1. Europe is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Caspian Sea; the eastern boundary runs along the Ural Mts.
2. Major European landforms Peninsulas: Rivers: Mountain ranges: Scandinavian Volga Urals Jutland Danube Caucasus Balkan Rhine Carpathians Italian Po Alps Iberian Pyrenees
3. Peninsula of peninsulas Europe is composed of the westward-projecting peninsulas of Eurasia and occupying nearly one-fifteenth of the world's total land area.
4. Scandinavia A a region in Northern Europe named after the Scandinavian Peninsula. "Scandinavia" and "Nordic region" are often used interchangeably. The most common definition includes continental Denmark, mainland Norway and Sweden.
5. Norway The northernmost country in Europe with a toothy western coastline, a jagged expanse of islands and fjords. It’s capital, Oslo occupies an arc of land at the northernmost end of the Oslofjord . Hardangerfjord
6. Sweden Its nine million people are spread out over an area roughly the same as the State of California. M ost of the inland consists of forests and mountainous wilderness. Capital: Stockholm
7. With a population of 5.2 Million, Finland is an advanced industrial economy. Metal, engineering and electronics industries account for 50 % of export revenues, forest products industry for 30 %. Finland is one of the leading countries in Internet use. Finland
8. Denmark The Kingdom of Denmark is the smallest, southernmost and oldest of the Nordic countries. It borders the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, and consists of a peninsula named Jutland attached to Northern Germany.
9. Fjord - A long, narrow arm of the sea, usually formed by entrance of the sea into a deep glacial trough.
10. The Ural Mountains The mountain range that runs roughly north and south through western Russia marks the northern part of the (arbitrary) border between the continents of Europe and Asia.
12. Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains form part of the Euro-Asian border between Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.
13. Danube River The second longest river in Europe, it is one of the major methods of transportation. It is the only major European river to flow west to east, going through eight countries and three capitals including: Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; and Belgrade, Serbia.
14. Balkan Mts. This is an extension of the Carpathian mountain range, separated from it by the Danube River.
15. The Balkan Peninsula The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe southeastern Europe.
16. Carpathian Mountains The Fagaras Massif in central Romania's Transylvanian Alps forms the most spectacular range of the Carpathian Mountains Located in six countries of East and Central Europe: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Ukraine.
17. Carpathians (left) Apuseni Mountains in Romania’s part of the Carpathians The geologic structure of the inner part of the Western Carpathians is marked by a break running from the east and the south along a line of dislocation in the Earth's crust.
18. Karst Landscapes that show the result of limestone dissolution are called karst. Most limestones are formed by the deposition and consolidation of the skeletons of marine invertebrates .
19. Straits The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are the straits between the European and Southwest Asian sections of Turkey.
20. Alps The Alps is the collective name for one of the great mountain range systems of Europe , stretching from Austria in the east, Slovenia , Italy , Switzerland , Liechtenstein and Germany , through to France in the west. The word Alps means mountains.
23. Italian Boot The Italian peninsula or the Apennine peninsula is one of the greatest peninsulas of Europe, spanning 1000 km from the Alps in the north, to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. Located in Southern Europe, it consists of Italy, the mainland San Marino, which is an enclave of Italy in the northwest, and Vatican City, an enclave in the Italian city of Rome.
24. Sinking Venice Raised walkways have been installed in places where the flooding is worst. These people are queueing to enter the Basilica di San Marco A combination of man’s activities and natural changes threaten the very existence of this historical Italian city.
25. Venice flooding High water regularly floods St. Mark's Square and other parts of Venice, forcing people to tread on raised walkways. The city itself is sinking, the level of the Adriatic is rising and high tides are becoming more frequent .
26. Venice Lagoon The Venice Lagoon has a surface area of 55,000 sq, meters has and was formed nearly 6,000 years ago. In order to preserve the lagoon and adapt it to existing needs - port, fish farms, land reclamation, transport and industry – for the past 5 centuries man has undertaken increasingly consistent works to achieve hydraulic regulation, mainly by diverting the principal rivers from the Lagoon into the Adriatic Sea, and building numerous reclamation systems on the lower lands to use them for agricultural purposes; in the last 50 years the wetlands have been significantly reduced and the pollution load discharged into the lagoon has been increased. Industrial pollution in the Venice lagoon, 1998
27. Sicily . The Strait of Messina is between the island of Sicily and the Italian peninsula Italy Mediterranean Sea Strait of Messina
28. Mt. Etna on the island of Sicily is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
29. Strait of Gibraltar Located at the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, this narrow sea- level passage is about 15 kilometers wide and 55 kilometers long.
30. The Rock of Gibraltar Strategically important, Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain by Spain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht; the British garrison was formally declared a colony in 1830. In referendums held in 1967 and 2002, Gibraltarians ignored Spanish pressure and voted overwhelmingly to remain a British dependency.
31. Iberian Peninsula Climatically, the Iberian Peninsula has hot summers, cold winters, and limited precipitation. Westernmost European peninsula containing Portugal, Spain, and Andorra.
32. Meseta The middle of Spain is a high, dry, flat plateau called the Meseta . In the Meseta it can be very hot in the summer and cold in the winter .
33. Pyrenees Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Mediterranean in the East, a distance of some 250 miles (402.5km), the mountains of the Pyrenees form a natural barrier between Spain and the Iberian Peninsula in the south and France in the north.
34. Europe’s rivers Europe is a well-watered continent with many rivers. Most of the continent's drainage finds its way to the Atlantic Ocean via a number of master river systems, whose watersheds interlock in a most complex manner.
35. Volga River The Volga River in Western Russia, Europe's longest river, with a length of 3,690 km, provides the core of the largest river system in Europe.
38. Formerly an obstacle to shipping, the “Iron Gate” region where the Danube narrows between the Carpathian and Balkan Mountains was cleared of rock obstructions in the 1860s; the Sip Canal permits large river craft to get past the gorge.
40. The Rock of Gibraltar Strategically important, Gibraltar was ceded to Great Britain by Spain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht; the British garrison was formally declared a colony in 1830. In referendums held in 1967 and 2002, Gibraltarians ignored Spanish pressure and voted overwhelmingly to remain a British dependency.
41. Sirocco This satellite image shows a dust storm over the Mediterranean Sea. The north African winds, known as Sirocco , blow dust north-west out over the Mediterranean Sea from the Libyan desert to the Italian mainland crossing the island of Sicily and part of Sardinia island to the west.
42. Mistral The mistral/maestral is a cold, northerly katabatic wind flowing into the Gulf of Lion from the southern coast of France. Mistrals are most common during winter and spring, although gale-force events can occur year-round. The wind is characterized by the sinking of cold air generated over the mountains and then funneled through the Garone Valley between the Pyrenees and the Massif Central.
43. Deforestation Most of Europe was once covered by a hardwood forest. Overgrazing, bad soil management, inappropriate land-use, droughts, fires, and political turmoil, caused considerable deforestation, however, most of the forests of Europe and were reduced to charcoal to supply heat for manufacturing processes .
44. Zuiderzee The Zuiderzee Works is a man-made system of dams, land reclamation and water drainage works, and the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century.
45. The project involved the damming off of the Zuiderzee , a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea , and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water body by means of polders .
46. ZuiderZee On the left side is the salty North Sea, and on the right side the freshwater lake created by the 'Afsluitdijk‘ dam. Zuider Zee
47. Polder Polder: An area of low-lying land, especially in the Netherlands, that has been reclaimed from a body of water and is protected by dikes.
48. Terpen These high earthen platforms provide safe places during floods and high tides
49. English Channel Strait of Dover The United Kingdom France
50. The White Cliffs of Dover This part of the British coastline faces the Strait of Dover and France with limestone cliffs reaching up to 350 feet high. The whiteness is a composition of chalk accentuated by streaks of black flint .
51. Four countries make up the United Kingdom (also known as Great Britain): Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England. United Kingdom
52. Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter . Soft and easily compressed, water is forced out under pressure. Upon drying, peat can be used as a fuel , and is traditionally used for cooking and domestic heating in many countries including Ireland and Scotland , where trees are often scarce.
53. North Sea Oil Field North Sea oil and natural gas were first discovered in the 1960s. The North Sea, however, did not emerge immediately as a key non-OPEC oil producing area until the 1980s and 1990s, when major discoveries began coming online. Oil and natural gas extraction in the North Sea's inhospitable climate - cold and windy - and at great depths requires sophisticated offshore technology.
54. North Sea oil rig While primary oil demand in European Union (EU) countries is projected to increase by 0.4% per year from now to 2030, North Sea output peaked in 1999 and has been on the decline ever since.
55. Gulf Stream The effect of the Gulf Stream is sufficient to cause certain parts of the west of Britain and Ireland to be an average of several degrees warmer than most other parts of those countries.
56. The weather in this otherwise cold climate zone, is moderated by the effects of The North Atlantic Drift which originates from the Gulf Stream along North America and from the northern Sargasso Sea. These waters then slowly flow northward into the Labrador and European Basins eventually becoming the NADC as it enters the Iceland Basin. False-color image of the temperature of the Gulf Stream North Atlantic Drift
58. Modern agriculture Market gardening near Cheddar, Somerset, England. This area, in the southwest of England, has a mild climate as a result of the North Atlantic Drift, and the mix of clay and limestone in the bedrock helps produce fertile soil. Market gardening is cultivation on suburban land of high value, of vegetables and flowers for the supply of nearby cities.
59. The global ocean circulation system transports heat throughout the planet. White sections represent warm surface currents. Purple sections represent deep cold currents . Great ocean conveyor
