Europe Wikipedia

It is highest in areas in central and western Europe, sometimes referred to as the “blue banana”, while Sweden and Finland in the north are much more sparsely populated. It is at the centre of the Eurosystem, which comprehends all the eurozone national central banks. The ECB is the central bank for the eurozone, and thus controls monetary policy in that area with an agenda to maintain price stability. The 20 EU member states known collectively as the eurozone have fully implemented the currency union by superseding their national currencies with the euro.

By the end of the war, European integration became seen as an antidote to the extreme nationalism that had caused the war. Containing 5.5% of the world population in 2023, EU member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around €17.935 trillion in 2024, accounting for approximately one sixth of global economic output. The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe.

Early modern period

• Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions, and the abolition of slavery.
• In 1992, having negotiated the structure and procedures of a currency union, the member states signed the Maastricht Treaty and were legally bound to fulfil the agreed-on rules including the convergence criteria if they wanted to join the monetary union.
• Effects on European countries include warmer weather and increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather such as heat waves, bringing health risks and effects on ecosystems.
• In 2021, the European Parliament had initially proposed the creation of a strong, independent ethics body equipped with its own investigative and enforcement powers (Silvia Kotanidis and Titouan Faucheux, EPRS Briefing, pp. 4-5).

The largest religion in Europe is Christianity, with 76.2% of Europeans considering themselves Christians, including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and various Protestant denominations. Turkic languages include Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Turkish, in addition to smaller languages in Eastern and Southeast Europe (Balkan Gagauz Turkish, Bashkir, Chuvash, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Nogai and Tatar). Also in Asia, Europeans, especially the Spanish are an influential minority population in the Philippines. In Asia, European-derived populations, specifically Russians, predominate in North Asia and some parts of Northern Kazakhstan. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities (or with the exception of Cape Verde and probably São Tomé and Príncipe, depending on context), but there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans in South Africa.

This made old previously interrupted cultural and economic relationships possible, and previously isolated cities such as Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Trieste were now again in the centre of Europe. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once more. The Berlin blockade in 1948 and 1949 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 were one of the great international crises of the Cold War.

Functioning through the “contractual” conjunction of each participating institution, the body operates primarily as a formal mechanism for coordination rather than a centralized enforcement agency (Julio Baquero Cruz, Chapter 5, pp. 88, 94-95). The Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) participates only as an observer to preserve its judicial impartiality (Silvia Kotanidis and Titouan Faucheux, EPRS Briefing, p. 8). The new body adopts these minimum standards by consensus and is assisted by five independent experts (Silvia Kotanidis and Titouan Faucheux, EPRS Briefing, p. 9).

The eurozone is a group composed of the 21 EU member states that have fully implemented the EU’s economic and monetary union and use the euro currency. The supranational union has a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an estimated population of more than 450 million as of 2025. When considering the commuter belts or metropolitan areas within Europe (for which comparable data is available), Moscow covers the largest population, followed in order by Istanbul, London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Ruhr Area, Saint Petersburg, Rhein-Süd, Barcelona and Berlin. 64.9% of the residents live on the European side and 35.1% on the Asian side.The next largest cities in order of population are Madrid, Saint Petersburg, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin, and Rome each having over three million residents.

Your gateway to the European Union

Europe shares the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. This means Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in the UK as other EEA nationals. The EEA includes EU countries and also Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It operates an internal (or single) market which allows free movement of goods, capital, services and people between member states. For discussion of individual countries of the continent, see specific articles by name—e.g., Italy, Poland, and United Kingdom.

Background: World Wars and aftermath

The Age of Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally, politically, and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable producing more continental climates. The European climate is affected by warm Atlantic currents, such as the Gulf Stream, which produce a temperate climate, tempering winters and summers, on much of the continent.

With large-scale war being waged in Europe once again in the 1930s and becoming World War II, the question of what to fight against and what for had to be agreed on. Internationalism and visions of European unity had existed since well before the 19th century, but gained particularly as a reaction to World War I and its aftermath. In 2020, the United Kingdom became the only member state to leave the EU; www.eusfs.eu ten countries are aspiring or negotiating to join it.