Europe occupies the western one-fifth of Eurasia. It is bounded in the north by the Barents and Norwegian seas, west by the Atlantic Ocean, south by the Mediterranean Sea, and in the southeast by the Turkish straits and the Black Sea.
In the northeast there is no sea barrier with Asia, but a natural boundary is the Ural mountains between the Kara and Caspian seas (agreed) and the Greater Caucasus mountains between the Caspian and Black seas (contested).
Europe’s main peninsulas are the Brittany (France), Iberian (Spain, Portugal), Scandinavian (Norway, Sweden, Finland), Jutland (Denmark), Italian, Balkan, Crimean (Ukraine/Russia) and Kola (Russia); and the major islands are Iceland, Ireland, Britain, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Crete.
Europe consists of four major physical regions: the Western Uplands (or Northern Highlands), North European Plain, Central Uplands and Alpine Region. Mountains occupy most of the Scandinavian peninsula, northwest Ireland and Britain, and Brittany (NW France). Most of this is separated by the North and Baltic seas from the North European Plain that extends through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus, and to the foothills of the Ural mountains.
In southern Europe running from west to east there is a chain of mountain ranges: the Pyrenees between Spain and France; the Alps through France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy; the Carpathians through Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania; the Caucasus between the Black and Caspian seas; and the Urals marking the border between Europe and Asia. Other ranges are to the south, the Apennines in the Italian peninsula; and to the southeast the Dinaric Alps, and the Rhodope and Pindus ranges in the Balkan peninsula.
The major river valleys were important for communications. The River Rhone is a main artery from the Mediterranean through to central Europe; farther east the Danube Valley cuts between the Alps and the Carpathians into the Balkans and through to the Black Sea coast.
Other important European rivers are the Shannon (Ireland→ Atlantic), Thames (England→North Sea), Tagus (Spain-Portugal→Atlantic), Ebro (Spain→Mediterranean Sea), Loire (France→Atlantic), Seine (France→English Channel), Rhine (central & western Europe→North Sea), Po (Italy→Adriatic Sea), Elbe (Czech Republic-Germany→North Sea), Oder (Czech Rep-Poland-Germany→Baltic Sea), Vistula (Poland→ Baltic Sea) and the Dniester (Ukraine/Moldova→Black Sea.
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