*Europe is the second smallest continent in area (4,140,625 square miles), larger only than Australia—that is, if Europe is even considered a continent at all.  Some people (including many geographers in Russia) class it as part of a larger continent, Eurasia.

*If Europe is a continent (or even if it is merely a peninsula of Eurasia), it is typically considered to start at the Ural Mountains in Russia and the Caucasus Mountains just north of Turkey.  It is also surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea, all of which also have smaller seas and bays within them.

*Europe is classed as a continent as much for historical and cultural reasons as for geographical ones—Europe has had a tremendous impact on world history and culture, and continues to be culturally, politically, and economically significant:  the population of Europe is roughly 700,000,000, about 11% of the world's population.

*Counting Russia, there are 45 countries in Europe (although some people include other countries in Europe, too).

*Europe contains the world’s largest country, Russia (6,595,600 square miles), and the smallest, the Vatican City (0.16 square miles, or just under 109 acres—it would fit inside Johnson City 245 times). 

*Russia is also the most populous country in Europe (#8 worldwide), with about 143 million people.  Germany is second (#14 worldwide), with 82.4 million, France is third (#20), with 60.6 million, Great Britain is fourth (#21), with 60.4 million, Italy is fifth (#23), with 58 million, Ukraine is sixth (#25), with 47.4 million, and Spain is seventh (#27), with 43 million.

*The most populous metropolitan area in Europe is Moscow (#15 worldwide) with about 13,600,000 people.  Second is London (#18) with 11,850,000; third is Paris (#24) with 11,570,000 (although the Rhine-Ruhr area of Germany has many cities that have nearly become a megalopolis with a slightly higher population than the Paris Area); fourth is Istanbul with 11,332,000, which we will study later, when we look at the Middle East, fifth is the Milan area, with 6,500,000, sixth is Madrid with 5,600,000, and seventh is Saint Petersburg with 5,550,000.  Many countries in Europe have some degree of Primate City Syndrome, particularly Britain and France, while others, particularly countries that were formed more recently, such as Germany, Italy, and, to a lesser degree, Spain, have several important cities.

*Most people in Europe speak Indo-European languages. 

*Germanic languages are spoken in Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, parts of Belgium and Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and parts of other countries.

*Romance languages are spoken in Italy, France, parts of Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican City, Andorra, Spain (which has both Castilian and Catalan), Portugal, Romania, Moldova, and parts of other countries.

*Slavic languages are spoken in much of Eastern Europe, particularly Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and parts of other countries.

*The Baltic Languages were once widely spoken around the Baltic Sea, but were mostly wiped out by other Indo-Europeans later.  Only Latvian and Lithuanian survive as important languages today.

*Greek is essentially its own family within Indo-European, and it is spoken in Greece and Cyprus, and parts of other countries.

*Albanian also has its own branch of the Indo-European languages, and is mostly spoken in Albania, but is also used in other countries in the Balkans.

*Celtic languages were once spoken widely across Europe and even parts of Asia, but for the most part the Celts were defeated by other nations.  Today, Irish Gaelic is probably the most spoken Celtic language, and is the first official language of Ireland.  Welsh is an official language of Wales, and is moderately widely used—there is also a Welsh colony in Argentina.  Breton is spoken in parts of France, although it is dying out.  Scottish Gaelic is an official language in Scotland and Manx is on the Island of Man, but neither is widely used today, nor is Cornish, although a few people still speak it in Cornwall.

*There are also some non-Indo-European languages in Europe.  Finnish and Estonian are closely related to each other, and may be related to Hungarian as part of the Finno-Ugric language family, and possibly even to Turkish and other Turkic languages, if they are all part of the Ural-Altaic family (as some linguists suggest).

*The island of Malta speaks Maltese, a Semitic language related to Arabic.

*Europe also has a linguistic isolate: Basque.  This language is, as far as anyone knows, completely unrelated to any other known language in the world.  It has been postulated that this is the only survivor of the pre-Indo-European peoples who inhabited Europe before the Indo-Europeans arrived in Europe about 3,500 BC (although they would not dominate the continent until about 1,500 BC or so).

*The majority of Europe is nominally Christian, although actually church attendance and involvement is much lower than in the United States.  Northern Europe tends to be Protestant, Eastern Europe tends to be Orthodox, and Southern Europe tends to be Catholic, although there are exceptions (particularly on the western edge of Eastern Europe).  There are also a large number of Muslims in parts of South-eastern Europe.

*However, historically, Christianity was the centre of Christian religion and culture for over a thousand years (after the Moslems took over the Middle East), and was sometimes defined as Christendom—that cultural heritage and its historical impact is part of what makes people today regard Europe as a continent rather than a peninsula.

*Europe, although made up of many separate and important nations, and historically often at war with itself, is moving closer together.  Today, 25 nations, mostly in Western Europe, have formed the European Union, a loose confederation of nations, which some want to turn into a much stronger federation for mutual protection, free trade, and the creation of a unified economy larger than that of the United States.  Twelve of the nations in the European Union use a common currency, the Euro.