-1945), the Nazi government of Germany killed more than two-thirds of the Jews in Europe—about 6 million people—in what is called the Holocaust. During the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s, violence erupted between the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Muslim groups that lived there.

Ways of life

Ways of life—including customs, languages, religions, and educational systems—have long varied throughout Europe. Even within individual countries, ways of life can differ greatly from one region to another.

The northern areas of Europe generally are more industrial and urbanized than the southern areas, which tend to be more agricultural. In Italy, for example, the rural southern part of the country remains less economically developed than the industrialized northern part.

Beginning in the last half of the 1900’s, these regional differences have lessened. Reasons for the decreased difference include industrialization, migration from rural areas to cities, and rising standards of living. People generally begin to follow similar ways of life after they move to cities, find industrial jobs, and increase their earnings. Today, moreover, even rural communities have adopted many urban ways of life. For example, the spread of cellular telephones, computers, and other communication devices has brought rural and urban communities closer together.

Europeans have long shared several basic attitudes and beliefs. For example, many Europeans believe strongly in the importance of social class, and social mobility has generally proved more difficult in Europe than in the Americas. Europeans have long paid high taxes, and they expect the government to provide a wide array of services and to play a central role in managing their countries’ economies.

Europeans often have a deep respect for history and tradition, both in their private and public lives. They take great pride in the outstanding artistic, educational, and political achievements of Europe’s past.

City life.

Europe has some of the world’s largest and most famous cities. Moscow, the capital of Russia, is the largest city in Europe. London, the capital of the United Kingdom, and Paris, the capital of France, also rank among the largest urban centers of the world. London is an important center of international finance. Paris has long been a world capital of fashion, art, and learning.

Cities in Europe show great differences between the old and the new. Many European cities have cathedrals built during the Middle Ages, and some, including Athens and Rome, have ruins of buildings constructed over 2,000 years ago. Yet these ancient structures stand near modern supermarkets, glass-and-steel skyscrapers, department stores, and fast-food restaurants.

The rapid growth of industry and business in many large cities of Europe has drawn many people from rural areas and from foreign countries. As a result, these cities have become crowded, and suburbs have grown up around them.

Rural life

varies throughout Europe. Generally, people in rural areas have a lower standard of living and follow a more traditional way of life than people in urban areas.

Some European farmers live on their farms. But most live in villages and travel to their fields each day. On a typical family-owned farm, the father, mother, and children provide most of the labor. Farmers in the northwestern regions of Europe, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, generally use advanced agricultural methods and equipment. As a result, they have generally achieved the highest standards of living of any European farmers.

In parts of southern Europe, especially in Greece and Portugal, some farmers work in much the same way as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. They use traditional agricultural methods and equipment. But even in such regions, more and more farmers have begun to use modern machinery and methods. Funds from the European Union have greatly benefited these farmers.

The family

has held an important place in European life for hundreds of years. For many Europeans, the family remains the most important unit of society because it protects the individual and teaches a person about life. Many Europeans owe their first loyalty to the family and regard the extended family as the center of their social lives. In many parts of Europe, people remain near their families, and children often live with parents well into adulthood. But commitment to the family is not as strong among young Europeans as it is among older people.

Family ties remain strongest today in southern Europe and parts of eastern Europe. Most of the countries in these areas have the least industrialized and urbanized societies of Europe. The role of the family has become less important in northwestern Europe, which generally is more urban and industrialized. There, workers move to the places where they can find the best jobs, regardless of their family ties.

In such countries as France, Germany, and Italy, many families have fewer than two children. As a result, the native populations of those countries are decreasing.

Recreation.

Europeans take part in a broad variety of pastimes. Many European governments have legislated workweeks of less than 40 hours. Workers in the United States and other industrialized countries have longer workweeks than do most Europeans. In addition to having shorter workweeks, Europeans receive longer vacation periods than do workers in other areas.

Europeans travel all over the world. Favorite vacation spots within Europe include southern Spain and the islands off Greece and southern Italy.

The most popular European sport is soccer, known in Europe as football. Numerous European cities field soccer teams in major national and international tournaments. People throughout Europe also play such sports as basketball, rugby, team handball, tennis, and volleyball. Other sports flourish only in parts of Europe, such as cricket in the United Kingdom and hurling in Ireland.

Europe boasts some of the world’s greatest museums, including the Prado in Madrid, Spain; the Louvre in Paris; the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia; the National Gallery in London; and the Uffizi Palace in Florence, Italy. Europeans also enjoy some of the world’s greatest theater, music, and dance. Such cultural institutions include Royal National Theater in London; La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy; and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. Many European cities also host famous festivals that draw thousands of visitors from around the world. Famous examples include La Feria de Abril in Seville, Spain, and Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

Some European countries, including France and Germany, have long had important national film industries. However, American films rank as the most popular and widely shown movies throughout Europe. Television in Europe consists of a mix of local or national programs, along with programs imported from the United States. Europeans commonly listen to popular music groups from such countries as the United Kingdom and Germany, but American popular music is also common throughout the continent.

People in Europe read a variety of magazines and local and national newspapers. Popular kinds of books in Europe include novels and detective stories. Many European authors have large readerships in their native countries, and their works often appear translated into various languages around the world.

Most Europeans spend recreational time accessing internet content through computers and smartphones. Many people read websites devoted to news, education, or entertainment. They also use social media applications to share ideas, images, and videos.

The role of government.

European governments play a major part in running the economies of their countries and providing for the welfare of the people. In almost all western European countries, the government is a part or sole owner of such public service businesses as airlines, electric companies, railroads, and telephone companies. In most of these countries, the government also provides many types of social welfare programs. For example, the Swedish government gives every family an allowance for each child under 16 years of age. In addition, European governments regulate the workplace closely, setting limits on the workweek and guaranteeing minimum vacation time for workers.

Education.

As a group, Europeans rank among the best-educated people in the world. In almost all the countries of Europe, 90 percent or more of the people can read and write.

In general, the level of education in Europe has been higher in the north than in the southernmost regions. In most northern countries—such as Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—all children generally receive the same education until they are about 15 or 16 years old. At that age, young people may quit school, enroll in vocational schools, or go to college. Children in southern countries attend school for fewer years, on average, than do children in the north. Moreover, fewer young people in southern Europe attend college than do young people in northern Europe.

Government control over education also varies. France, for example, has a highly centralized educational system controlled by the national government. In Switzerland, the cantons (states) chiefly direct their own educational systems.

Since the mid-1900’s, with the increasing economic and political integration of Europe, educational programs in many poorer European countries have been improving. More children in these countries have opportunities to attend colleges or vocational schools.

Europe has many of the world’s oldest and most respected universities. The oldest European university is the University of Bologna in Italy, founded in about 1100. Other famous European universities include the University of Paris; the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, both in England; Charles University in Prague, the Czech Republic; and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

In addition, Europe has some of the world’s leading libraries. They include the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, the Bodleian Library of Oxford University, the Russian State Library in Moscow, and the Vatican Library in Vatican City. For more information on libraries in Europe, see Library (Libraries of the world).

The arts

European art has had a far greater influence around the world than has the art of any other continent. This influence began during the 1500’s, when the nations of western Europe established colonies in North and South America. It spread as Europeans colonized Australia and much of Africa and Asia by the early 1900’s. Even after most colonies achieved political independence, the influence of European art remained strong.

This section describes briefly the major historical developments in European art. For more information, see Architecture; Ballet; Dance; Drama; Classical music; Opera; Painting; Sculpture.

Ancient Greek and Roman art.

Many ancient European cultures produced beautiful works of art. But the Greeks developed the most enduring European art of ancient times. This art influenced European artists for more than 2,000 years. The Greeks strove to achieve an ideal of beauty based on harmonious proportions. They applied this ideal to their graceful columned temples and to their lifelike sculptures and paintings of gods, goddesses, and human beings. The Greeks also wrote the first substantial literature of Europe, developing such literary forms as lyric and epic poetry, tragic and comic drama, and history.

The Romans based much of their art and literature on that of the Greeks. But in their architecture, with the use of the arch and concrete, the Romans created larger and more complex structures than anything produced before. They designed aqueducts and water systems and built roads and bridges that helped tie together their vast empire.

Medieval art.

The arrival of Christianity in Europe inspired new types of architecture, sculpture, and painting. Biblical images replaced depictions of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. Churches, and especially cathedrals, became the most important and creative form of architecture.

Beginning in the early Middle Ages, Byzantine architects of southeastern Europe created beautiful domed churches. Multicolored marble and elaborate mosaics decorated the interiors of many of these churches. Mosaics consist of small pieces of glass or stone fitted together to form a picture. Byzantine mosaics commonly depicted Biblical figures, but they sometimes included portraits of Byzantine emperors and their wives. Byzantine images appear flat and somewhat abstract, rather than lifelike.

Beginning in the A.D. 700’s, with the Muslim conquest of Spain, Islamic art spread to Europe. The abstract forms found in Muslim decorative arts greatly influenced medieval Spanish art. It also influenced medieval artists in southern Italy and elsewhere in Europe.

During the 1000’s and 1100’s, an artistic style that came to be known as Romanesque appeared in Europe. Romanesque architecture featured solid, heavy forms with thick walls and supports and low, wide arches. The religious paintings of this time used strong colors and simplified shapes. Romanesque sculptors decorated many church portals and capitals (tops of columns) with expressive, though nonrealistic, figures of saints and other Biblical characters.

In the 1200’s, Gothic became the major style of art throughout much of Europe. Medieval engineers carefully designed Gothic cathedrals so they would not require thick walls for support. These buildings featured pointed arches and huge windows filled with stained glass. Gothic windows usually depicted stories from the Bible in a series of images. Gothic cathedrals also featured rich sculptural decoration. Many Gothic sculptors created larger than life-sized, and sometimes highly lifelike, images of religious figures.

Renaissance art

began in the early 1300’s in Italy and spread throughout Europe over the next two centuries. This art was directly inspired by the ideas of proportion and order found in ancient Greek and Roman art. Renaissance sculptors revived the tradition of sculpting the naked human body in a realistic way. Painters developed the technique of perspective, which gave their pictures the illusion of depth and distance. Architects studied Roman ruins and used classical architectural forms and proportions in their buildings. Moreover, many artists began creating more nonreligious works, such as portrait paintings or private villas.

Artists of the Renaissance acquired far more fame than did those of medieval times. Such artists as Raphael and Michelangelo became appreciated more for the qualities of their works than for the works’ subjects or uses.

From 1600 to 1900,

art reflected the many fundamental changes that occurred in European society. Many new forms of art developed. Opera was first composed and performed in the 1590’s, and the first symphonies appeared in the 1700’s. In literature, the modern novel took shape during the 1600’s and 1700’s. Ballet, which had originated in Italy during the Renaissance, became a professional art form at this time.

In the 1600’s, the rise of powerful European countries helped to create a dramatic, emotional style known as Baroque. Architects, sculptors, and painters worked together to design and decorate grand Baroque palaces and churches. European monarchs and church leaders used these buildings, in part, to show their authority over their own people and to impress leaders of other countries.

Beginning in the 1700’s, rapid industrial and urban growth, together with advances in science and technology, brought great changes to Europe. These changes made artists more concerned with humanity’s place in the world than with religion. During the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, Romanticism appeared in both art and literature. This personal, emotionally charged style often turned for its subject to nature, political change, and even fantasy. Many Romantic artists protested against the standardized character of an increasingly industrial society. Many also objected to the social injustices and political tyranny of the time.

In the mid-1800’s, a movement called Realism developed in literature and the visual arts. Realism attempted to portray life as it really was, presenting both the good and the bad. During the 1860’s, another style called Impressionism developed, mostly in France. Impressionist painters often used rapid, impulsive brushwork and vivid colors to present an immediate impression of an object or event.

The early 1900’s

saw the birth of many new styles of art in Europe. Artists during this period became less openly concerned with telling a story or representing political ideas. Instead, they focused on exploring the possibilities of the materials with which they worked and engaging the spectator on a deeper emotional level. To an increasing extent, they incorporated art styles from other parts of the world, including Africa and the Pacific Islands.

Painters often created abstract works without actual figures or objects to express feelings or moods. Sculptors worked with new materials, including aluminum or plastic, to create similarly abstract forms. Architects, especially those associated with the Bauhaus school in Germany, created simple, unornamented, functional buildings designed to serve all members of society (see Bauhaus). Composers often abandoned traditional harmonies to explore dissonance, the combining of notes and chords to create harsh or restless sounds. In literature, authors explored more deeply the internal feelings and emotions of people, often by using fragmented or abstract writing. Modern dancers abandoned the formal movements of ballet to explore the artistic possibilities of more natural movements.

Two technological inventions of the 1800’s, photography and film, developed into important art forms during the early 1900’s. European photographers and filmmakers began using these technologies to express ideas that others were exploring in the traditional arts.

Since the mid-1900’s.

After the mid-1900’s, new forms and styles of art appeared in Europe. European artists had become more influenced by the art of the United States. They also reflected the ever closer intellectual and political ties between Europe and the rest of the world.

Beginning in the 1960’s, the growth of feminism led to the emergence of many more women artists. These artists produced works exploring the emotions and attitudes of women and the changing roles of women in society. Also in the 1960’s, a new style called Pop Art developed. It commented, often humorously, on such aspects of modern culture as mass media and the power of celebrities.

Contemporary European artists continue to explore new materials for creating art. Today, such materials may include videos, computers, and even entire landscapes.

The land

Europe is a huge peninsula that extends westward from northwestern Asia. No body of water separates Europe and Asia completely, and so many geographers consider them to be one continent called Eurasia. Europe’s status as a continent sprung from the belief in ancient and medieval times that Europe was separated from Asia by mostly water. Cultural differences between Europeans and Asians reinforced the belief that Europe was a true continent.

Europe covers 4,032,000 square miles (10,443,000 square kilometers), or about one-fifteenth of the world’s land area. It is smaller than every other continent except Australia.

The Atlantic Ocean forms the western boundary of Europe. The Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea form the eastern boundary of the continent. Europe extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains in the south. Iceland, Great Britain, Ireland, and thousands of other smaller islands near Europe’s coastline are usually included as part of the continent.

Land regions.

Europe has four major land regions: (1) the Northwest Mountains, (2) the Central Uplands, (3) the Alpine Mountain System, and (4) the Great European Plain.

The Northwest Mountains

region includes northwestern France, Ireland, the northern United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, northern Finland, and the northwest corner of Russia. This region includes some of the oldest rock formations on Earth. The mountains have worn down over the years, so even the highest peak, Galdhopiggen in Norway, rises only 8,100 feet (2,469 meters). The thin soil of the mountain slopes combined with cold climates makes for poor farming in the region. Consequently, most of the Northwest Mountains is sparsely populated.

The Central Uplands

region includes low mountains and high plateaus that extend across central Europe. Elevations vary from about 1,000 to 6,000 feet (300 to 1,800 meters). Major features of the uplands include the Meseta, or central plateau, of Portugal and Spain; the Massif Central, or central highlands, in France; and the plateaus and low mountains of central Germany and most of the Czech Republic. Some of the Central Uplands have forests, but most of the land is rocky with poor soils for farming. River valleys provide the best farmland. Parts of the Central Uplands—especially in Germany and the Czech Republic—have rich deposits of minerals. The most densely populated areas of this region lie in parts of Germany and the Czech Republic.

The Alpine Mountain System

consists of several mountain chains that run across southern Europe from Spain to the Caspian Sea. The Sierra Morena and Cantabrian Mountains lie in Spain, while the Pyrenees form a natural border between Spain and France. The world-famous Alps cover part of southeastern France and northern Italy, most of Switzerland, and part of southern Germany, Austria, and northern Slovenia. The Apennines run the length of Italy. Farther east, the Dinaric Alps stretch from Croatia to northern Greece, where they continue as the Pindus Mountains. The Carpathians curve from northern Slovakia through southern Poland, far western Ukraine, and Romania. The Balkan Mountains lie in northern Bulgaria, and the Rhodope Mountains run from southern Bulgaria to northern Greece. The Caucasus Mountains lie at the eastern end of the region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.

The Alpine Mountain System includes the highest mountains in Europe. The highest peak, Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains, rises 18,510 feet (5,642 meters). Other high peaks include Mont Blanc in the French Alps and the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. Heavy forests cover many of the higher slopes in the region. Meadows above the timber line yield pastures for livestock. The lower mountain slopes and valleys provide the best farmland. Many parts of this region are popular vacation destinations.

The Great European Plain

extends from southern France to the Ural Mountains in Russia and includes southeastern England. At its narrowest point, in Belgium, it is only about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide. The plain widens through Germany and Poland. At its greatest width, in Russia, it extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Caucasus Mountains, a distance of more than 1,500 miles (2,410 kilometers).

This region consists chiefly of flat and rolling land with some hills. Glaciers shaped the northerly and easterly sections, leaving an uneven ground surface marked by lakes and marshes, such as the Pripyat Marshes in southwestern Belarus and northwestern Ukraine. The region has an average elevation of about 600 feet (180 meters) above sea level in Russia, and less than 500 feet (150 meters) elsewhere.

The Great European Plain has some of the world’s most fertile farmland. It also supports densely populated areas, especially in the western regions. But most of the Russian part is sparsely populated.

Coastline and islands.

Europe has a highly irregular coastline. The coastline penetrates deeply inland in many places, leaving a series of large and small peninsulas. The major peninsulas are the Scandinavian Peninsula (Norway and Sweden), Jutland (Denmark), the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain), the Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, and parts of Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey).

The irregularity of Europe’s coastline makes it unusually long, about 37,877 miles (60,957 kilometers). Along the coastline are numerous seas, bays, gulfs, and natural harbors. Most of Europe—except for the heart of European Russia—lies within about 300 miles (480 kilometers) of a seacoast.

Thousands of islands lie off the coast of Europe. The largest and most important of these is Great Britain, which lies north and west of the European mainland. Other major islands in this area include Ireland, Iceland, and the Channel, Faroe, Orkney, and Shetland islands. Major islands south of the mainland include, from west to east, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and Crete.

Rivers.

Europe’s many rivers serve as major industrial transportation routes. They also supply water to irrigate farmland and provide power to generate electric power.

Europe’s longest river, the Volga, flows 2,194 miles (3,531 kilometers) through Russia to the Caspian Sea. Canals link the Volga with the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea, and the Don River. The Don flows into the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea. The Danube, 1,770 miles (2,850 kilometers) long, is Europe’s second longest river. It winds from southern Germany through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania to the Black Sea. The Rhine River flows for 820 miles (1,320 kilometers) from the Swiss Alps through western Germany and the Netherlands to the North Sea. It ranks among the world’s busiest waterways.

Other important European rivers include the Dnieper in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine; the Northern Dvina in Russia; the Western Dvina in Russia and Latvia; the Oder and Vistula in Poland; the Elbe in the Czech Republic and Germany; the Po in Italy; the Rhone and Seine in France; the Ebro in Spain; the Tagus in Spain and Portugal; and the Thames in England.

Lakes.

The world’s largest lake, the saltwater Caspian Sea, straddles the boundary of Europe and Asia. Although called a sea, the Caspian is really a lake because land completely surrounds it. The Caspian covers 143,250 square miles (371,000 square kilometers). With its northern shore 92 feet (28 meters) below sea level, it ranks as Europe’s lowest point. See Caspian Sea.

The area of freshwater lakes totals only about 53,000 square miles (137,000 square kilometers). The largest, Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia, covers 6,835 square miles (17,703 square kilometers). Finland, which has about 60,000 lakes, is known as the land of thousands of lakes.

Climate

Europe has a variety of climates. It generally has milder climates than parts of Asia and North America at the same latitude. For example, Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie at about the same latitude. But January temperatures in Berlin average about 19 °F (11 °C) higher than those in Calgary and about 40 °F (22 °C) higher than those in Irkutsk.

Europe’s mild climates result from winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean. These winds are warmed and given moisture by the Gulf Stream, a powerful ocean current that carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe’s western coast. The most spectacular effect of the Gulf Stream occurs along the Norwegian coast. Though much of Norway’s coast lies in the Arctic region, almost all of Norway’s coast remains free of ice and snow through the winter.

In general, western Europe has shorter, warmer winters and longer, cooler summers than eastern Europe. The farther away an area is from a coast, the greater the variations in temperature and moisture are from summer to winter. This phenomenon is known as continentality.

Europe’s climates also vary from north to south. Southern Europe generally has shorter, milder winters and longer, hotter summers than northern Europe. Moreover, an area of high air pressure in the Atlantic called the Azores High prevents winds from bringing moisture into much of southern Europe during the summer. This phenomenon frequently causes drought in the region.

Most of Europe receives from 20 to 60 inches (50 to 150 centimeters) of precipitation each year. More than 80 inches (200 centimeters) usually occurs in areas just west of mountains. Such regions include parts of western England and western Norway. Less than 20 inches (50 centimeters) of precipitation usually falls in three general areas: (1) east of high mountains, (2) far inland from the Atlantic Ocean, and (3) along the Arctic coast. Such regions include central and southeastern Spain, northern Scandinavia, northern and southeastern parts of European Russia, and western Kazakhstan.

Plant and animal life

Europe’s wildlife includes many species (kinds) of plants and animals that also inhabit other continents. But some species of wildlife, including the nightingale and the Norway lemming, are native only to Europe. Some European species of wild plants and animals share the same name, yet differ from the wildlife of other continents. For example, the European robin is only about half the size of the American robin.

The activities of human beings have threatened, and even wiped out, many of Europe’s wild plants and animals. People have cut down vast forests that once covered much of Europe to make way for farms and cities. Industrialization has polluted both air and water. Overhunting, trapping, and overfishing have threatened numerous European animals. Moreover, global warming, a phenomenon probably caused in part by human activities, could threaten the survival of many species in the cold regions of Europe, including the high Alps.

People also have introduced a number of plant and animal species into Europe that are now threatening native species. For example, North American gray squirrels pose a serious threat to the native Eurasian red squirrel in the United Kingdom. Among plants, the Canada goldenrod can grow in such dense patches in Europe that it hinders the growth of most native plants.

Since the mid-1900’s, conservation efforts have helped save some animal and plant species from extinction. These species include the white-tailed eagle and the European brown bear.

Plants

in Europe grow in three basic types of areas: (1) forests, (2) grasslands, and (3) tundra and high mountains.

Forests.

Most of the forests of central and southern Europe have been cut down, but northern Europe still has large woodlands. These northern forests, known as needleleaf forests, consist mostly of cone-bearing trees called conifers or evergreens, which have narrow, needlelike leaves. Conifers include the fir, larch, pine, and spruce. Such trees provide most of Europe’s timber for building and for manufacturing paper. European governments regulate the cutting of these trees to protect the forests.

The central and southern regions of Europe have some broadleaf forests. A broadleaf forest consists chiefly of trees with broad, flat leaves that fall off each autumn. Such trees include the ash, beech, birch, elm, maple, and oak. The central and southern regions also have some mixed forests of broadleaf and needleleaf trees. In addition, needleleaf forests cover many of the upper slopes of mountains in these regions. Broadleaf evergreens remain common along the Mediterranean coast. Trees of this type include cork and olive trees. These trees do not lose their leaves in the fall, and many have tough, wax-coated leaves that hold moisture well.

Grasslands

are open areas where grasses rank as the most plentiful plant life. Europe has both natural grasslands, known as steppes, and artificial grasslands created by people. Steppes are dry areas where only short grasses grow. They cover most of southwestern Russia and western Kazakhstan. Artificial grasslands cover most of the smaller plains of Europe. Today, farmers use most of these grasslands for cropland and grazing land.

Tundra and high mountains

are cold, treeless areas. Tundra covers much of the region near Europe’s Arctic coast. Land in this region remains frozen throughout most of the year. The top 1 to 2 feet (30 to 61 centimeters) of tundra thaws in the short Arctic summer, and many small marshes, ponds, and swamps form on the land. Mosses, small shrubs, wildflowers, and lichens also cover the tundra during the summer. The upper slopes of Europe’s highest mountains resemble tundra. Farmers use parts of the tundra and high mountains as grazing land.

Animals.

Many of Europe’s wild animals live in areas that are difficult for people to reach. Many others inhabit special areas where people may not kill them, including preserves, national parks, or zoos.

Foxes and wolves roam throughout much of Europe, as do elk, reindeer, and several other kinds of deer. The European brown bear, one of the largest bears, lives mostly in Russia and northern Scandinavia. The chamois and ibex, two goatlike animals, make their homes in the high mountains of southwestern Europe. Seals live off the Arctic, Atlantic, and Mediterranean coasts. Other wild animals of Europe include badgers, hares, hedgehogs, lemmings, moles, otters, rabbits, and wild boars.

European birds include eagles, falcons, finches, house sparrows, owls, ravens, robins, storks, thrushes, and wood pigeons. European reptiles include adders and wall lizards. The continent’s amphibians include numerous types of frogs and salamanders. European amphibians have declined greatly since the mid-1900’s, with many species near extinction.

Fish inhabit the waters off the Atlantic coast and in the Baltic, Black, Caspian, Mediterranean, and North seas. Fishing crews catch anchovies, flounders, herrings, mackerels, salmon, sardines, trout, and tuna in these areas. Since the mid-1900’s, especially in the Mediterranean Sea, overfishing has caused severe declines in cod and other fish. Such declines threaten not only the survival of the fish but also whether traditional fishing will continue in these areas.

As in other parts of the world, insects make up most of Europe’s animal species. Insects often play vital roles in maintaining the health of environments that support other living things.

Economy

The majority of the countries in Europe belong to the European Union, which has developed a highly integrated common market, or economic union. EU member countries trade among themselves without such barriers as tariffs, import quotas, and other regulations or restrictions. EU members also invest freely in one another’s economies. In addition, the EU promotes a common trade policy with countries outside Europe. The combined value of the EU’s imports and exports is greater than that of any single country in the world. As a result, European countries have some of the world’s highest standards of living. The EU also regulates its members’ industrial policy, transportation policy, and agricultural policy. Many EU countries use a common currency called the euro.

Agriculture.

Europe has some of the world’s richest farmland. European farmers produce most of the food consumed within the continent. Much of the food imported into Europe comes from tropical countries, including such goods as cocoa, coffee, and tropical fruits.

The main European crops include grains—such as barley, oats, rye, and wheat—as well as corn, flax, potatoes, sugar beets, and tobacco. Most of the world’s olives come from farms in the Mediterranean areas of Europe. These farms also produce citrus fruits, dates, figs, and grapes.

Farmers in most of Europe raise cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry for meat. Dairy farming is important in such countries as Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Grazing lands exist throughout Europe. Some of the world’s best breeds of cattle and sheep originated in Europe. The United Kingdom has produced many of these breeds, including Hereford and Jersey cattle and Hampshire, Shropshire, and Suffolk sheep.

Manufacturing.

Leading industrial areas of Europe have traditionally included parts of France, Germany, northern Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Since the late 1900’s, major industrial areas have also developed in Ireland and in such central and eastern European countries as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.

Europe leads the rest of the world in the production of certain goods, such as automobiles and automobile products. Many European automobile manufacturers, including Volkswagen in Germany and Fiat in Italy, market their cars worldwide. However, such industries face growing competition from countries in North America and Asia. Other industrial products made in Europe include aerospace equipment, cement, construction equipment, electronics and telecommunications equipment, motor vehicles, pharmaceuticals, rail transportation equipment, and textiles.

Increased international competition has provided great challenges for Europe’s traditional industrial centers, such as the Ruhr region of western Germany. European countries have responded by working to increase industrial productivity. They also have moved resources from formerly productive industries, such as steel and shipbuilding, to more rapidly growing industries, such as telecommunications and electronics.

New industries that utilize Europe’s highly skilled labor force and highly developed research and development programs have grown and spread. For example, the electronic components industry, which produces parts for computers and other electronic goods, has spread from western Europe to many countries in eastern Europe.

Mining and energy.

Although Europe imports most of its raw materials, many parts of the continent have large deposits of minerals and other resources. Coal fields exist in Germany, Poland, and Russia. Substantial iron ore deposits occur in both Russia and Ukraine. The chief petroleum producers are Norway, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Natural gas is taken from the Netherlands, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Many of the other mined products of Europe, including diamonds, nickel, platinum, potash, silver, and zinc, exist primarily in Russia.

Energy comes from many sources, including coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, oil, and renewable energy sources. Coal-burning power plants, hydropower (water power) facilities, and nuclear power plants rank as the chief sources of the continent’s electric power. Beginning in the late 1900’s, Europe invested in methods of generating energy from renewable sources. These projects have sought to harness the power of ocean tides, rivers, sunlight, and wind.

Forestry and fishing.

Northern Europe ranks among the most important areas in the world for forestry. Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, and Sweden have vast forested areas that supply Europe with lumber, wood pulp, and paper. Pine and other softwoods account for most of the lumber consumed in Europe.

Fishing boats sail all the waters that border Europe. However, the most important fisheries lie in the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean. Norway, Spain, and Russia run the largest fishing fleets in Europe. The European Union created its Common Fisheries Policy to coordinate fishing efforts and attempt to manage overfishing, which has threatened the survival of many fish species. Such fish as hake and cod, once abundant in northern waters, have become severely threatened in those areas.

International trade.

The development of the European Union common market has stimulated trade in Europe. The EU hopes to increase employment throughout the continent and to make more goods and services available to European consumers. Moreover, the EU works to ensure that the wealth generated by Europe’s economy is spread fairly among all its member states.

Some countries that do not belong to the EU belong to other trade groups, such as the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). EFTA is a free trade area—that is, its members have agreed to eliminate trade barriers on certain products and allow for differences in how they conduct trade with nonmember countries. Three EFTA members—Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway—have entered into an agreement with the EU called the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA has removed most trade barriers between these three countries and the European Union.

EU members also trade with many non-European countries. Europe’s major trading partners are the United States, China, and Japan. The EU also has a number of regional trade agreements with Latin America, with the non-EU countries of the Mediterranean, and with developing countries in a group called the African, Pacific, and Caribbean (APC) states.

Service industries

produce services rather than goods. They include health care, finance, and government. Collectively, these industries employ more European workers than does any other economic sector.

Health care.

In some European countries, including the United Kingdom, the government pays the health care expenses of almost all of the country’s people. Under this system, all medical facilities are publicly owned and all medical personnel are paid from public funds. Citizens receive health care for free or at a low cost.

However, medicine in most of Europe is only partly provided by national governments. The governments do not own most medical facilities, nor do they directly pay doctors, who are self-employed. Yet these countries do provide health insurance, which ensures free medical care for those unable to pay and refunds most of the payments made by patients who do pay. European countries finance these plans through high tax rates.

Many European countries rank among the leading countries in medical research. The Pasteur Institute in Paris is a world center for the study, prevention, and treatment of disease. The United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council, a government agency, supports biomedical research.

Since the late 1900’s, Europe’s pharmaceutical industry has grown rapidly. European drug companies are developing new medications to treat or prevent a variety of diseases.

Finance.

Europe has for centuries played a leading role in international finance. The EU ranks as the top investor in such countries as India and China.

Major stock exchanges of Europe include those in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Frankfurt, Germany; London; Paris; and Zurich, Switzerland. The London Bullion Market Association is the center of the world’s gold market, and Amsterdam is the center of the world’s diamond market. Frankfurt, the site of the European Central Bank, has become a major center for the European bond market.

Some of the world’s largest banks have their headquarters in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. These banks receive much foreign investment because they offer security and high rates of return. The spread of the euro has made such large banks even more important, as more and more international investors have acquired funds in euros.

Government

plays a vital role in the economies of European countries. Governments provide such public services as education, highway systems, and military protection. European central governments employ large numbers of people and regulate much of their countries’ economies.

Transportation.

Europe has highly developed transportation networks. Airlines, highways, railways, and waterways provide efficient systems for the movement of people and goods.

European airlines fly throughout the continent and the world. National airlines—including British Airways in the United Kingdom, Lufthansa in Germany, and Air France in France—receive financial support from government funds. The national airlines of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden combined to form Scandinavian Airlines (SAS).

A well-developed network of highways and roads serves most of Europe. Ownership of automobiles is widespread. Trucks carry goods throughout the continent. One of the best-known European highway systems is Germany’s network of four-lane superhighways known as the Autobahn.

Many long road tunnels enable traffic to flow easily through Europe’s mountains. The world’s longest road tunnel, the Laerdal Tunnel, connects Oslo to Bergen in Norway. It runs 15.2 miles (24.5 kilometers) long. The St. Gotthard Road Tunnel, which cuts through the Alps in central Switzerland, is 10.5 miles (16.9 kilometers) long.

People and goods also travel on Europe’s highly developed train networks. European express trains—including the fast passenger trains called InterCity trains, which stop only at large stations—rank among the most efficient in the world. They can travel 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour. European governments typically operate such train systems.

Europe has some of the world’s longest railroad tunnels. The Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, runs under the English Channel and connects the United Kingdom and France. The Chunnel, which is 31.4 miles (50.5 kilometers) long, carries passenger trains, freight trains, and shuttle trains for motor vehicles (see Channel Tunnel). The 35-mile (57-kilometer) Gotthard Base Tunnel—the world’s longest railroad tunnel—carries rail traffic through the Alps in Switzerland.

The rivers and canals of Europe provide a network for sending goods on barges and other ships. Major European waterways include the Danube, Moselle, Rhine and Volga rivers.

Europe handles more than half the world’s international shipping. Some of the world’s largest merchant fleets belong to European nations. Such countries as Greece, Norway, and the United Kingdom have huge fleets. Rotterdam ranks as Europe’s major port, taking in much of the goods from non-European countries. Other European ports include those in Barcelona, Spain; Copenhagen, Denmark; Gdansk, Poland; Hamburg, Germany; Helsinki, Finland; Le Havre, France; Lisbon, Portugal; London; Naples, Italy; Piraeus, Greece; Riga, Latvia; and Stockholm, Sweden.

Communication.

Europe plays a leading role in the international telecommunications industry, especially cellular telephone service. Nokia, headquartered in Finland, ranks as the world’s top provider of cell phones.

Most Europeans own televisions, which air channels run by governments and private companies. Large international TV networks link European countries to one another and to the rest of the world. The European Broadcasting Union operates Eurovision, the world’s largest provider of international sports and news broadcasts.

Mail, telephone, and telegraph services are mainly run by European governments. Newspapers are published throughout Europe, with both national and local papers available in most European cities. Some of the national papers, such as The Times and the Financial Times of the United Kingdom and Le Monde of France, appear in many countries throughout the world.

The internet plays an important role in the European communication industry. Most Europeans have access to computers and smartphones, making the use of email, text messaging, and other forms of electronic communication nearly universal.

History

Prehistoric times.

Scientists have found fossils and stone tools that indicate early human beings lived in Europe more than 700,000 years ago. The best-known prehistoric people in Europe are the Neandertals (also spelled Neanderthals) and the Cro-Magnon people. Neandertals lived from about 150,000 years ago to 39,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon people lived from about 45,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. The Cro-Magnons were an early type of modern human being. Cro-Magnons lived in small groups, wandering from place to place to hunt and gather food.

About 6000 B.C., people in southeastern Europe learned to raise food by farming. This development made it possible for early human beings to take the final steps toward civilization. People no longer had to move from place to place in search of food. They could settle in one place and form villages. Some of these villages eventually developed into Europe’s first cities. After 6000 B.C., more and more people in Europe turned to farming for their chief source of food. By the end of prehistoric times—about 3000 B.C.—farming had spread to all parts of Europe except the dense northern forests.

Early civilizations.

The first European civilizations developed on islands in the Aegean Sea, east of Greece. Aegean civilization flourished from about 3000 to 1200 B.C. On some Aegean islands, especially Crete, the people used a system of writing and became skilled architects, craftworkers, and painters. They also were adventurous sailors and traders. A similar civilization developed on the island of Malta, south of Italy. After about 2500 B.C., seafarers from the Aegean islands and Malta sailed along the southern and western coasts of Europe. They introduced their way of life to people they met on the way.

Tribes of horseback riders from the region northeast of the Black Sea swept south and west through Europe around 2000 B.C. These warriors had been herders on the grassy plains of their homeland. They spread their warrior culture throughout much of Europe as they conquered large numbers of villages.

Ancient Greece

made great advancements in the development of civilization. Tribes from the north moved to the Greek Peninsula about 2000 B.C. They developed a way of life based chiefly on the Cretan civilization. The Greeks became the most powerful people in the Aegean area, and, in the 1400’s B.C., they took control of the region from the Cretans. During the 1100’s B.C., another wave of invading tribes swept into Greece from the north. They conquered most of southern Greece and drove out the people who were living there. During the next several hundred years, groups of these tribes united to form a new type of independent governmental unit. Each of these units, called a polis or city-state, consisted of a city and its outlying areas. The word political comes from this ancient Greek word.

Ancient Greek civilization reached its height in the 400’s and 300’s B.C. with the rise of Athens, Sparta, and other powerful city-states. The idea of democracy spread during this period, and Greek art and learning flourished. But about the same time, Greece entered a long period of warfare. First, the Greeks defeated attacking forces from the Persian Empire to the east. Then the Greek city-states began to fight among themselves. As this fighting continued, Greece’s political strength began to decay. But Athens remained a cultural center of the ancient world.

Macedonia, a kingdom north of Greece, grew stronger during this period, and it seized control of Greece in 338 B.C. Beginning in 336 B.C., Alexander the Great ruled Macedonia. He built a huge empire—partly in Europe but mostly in Asia. Alexander admired the Greeks and spread their culture throughout his empire. Macedonia became weaker after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., but its rulers continued to control Greece.

Ancient Rome

was the next major European civilization. Rome grew into an important city during the 500’s B.C., under the leadership of Etruscan kings. The Etruscans had the most advanced civilization in Italy during that time. At the end of the 500’s B.C., Roman nobles expelled the last Etruscan king and established the independent Roman Republic. By the early 200’s B.C., Rome had conquered all of the Italian Peninsula south of what is now Florence.

Over the next 200 years, the Romans built an empire across the Mediterranean Sea, extending from what is now Spain into southwestern Asia and along Africa’s northern coast. Although they soon added much of the rest of Europe to their empire, the Mediterranean remained the center of the Roman world. The Roman Republic ended in 27 B.C., when Augustus became the first emperor of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire

reached the height of its power during a time known as the Pax Romana (Roman Peace), which lasted from about 30 B.C. to A.D. 180. No country was strong enough to threaten the empire in this period, and so the era was a time of peace. Roman art and learning reached a high point, and commerce flourished.

The Romans borrowed many ideas from the Greeks, and they spread much of the Greek culture throughout the empire. In fact, historians often refer to the culture of the Roman Empire as Greco-Roman. But the Romans also made many contributions of their own to European life. For example, they built carefully planned cities and vast systems of well-constructed roads. Latin, the Roman language, became the basis of the Romance languages spoken in Europe today. Many legal principles developed by the Romans became part of legal systems in Europe. These principles later helped shape legal systems in other parts of the world, including North and South America.

Christianity

began in Palestine, a land in southwestern Asia that was part of the Roman Empire. It soon spread to the European part of the empire. The Romans persecuted the early Christians. But in the early A.D. 300’s, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great granted the Christians freedom of religion. Christianity became the official religion of the empire in the late 300’s.

The decline of Rome.

By the late A.D. 100’s, ruling the huge empire had become complex and difficult. Rome could not defend all of its territory. Disagreement broke out within the empire, and it began to break apart. Constantine reunited the empire in 324. But it began to break apart again after his death in 337.

The Roman Empire split permanently into two parts in 395. The eastern half became the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) was its capital. The rest of the empire became the West Roman Empire, with Rome as its capital.

Germanic peoples

lived in much of Europe north of the Roman Empire. These tribes included the Angles, Franks, Jutes, Saxons, Vandals, and Visigoths. Many of these peoples adopted the civilization of their Roman neighbors. The Romans called them barbarians, but most of them lived as farmers.

In the late 300’s and the 400’s, Huns from central Asia attacked the Germanic tribes. Many tribes sought refuge in the empire. As imperial power declined in the 400’s, some Germanic leaders established small kingdoms. The Germanic leader Odoacer overthrew the last West Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476. The Burgundians and Franks became established in Gaul (now mainly France). The Visigoths moved into Gaul and Spain. Ostrogoths and later Lombards took control in Italy. The Angles, Jutes, and Saxons carved out kingdoms in Britain.

The Germanic tribes were followed by Slavic peoples from Asia who settled eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea south to northern Greece. Next came the Magyars, a Central Asian people who settled the Hungarian plain in the 900’s.

The Byzantine Empire.

Most of the East Roman Empire survived. By the 500’s, it recovered much of southeastern Europe, parts of what are now Italy and Spain, much of the Middle East, and lands along the northern African coast. For hundreds of years, the Byzantine Empire served as a barrier against foreign attacks, including invasion by Muslim peoples from southwestern Asia. It also preserved much of ancient Greek and Roman culture. Constantinople became the center of eastern Christendom, which spread through most of eastern Europe.

After the death of its greatest emperor, Justinian, in 565, the Byzantine Empire began to lose territory to a series of peoples, including the South Slavs, Arabs, Mongols, and Turks. Even western Europeans became adversaries of the Byzantines after the 1000’s, when the Christian church split into two main groups. These groups would become the western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. By 1400, all that remained of the once mighty Byzantine Empire barely extended beyond the area of Constantinople.

The Middle Ages.

The end of the West Roman Empire brought great changes to the rest of Europe. These changes ushered in the Middle Ages, a period that lasted until about 1500. The strong, united government established by the Romans quickly disappeared. It was replaced by many small kingdoms and states. The church survived as the most powerful and unifying force on the continent, not only in religious matters, but also in politics, learning, and the arts. However, much of the knowledge that had been acquired by Greek and Roman civilization was lost.

Towns continued to be centers of population and economic production. Some shrank. Others grew, especially as new trade patterns formed in northeastern Europe around the North Sea.

n the 500’s, the old Roman system of large farms worked by slaves began to break up. A new type of estate, which historians have called a bipartite estate or manor, developed. On such an estate, a landlord controlled part of his land directly and rented out other portions to tenant farmers. By the 800’s, the system was widespread. Noble families organized and supervised life on large manors. They provided basic protection and local government services. Farm families worked their plots of land from generation to generation. Their rents could include money payments, part of their crop, and a certain number of days working on the landlord’s fields. Some peasants also owned a section of land, and others owned all their land. Most people who worked on farms were semifree, but some were free. Semifree people could not be bought or sold, but they lacked many personal freedoms. They could not move away from the manor without the landlord’s permission.

Most people in Europe remained poor, and life was difficult. Disease, famine, and war were common. The average person lived about 30 to 40 years, with over half of all children dying before they reached adulthood.

The Franks

created the most powerful kingdom in medieval Europe. The kingdom included what is now France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the western half of Germany. The Frankish empire achieved its greatest power under Charlemagne, who ruled from 768 to 814. Charlemagne’s empire extended from central Italy north to Denmark and from eastern Germany west to the Atlantic Ocean. He supported the Roman Catholic Church and tried to reestablish the West Roman Empire. The pope crowned him emperor in 800. Charlemagne died in 814. His sons, after fighting among themselves, divided the empire into three parts.

In the 900’s, Otto I, a German king, took control of the northern half of the Italian Peninsula. The pope crowned Otto emperor in 962, marking the start of what later was called the Holy Roman Empire. Otto hoped his empire would become as powerful as Charlemagne’s had been. But it began to break apart in the 1000’s.

Under the Franks and their successors, powerful lords called magnates controlled much of the land in western and central Europe. They often gave land to less powerful nobles in return for military and other services. A lord who received land from a king or another lord in return for such services was called a vassal. The peasants worked for the nobles.

Advances and setbacks.

Medieval civilization peaked between about 1000 and 1300. Better ways of farming produced more food. The peasants gained new land for farming by clearing forests and draining swamps. The population grew, as did towns and trade. Strong governments and periods of peace and security also contributed to the prosperity.

In 1215, English barons forced King John to approve Magna Carta (Great Charter), in which the king granted many rights to the English aristocracy. This event marked an early step in the development of constitutional government and of trial by jury. Magna Carta limited royal power and made it clear that the king had to obey the law.

Around 1300, climate changes made weather in western Europe cooler and wetter. As a result, the agricultural practices that had developed in Europe could not sustain the increased population. Famines and floods caused widespread hardship. An outbreak of plague later called the Black Death lasted from 1347 to 1352. It killed at least a fourth of Europe’s people.

Muslims in medieval Europe.

During the early 600’s, the Arab prophet Muhammad began to preach in Arabia. His teachings and life formed the basis for the Islamic religion. By the early 700’s, his followers had conquered the Middle East, except for Asia Minor, as well as northern Africa and most of Spain. In 732, a Frankish army stopped the Arab advances in western Europe by defeating them in a battle at Tours, in what is now France. But the Muslims remained in Spain and established a flourishing culture there. In the 1000’s, the Muslim kingdom in Spain weakened and splintered. It gradually lost more and more territory to Christian kingdoms. In 1492, the Muslims lost Granada, their last center of control in Spain.

During the 1000’s, a Muslim Turkish tribe from central Asia called the Seljuks conquered most of Asia Minor (now part of Turkey) and much of the Middle East. In the 1300’s, a Turkish tribe known as the Ottomans gradually gained control. By the mid-1500’s, the Ottoman Empire had conquered most of the Middle East, northern Africa, and much of southeastern Europe.

Beginning in the late 1000’s, western Europeans launched a series of military expeditions called Crusades to free Palestine—where Jesus Christ had lived—from Muslim rule. Crusader armies held parts of Palestine for nearly 200 years. Moreover, the Crusades helped open up trade between Europe and Asia. Europeans imported such luxuries as porcelain, silk, and spices from as far away as China.

The Muslim world contributed much to the culture of Europe. The Muslims preserved many ancient Greek writings, which thus remained available to European scholars. Muslim poets produced works of great lyrical beauty. The Muslims made numerous advances in such areas as astronomy, medicine, and mathematics, including the development of the system of Arabic numerals used today.

The Renaissance

was a period of great advancement in the arts and learning in Europe. It began during the early 1300’s in northern Italy, where many large cities had become rich from trade. The Renaissance, which means rebirth, tried to revive aspects of ancient Greek and Roman culture. In the 1300’s, the Italian scholar Petrarch began a cultural movement called humanism, which sought to study human nature through literature, history, and philosophy. Scholars of Petrarch’s time were the first to divide European history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods. They considered the medieval period a time of ignorance—the Dark Ages.

Renaissance writers and artists often copied ancient Greek and Roman styles in their works. Many artists studied the human body to create more lifelike human images. Around 1450, the German printer Johannes Gutenberg invented metal movable type and several processes that made printing with movable type practical for the first time. The Chinese and Koreans had known of movable type for centuries, but had not fully developed the practical use of it on a large scale. This method of printing helped spread Renaissance learning and culture through most of Europe in the 1500’s.

The Renaissance also helped initiate the great age of European exploration. During this era, Europe’s influence began to spread around the world. Portuguese and Spanish sailors were the leading European explorers of the 1400’s and 1500’s. Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator in the service of Spain, reached America when he sailed from Spain to the Caribbean Islands in 1492. In 1497 and 1498, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama made the first voyage from Europe around Africa to India. About 20 years later, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, led the first European expedition to sail around the world. Sailors from England, France, and the Netherlands also took part in exploration.

During this period, European powers established their first colonies in North and South America, Africa, and Asia. Steadily growing trade with these colonies and the mining of silver in the Americas brought even greater wealth and power to the European nations.

The Reformation

was a religious reform movement of the 1500’s. It began as an attempt to bring about changes in the Roman Catholic Church, but it eventually led to the birth of Protestantism. In the centuries leading up to this movement, the Catholic Church had become deeply divided by internal disputes. These disputes weakened the authority of the pope. European kings took advantage of the popes’ weakness. All over Europe, the church was criticized for neglecting its spiritual responsibilities.

In 1517, Martin Luther, a German monk and theology professor, set off the reform movement by challenging a number of church teachings and practices. Luther spread his message by publishing his views. He also translated the Bible from Latin into German, so that the people of his country could read it themselves. By 1555, about half of Germany’s people had become followers of Luther or other Protestant religious leaders. Much of northern Europe had also adopted Protestantism in some form. Most Catholics in southern Europe remained Catholic.

The spread of Protestantism inspired Catholic leaders to initiate a reform movement called the Counter Reformation, which won back many Protestants in central Europe, including Germany, Poland, and Hungary. A series of religious wars between Protestants and Catholics broke out during this time. The last of these religious wars, the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), involved much of Europe and devastated most of what is now Germany.

The development of the great powers

in Europe began during the Middle Ages. The first great contest, a series of wars known as the Hundred Years’ War, had taken place from 1337 to 1453, when English and French kings fought for control of France. France won and soon began another power struggle by invading Italy in 1494. Its success alarmed many of France’s neighbors. The rulers of Spain formed an alliance with the Habsburg ruler of Austria, who was the emperor of the German-based Holy Roman Empire and who also controlled the Low Countries (now the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg). The alliance sought to create a balance of power against France—that is, to maintain peace by ensuring that no nation became strong enough to take over. The ruling families of Spain and Austria intermarried. Between 1506 and 1530, Charles, the eldest son of that union, became ruler of the Low Countries, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, the growing Spanish empire in America, and about half of Italy. Charles is usually known by his imperial title, Emperor Charles V. In the 1550’s, he split his lands between his son, Philip, and his brother, Ferdinand.

With the discovery of lands overseas, Europe’s seafaring countries built overseas empires. By 1600, Spain controlled most of Central and South America. The Portuguese held Brazil and numerous trading posts along the African coast and Indian Ocean. The Netherlands became a top sea power in the 1600’s, but it was weakened by wars with England and France from 1652 to 1713. England settled the east coast of North America. France established North American colonies that included, by the early 1700’s, much of what is now eastern Canada and the Mississippi Valley of the United States.

These European nations began to compete fiercely with one another for power. Europe’s monarchs had to raise large amounts of money to pay for armies and the wars they fought. They also needed the armies to put down internal religious conflicts caused by the Reformation. They accomplished these goals, in part, by reducing the power of the clergy and lords. The monarchs also received support from the growing towns and cities, which enlisted them as allies against the lords. Townspeople agreed to pay taxes to the monarch in return for royal protection and the freedom to develop their businesses. Meanwhile, the monarchs promoted trade and industry as a new source of tax revenue.

By the 1600’s, the power of many monarchs was regarded as absolute—that is, nearly unlimited. The monarch and the royal ministers directed thousands of officials throughout the kingdom. These officials enforced the law and collected taxes for armies.

Some countries, especially England and the Netherlands, successfully resisted the trend toward absolute monarchy. In England, a Civil War abolished the monarchy for 10 years during the mid-1600’s. In 1689, the English Parliament passed a document that increased its own authority and limited the monarch’s power. This document later became known as the Bill of Rights.

The scientific revolution and the Enlightenment

helped increase human knowledge in the 1600’s. In the 1500’s and 1600’s, scientists increasingly realized the importance of experimentation and mathematics to scientific advances. From all over Europe, scientists made important discoveries in anatomy, astronomy, chemistry, geometry, and physics. For example, the Italian scientist Galileo used mathematics to prove the law of falling bodies, which says that all objects fall at the same speed, regardless of weight. William Harvey, an English physician, performed careful experiments to show how blood circulates in the human body. The scientific revolution led Europeans to believe that people could begin to gain control over the natural world.

By the late 1600’s, philosophers had begun making similar breakthroughs. Historians refer to this period as the Enlightenment. Philosophers of the era began arguing for the removal of restrictions on human freedom and equality, so that people could pursue the goal of happiness. These scholars even questioned religious teachings. For example, some cast doubt on the miracles described in the Bible because they could not be proved scientifically. Others studied the history of words and suggested that parts of the Bible, though still divinely inspired, had been revised over time. Some thinkers urged the toleration of all religions because none could be proved true or false.

Enlightenment thinkers attacked Europe’s economic systems and governments. Many called for fewer government restrictions on trade and other aspects of national economies, as well as a reduction of taxation. Others criticized governments for not taking into account the welfare of ordinary people.

Revolution, democracy, and nationalism.

In the late 1700’s, the ideas of the Enlightenment initiated a series of revolutionary political movements. These movements included the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783), as well as several revolutions in Europe.

The French Revolution,

which took place from 1789 to 1799, was the most important democratic revolution in Europe during this period. In 1789, representatives of the three estates (classes) in France—the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners—formed a National Assembly and seized control of the government. They adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a document that set forth the principles of human liberty and the rights of individuals. By 1792, the revolution turned radical and violent. The king was beheaded in January 1793. Thousands more, including the queen, followed him to their deaths in a period called the Reign of Terror. The revolution finally ended in 1799, when the young general Napoleon Bonaparte seized power.

The Napoleonic wars.

During this period, war had broken out between France and many other European countries. Under Napoleon’s leadership, the French armies at first seemed unbeatable. By 1812, they controlled most of mainland Europe, except Russia and the Ottoman Empire. But Napoleon lost most of his army that same year when he invaded Russia. Napoleon suffered his final defeat in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo and was exiled to a small island in the South Atlantic. But the ideas of the French Revolution continued to spread throughout Europe.

France’s revolutionaries had drawn inspiration from the democratic belief that all people were equal and were entitled to rule themselves. In the process of fighting against most of Europe, the French people also had bonded as a single nation. This common identity and loyalty to a nation of people is called nationalism.

Other European governments blamed democratic ideas for the terrible violence and destruction of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. Nationalism also threatened the unity of such European empires as Austria, which consisted of many diverse cultures that spoke different languages.

In 1814 and 1815, Europe’s political leaders met at the Congress of Vienna. Led by the Quadruple Alliance of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom, the Congress sought to restore much of the European political system to the way it had been before the French Revolution. The Congress restored most of the borders that had existed before the Revolution. It also brought back many of the monarchs who had been toppled by the revolutionary armies. The Austrian statesman Metternich encouraged European powers to suppress democratic and nationalist activity throughout Europe. But the “Metternich System” failed to halt the spread of democracy and nationalism on the continent.

New governments.

Other revolutions broke out during the 1800’s. In the 1820’s, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom supported a Greek war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. Democratic revolts took place in Belgium and France in 1830. Italy was founded as a national state in 1861, and Germany in 1871. Both states adopted constitutions, though they kept a monarchy. By 1900, nearly every European country except Russia had a constitution and at least some democratic institutions.

The Industrial Revolution

began in the United Kingdom during the 1700’s and spread to other parts of western Europe in the 1800’s. Industry grew rapidly with the development of power-driven machinery and new methods of production.

Before the Industrial Revolution, most people had worked as farmers in the countryside. But as factories appeared, towns grew rapidly into industrial cities. People streamed into these cities to take factory jobs.

Industrial growth brought social changes. The middle class of business leaders and industrialists grew rapidly. They owned most of the factories, hired the workers, and operated the banks, mines, railroads, and shops. At the same time, new production methods threatened the occupations of some skilled craftworkers. Many women and children began to work outside the home. Most laborers were unskilled and earned low salaries. They worked and lived under dreadful conditions. Even so, the typical factory worker earned more money, ate better, and lived longer than their farmer ancestors had managed to do.

Industrialization also changed European politics. The growing number of industrial workers demanded not only a voice in government but also a political party to represent them. In the mid-1800’s, a new philosophy called socialism argued for better treatment of factory workers and other poor people. The German philosopher Karl Marx even called for workers to rise up against the wealthy and to establish state-controlled economic systems. Marx desired a “classless” society with no distinctions based on social class. Many of his followers later became known as Communists.

These developments led some governments to pass laws regulating conditions in factories. In the mid-1800’s, workers in the United Kingdom and some other western European countries won the right to form labor unions. The unions could negotiate better wages and working conditions for factory workers.

Colonial expansion.

The Industrial Revolution helped begin a new age of colonial expansion. The industrial nations needed such raw materials as copra (dried coconut meat) and cotton for their factories, and Africa and Asia had great quantities. These continents also provided vast markets where the industrial nations could sell their manufactured goods. With Europe’s population expanding, many countries sought new colonies to settle their surplus population. During the 1870’s, several European powers began establishing control over most of Africa, Asia, and Pacific Islands. By 1914, virtually the entire world was either under the control or influence of the European powers or was populated by descendants of earlier European settlers.

World War I

began in 1914. The war resulted mainly from the desire by national groups to gain independence and from competing military alliances among nations of Europe.

World War I began as a regional conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The killing of Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian assassin from Bosnia-Herzegovina sparked the conflict, which quickly became a war between Europe’s two major military alliances. The United Kingdom, France, and Russia led one group of countries (known as the Allies) against a group led by Germany and Austria-Hungary (known as the Central Powers). In 1917, the United States joined the Allies and helped them win the war the following year.

The victorious Allies met in Paris in 1919 to impose separate peace treaties on each of the defeated Central Powers. The most famous treaty, signed with Germany, was the Treaty of Versailles.

World War I brought many changes of government in Europe. The successful Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 led to the founding of a Communist dictatorship in Russia. Austria-Hungary was divided into several countries. Six countries in Europe won their independence: Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and what later became Yugoslavia. Germany remained largely intact, but it paid a high price for the war. It lost Alsace-Lorraine to France, additional territory to Poland, and all of its overseas colonies. The once powerful German army was greatly reduced in size. The new democratic German government had to pay heavy fees, called reparations, to the victorious Allies.

Europe between the world wars.

The Paris peace settlements left many of Europe’s problems unsolved and created some new problems. Many Germans blamed their new government for signing the Treaty of Versailles and paying the huge reparations. Most of the newly created countries contained unhappy minorities who wanted either independence or the right to join a neighboring country.

The war had also badly hurt Europe’s once thriving economies. Governments needed to levy high taxes to pay off their war debts, and inflation became rampant in the 1920’s. During the 1930’s, a worldwide economic slump called the Great Depression caused massive unemployment. Hard times created an opportunity for a new antidemocratic movement called fascism. The first fascist political party developed in Italy under Benito Mussolini. Eventually, fascist parties gained control over most of the countries in central and southern Europe.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler set up the fascist Nazi dictatorship in Germany. Ignoring the Treaty of Versailles, he began rearming Germany for a new war. In 1935, he formed a fascist alliance called the Axis with Italy and Japan. He and Mussolini sent troops, tanks, and warplanes to help the fascist leader Francisco Franco win the bloody Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). .

The Russian Bolshevik government, under the leadership of V. I. Lenin, formed the Soviet Union in 1922. By the end of the 1920’s, Lenin had died and Joseph Stalin had become dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin industrialized the country in the 1930’s, but he also executed and imprisoned millions of his own people.

World War II.

By 1938, Adolf Hitler began to demand changes in the borders created by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany seized Austria and Czechoslovakia without resistance from other European powers. But when Hitler’s armies invaded Poland in 1939, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. Germany’s armies rapidly conquered Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway in 1940. Italy entered the war on Germany’s side in June of that year. Germany conquered much of eastern Europe in 1941.

At the end of 1941, the United States entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Japan, Germany, and Italy were the three main powers in an alliance called the Axis. American forces also joined those of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to fight in Europe. The United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia were soon leading a worldwide alliance of over 40 countries known as the Allies.

In 1942, Allied forces won major victories against Germany in the Soviet Union and North Africa. British and American troops invaded Italy in 1943 and forced it to surrender. In June 1944, a much larger Allied army landed in Normandy, France, and began the eastward march toward Germany. Soviet forces marched west to meet them, conquering most of eastern Europe in the process. Allied forces found many concentration camps where the Nazis had murdered millions of Jews and other Europeans.

Postwar Europe.

World War II had cost the lives of about 40 million Europeans. Many cities lay in ruins, leaving millions homeless and in poverty. The Soviet Union and the United States took Europe’s place as the leaders of the postwar period.

Germany and its capital of Berlin were divided into four zones occupied by the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Stalin gave half of the Soviet zone to Poland. The remainder of this zone became East Germany, a Communist dictatorship. The other three zones joined to form a democratic country known as West Germany. The presence of Soviet troops throughout eastern Europe helped ensure the creation of Communist dictatorships in all the countries there during the late 1940’s.

Western European countries restored their democratic governments. But the devastation of World War II made these countries economically and militarily dependent on the United States. The U.S. government set up the European Recovery Program—known as the Marshall Plan—to help these countries rebuild their economies. Other U.S. assistance programs followed the Marshall Plan. By the early 1950’s, the economies of most western European countries had become more productive than they were before the war.

Eastern Europe took much longer to recover from World War II. Stalin forbade the Communist European states to accept Marshall Plan aid. Yet the equally devastated Soviet Union could not afford to offer much assistance of its own. Many people wanted to go to western Europe in search of greater freedom and prosperity. The Soviet Union fortified eastern European borders with barbed wire, land mines, and watch towers. They put in place barriers to free communications, trade, and travel along borders extending from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. This “Iron Curtain” became the new symbol of a divided continent.

The Cold War.

To many, the erection of the Iron Curtain marked the beginning of the Cold War, a tense period of international rivalry between the Western democracies, led by the United States, and the Communist countries, led by the Soviet Union. Both sides feared invasion from the other. Many leaders on both sides became convinced that it was their duty to spread their system of government throughout the world.

The Western powers tried to prevent Soviet expansion by a policy called containment. They built a series of defensive military alliances around the world. In 1949, the United States, Canada, and most of Europe’s democracies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1955, the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites (nations controlled by the Soviet Union) signed a similar agreement known as the Warsaw Pact. The Iron Curtain now separated two huge armies, backed by thousands of nuclear weapons, in a tense standoff.

Stalin’s death in 1953 marked the beginning of a gradual reduction in Cold War tensions. The new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev advocated peaceful coexistence between the two alliances.

But the Soviet Union retained an iron grip on eastern Europe. In 1956, Soviet forces crushed Hungary’s attempt to establish democracy. In 1961, East Germany built a wall around West Berlin to prevent East Germans from escaping Communism. Warsaw Pact troops put down another democratic reform movement in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The 1970’s witnessed a further relaxation of Cold War tensions. In 1970, government leaders of East and West Germany conferred for the first time since the division of Germany. That same year, West Germany signed nonaggression treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland. In 1975, representatives from the United States, Canada, and most European countries met in Helsinki, Finland, to form the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), now called the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). These countries signed the first of the Helsinki Accords, called the Helsinki Final Act. In this agreement, the signers pledged to work for increased cooperation in matters of economics and peacekeeping and to promote human rights.

Toward European unity.

While the Cold War divided Europe between east and west, Europe’s democracies had worked to strengthen ties with one another. The massive destruction and suffering from two world wars had convinced them of the evils of international conflict. They formed the Council of Europe in 1949 to create stronger cultural, social, and economic ties with one another. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), organized in 1951, sought to unify the coal, iron, and steel industries of Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany.

In 1957, the six ECSC members formed the European Economic Community (EEC). The organization was created to begin removing barriers to the movement of goods, services, workers, and capital among its members. Also in 1957, the same six countries agreed to establish the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) to work together to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses. The EEC and Euratom went into effect in 1958. The six member countries became known as the European Community. The European Community admitted Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom in 1973. Greece joined in 1981, and Portugal and Spain in 1986.

In 1987, the European Community completed ratification of the Single European Act. This act set the end of 1992 as the deadline for eliminating all customs controls and most other obstacles to the free movement of goods, services, workers, and capital among member countries. In 1992, representatives of the 12 member countries of the European Community signed the Treaty on European Union in Maastricht, the Netherlands. This pact, known as the Maastricht Treaty, went into effect in 1993. Under the treaty, the European Community was incorporated into the European Union (EU). The EU was formed to extend cooperation among the community’s members to such areas as military policy, crime control, and immigration. The EU later also worked to establish closer monetary and economic ties by founding a central bank and moving toward the adoption of a common currency.

The collapse of Communism.

Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. He recognized that the Communist government did not satisfy the needs of his country’s people, either economically or politically. Gorbachev proposed reforms to the Soviet government that would reduce the power of the Communist Party, increase the power of elected government bodies, and reduce government control over the economy. He called these reforms perestroika. Gorbachev also promoted more freedom of speech and other forms of public openness. He called this reform glasnost.

Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union sparked calls for greater democratization and independence across eastern Europe. In 1989, Hungary opened its border with Austria to allow thousands of eastern Europeans to leave for western Europe. Later that year, huge crowds in Berlin tore down the wall that had divided the city. All over eastern Europe, mass demonstrations demanded more freedom and an end to Communist rule. In 1989 and 1990, free elections were held in these countries, and non-Communist parties gained control. The governments lifted restrictions on such civil liberties as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. They began to replace their socialized economies with free enterprise economies.

In 1990, West Germany and East Germany united to form the single non-Communist nation of Germany. Later that year, leaders of the CSCE countries signed the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, in which they declared an end to the Cold War. In 1991, the Warsaw Pact countries formally dissolved the pact, and the Soviet Union itself broke apart into 15 independent republics, marking the end of the Cold War.

The new nationalism.

Even as Europe united, several countries became divided by old national and ethnic rivalries. Ethnic minorities in several former Soviet republics demanded independence, which resulted in rebellions in Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Russian province of Chechnya.

Two former countries of Communist eastern Europe dissolved. One of these countries, Czechoslovakia, broke up peacefully in 1993 into two new states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The other country, Yugoslavia, endured a break-up that involved some of the bloodiest European conflict since World War II. In 1948, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito had declared his country independent of the Soviet Union, the first Communist country to do so. Tito established a delicate political balance between Yugoslavia’s many nationalities, including Eastern Orthodox Serbs, Roman Catholic Croatians, and Muslim Bosnians. In the late 1980’s, after Tito’s death, the Serb leader Slobodan Milošević upset that balance in favor of the Serbs.

In 1991 and early 1992, four of the country’s six republics—Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia—declared their independence. The two other Yugoslav republics—Serbia and Montenegro—formed a new Yugoslavia and fought hard to keep control of those parts of Croatia and Bosnia where Serb minorities lived. They often did so by expelling non-Serbs from the areas they wanted to retain, a policy called ethnic cleansing.

In 1995, representatives of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia signed a peace plan for Bosnia. But a new conflict broke out in 1998 in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where the ethnic Albanian majority wanted independence. After Serbian forces forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes, NATO threatened to intervene unless Kosovo was granted autonomy. When Milošević refused, NATO aircraft bombed targets in Serbia in 1999 until Milošević agreed to withdraw all his troops from Kosovo. NATO forces then occupied Kosovo, which came under United Nations administration.

In 2003, Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro. In 2006, Serbia and Montenegro separated and became independent countries. Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, without Serbia’s recognition. Other nations were divided over accepting Kosovo’s independence.

Recent developments.

NATO’s victory in Kosovo strengthened confidence in the future of European unity and encouraged further efforts at unification. In 2002, many EU countries began using a common currency, known as the euro. Since 2004, several more European nations have joined the EU. The new members include some of the former Communist eastern European countries and Soviet republics.

Beginning in 2008, a global economic downturn caused problems for much of Europe. By the spring of 2013, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain had all accepted emergency loans from the countries that use the euro and from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a specialized agency of the United Nations.

In the 1990’s and the early 2000’s, millions of Muslims immigrated to western Europe, and tensions arose between the immigrants and their host countries. Terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists in Europe, Russia, and the United States increased the tensions. With native populations declining in certain European countries, many Europeans feared that non-Western peoples would not embrace Western values and might threaten the democratic cultures of those countries.

Southern Europe has long been an entry point for African and South Asian refugees. Refugee numbers greatly increased beginning in 2011, however, as people fled violence in northern Africa and the Middle East. Boats carrying refugees across the Mediterranean Sea are often overfilled and unstable. Each year, thousands of people die in shipwrecks. Refugees who reach European soil still face many hardships. Many are barred entry into some countries. Many others are temporarily confined in camps. In 2015, refugee numbers in Europe swelled to over 1 million.

In 2014, Russian forces seized the Crimean Peninsula, which had been part of Ukraine since 1954. Shortly afterward, Russia formally annexed Crimea. In reaction, a number of countries introduced economic sanctions on Russia. Pro-Russian separatists then began fighting Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine. Violence continued into the 2020’s.

In 2016, Europe’s refugee problems continued, and thousands more people died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Violence in Ukraine declined, but tensions remained high in the region. In June, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a referendum nicknamed “Brexit” (British exit). The withdrawal process formally began in January 2020 and was completed in December.

In the summer of 2017 and again in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, record high temperatures in parts of Europe forced the closure of tourist sites and caused deaths, droughts, and destructive wildfires. In 2022, more than 60,000 Europeans died from heat-related illnesses. Most scientists think that climate change has become the driving force behind the increase in extreme weather conditions.

Beginning in 2020, the countries of Europe faced severe disruptions as authorities imposed measures to halt the spread of the respiratory disease COVID-19. The disease, caused by a type of coronavirus, broke out in China in late 2019 and soon spread to other countries. By March 2020, Italy had become one of the places hardest hit by the pandemic (global outbreak). There, travel was restricted, public events were canceled, most businesses were closed, and residents were ordered to stay in their homes. Authorities in other hard-hit European countries—particularly France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom—also issued lockdown orders as the disease spread across the continent.

By May, infection rates had declined, and most countries began to relax some restrictions on business and social activity. Outbreaks in the following months led many governments to issue renewed restrictions. Countries in Europe began vaccinating residents against COVID-19 in late 2020. Infection and death rates declined in early 2021 as vaccination rates improved. Highly contagious variants of the disease continued to spread, however, leading to further outbreaks. In the fall of 2021, high hospitalization rates occurred in parts of southeastern Europe and other areas with low vaccination rates. By the end of the year, most of Europe had reissued social and business restrictions amid another surge in infections. Falling case counts in the early months of 2022 led most European countries to lift or relax COVID-19 restrictions. By early 2023, about 270 million COVID-19 cases had been recorded in Europe, and more than 2 million Europeans had died from the disease.

Russian aggression toward Ukraine caused alarm throughout Europe in early 2022. More than 150,000 Russian troops massed along Russia’s border with Ukraine. In late February, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia officially recognized the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent. Days later, Russian air, sea, and ground forces began attacking military posts throughout Ukraine. Leaders in Europe imposed harsh economic sanctions against Russia and its leaders. European countries and the United States also donated large amounts of economic, humanitarian, and military aid to Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians sought refuge in Poland and other parts of eastern Europe. In later months, Russian forces increasingly concentrated their attacks on eastern Ukraine. In late 2022 and in 2023, Russian missiles and drones also targeted infrastructure in Ukrainian cities. Many thousands of people have been killed in the war.