All of our pages about Europe.
Europe is the second-smallest continent, occupying 8% of the Earth’s surface. It lies entirely in the northern hemisphere between 36°N and the Arctic Ocean. About two-thirds of the continent is a great plain which covers the whole of European Russia and spreads westwards through Poland to the Low Countries. To the north lie the Scandinavian highlands. To the south, a series of mountain ranges stretch east-to-west (Caucasus, Carpathians, Alps, and Pyrenees).