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Answering the question, where is Europe, sounds easy enough.

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After all, it's here. But where does it end?

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What makes Europe different from the area around it?

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For our purposes, we'll call Europe the western part of Eurasia,

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a massive landmass that stretches from Ireland to Indonesia.

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However, Europe is only a small part of that landmass,

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reaching from the Ural Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.

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More than any other continent, Europe is influenced by water.

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after all if you take away all the boundaries and just look at europe from outer space it is nothing more than a peninsula with many smaller peninsulas and islands around it in fact water has influenced practically every civilization to develop in europe

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the most influential waterways have been the seas that surround europe namely the mediterranean sea to the south but also the baltic and north seas to the north and the atlantic ocean to the west

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The Mediterranean Sea was the home to many of the world's oldest civilizations, from the Greeks and

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Romans to the Phoenicians and Byzantines. In fact, the sea is so important that many people break it

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up into smaller seas. For example, you'll often hear people talk about the Aegean Sea when talking

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about the Greeks, because it was the water that surrounded so many of the ancient Greek city

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states. But the other seas are important too. The Vikings could have never launched their raids

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without the Baltic and the North Seas, and a part of the North Sea called the English Channel kept

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Britain free from invasion for most of history. However, it's not just saltwater that's important

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to Europe. Many rivers cross the continent. Some of these you may have already heard of because

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they flow through big cities, like the Seine in Paris or the Tiber in Rome. One of the biggest

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rivers in Europe has served as a border for some of its greatest empires. Historically, France and

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Germany, two of Europe's most important countries, have had the Rhine as their boundary. On the other

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hand, the Danube serves as a connector between many of Europe's cultures in the southeast,

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allowing for better communication. Both rivers, as well as others such as the Rhône and the Volga,

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provide water for crops. Whereas rivers allowed for greater communication, Europe's mountain

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ranges often stopped it. The most famous group of mountains in Europe are the Alps, which sit

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between Italy and the rest of Europe. These mountains have kept Italy safe for

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much of its history, although invaders such as Hannibal and Napoleon often

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crossed them. Other mountain ranges in Europe also serve as boundaries,

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including the Pyrenees between France and Spain, and the Carpathians that

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separate Romania from much of the rest of Europe. In fact, the Ural Mountains

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act as a boundary for Europe itself. Anything east of them is considered part

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Asia, while anything west is European. Still other mountains are worthy of note because of how

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they've historically affected the people who live there. In places like Greece and Norway,

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mountainous terrain meant that people often found themselves fishing instead of farming,

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using what fields they could on more valuable crops. Likewise, the low hills of southern France

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and Italy lent themselves to growing grapes for wine, something both countries are still known

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for producing. Yet, it is not just land that determines how people can use a given area.

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Climate matters a great deal, too. Within Europe, the climate varies dramatically. In the far north,

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including places like Norway and Sweden, people have long winters and short summers. On the other

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hand, in Italy and Greece, people have the exact opposite. Rainfall also matters. In some parts of

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Spain, very little rain falls, while in England it rains more often than not.

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However, for much of the continent, temperatures and rainfall have always been fairly moderate.

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This has been important for agriculture, since while a grapevine may not do as well in England as it does in France,

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other crops could be moved from region to region.

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In this lesson, we discussed the geography of Europe and its effects on the growth of civilization there.

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We defined where Europe is geographically, and looked at the landforms that had an influence on the people who lived there.

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specifically we looked at the sea rivers and mountains finally we talked about how weather and climate varies greatly across europe and what effect this has had on the people there