Europe

THE STATE OF VATICAN City is the world’s smallest independent state. This tiny city situated on a hill in Rome, Italy, is the capital of the Roman Catholic Church and holds the residence of the pope.

THE UNITED Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) is the full name of a state in western Europe composed of England, Scotland, and Wales on the island of Great Britain, plus roughly one-sixth of the island of Ireland.

WHERE EUROPE EDGES into Eurasia, there lies Ukraine, from ancient times known for its fertile black soil, or chornozem, imparting to this great rolling steppe land the distinction of having been “the breadbasket of Europe.”

THE SWISS CONFEDERATION is a landlocked country that borders France to the west, Germany to the north, Liechtenstein and Austria to the east, and Italy to the south and southeast.

SWEDEN IS ONE of the four Scandinavian countries of northern Europe. Like its neighbors Norway and Finland, Sweden is a long country from south to north, encompassing climatic variation from the relatively temperate south to subarctic areas north of the Arctic Circle.

SPAIN IS A COUNTRY located in southwestern Europe, occupying with Portugal the Iberian Peninsula. Spain also borders France and Andorra, and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and by the Mediterranean Sea.

SLOVENIA IS LOCATED in Central Europe on the Adriatic Sea between Austria and Croatia. The country’s transitional area lies between the Alps, the Dinaric area, the Pannonian Plain, and the Adriatic Sea.

THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC or Slovakia is one of Europe's landlocked countries. Most of the country is rugged and mountainous, although the Tatra Mountains in the north are interspersed with many scenic lakes and valleys.

SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO is a country in the central Balkan Peninsula, the rump of the former federation of south Slavic peoples known as Yugoslavia.

SAN MARINO IS one of Europe’s five microstates. Like the others, it is a holdover from a more fragmented European past.

STRETCHING IN A GIGANTIC arc around the Arctic Ocean and North Pole, the Russian Federation spans 11 time zones, nearly half the globe from east to west.

ROMANIA IS AN OVAL-shaped country in southeastern Europe. Situated in the northeastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, it is halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains and also halfway between the North Pole and the equator.

THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC is located in southwestern Europe, sharing the Iberian Peninsula with Spain, which it borders to the north and east.

POLAND IS LOCATED in eastern Europe, and is surrounded by the Baltic Sea to the northwest, Germany to the west, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Russia to the east.

ALSO KNOWN AS the Hungarian Plain, the Pannonian Plain is one of the flattest parts of Central Europe and one of the most agriculturally productive.

NORWAY IS A LONG, narrow country, stretching from the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean, roughly the same length as the eastern coast of the United States.

THERE IS A SAYING that God created the world, but the Dutch created Netherlands.

WHILE EXTREMELY SMALL at only 48 acres (19.4 hectares) in area bordering France and Italy, Monaco still has several distinct geographic areas. The official residence of the government and prince of Monaco is a rocky point called Monaco-Ville.

THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA is the second-smallest former Soviet republic and the most densely populated, located in the borderlands between the Ukraine and Romania, to which it is linked ethnically and linguistically.

MAGNA GRAECIA (or “Greater Greece”) was the geographic expression of Greek colonization originating from many different Greek cities. It was a process that began in the 7th century B.C.E., largely because of overpopulation.

THE REPUBLIC OF Macedonia is a country in the southern Balkans but covers only part of the larger historical and geographical area known as Macedonia. The northern region of Greece is also known as Macedonia, which has been a source of cultural conflict since the republic declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

LUXEMBOURG IS a small landlocked western European country, within the European Union (EU), and given its small population size, the country does not contain any large urban centers. After Luxembourg City, about 75,000 persons, the next largest settlements are Esch-sur-Alzette (27,000), Differdange (18,000), and Dudelange (17,000).

THE REPUBLIC OF Lithuania in northern Europe is a lowland country that borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and southeast, Poland and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the southwest, and the Baltic Sea to the west. Lithuania is a parliamentary democracy with the supreme council or Seimas serving as the legislature and the president serving as head of state.

ONE OF WESTERN Europe’s five microstates, the story-book principality of Liechtenstein is in reality one of the few “absolutist” states in the world, thanks to a favorable referendum voting extensive powers to the ruling sovereign in March 2003.

ON THE EASTERN shore of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe, the Republic of Latvia is a flat country that borders Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Belarus to the southeast, and Russia to the east. Latvia is a parliamentary democracy with the supreme council, or Saeima, serving as the legislature and a president as head of state.

ITALY, IN SOUTHWESTERN Europe, is a peninsula bordered by France to the northwest, Switzerland to the north, Slovenia to the northeast, the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Ionian Sea to the south, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west; its famous boot shape juts into the Mediterranean Sea.

HUNGARY IS UNIQUE among the nations of Europe in many ways: a relatively flat country among hillier neighbors, a homogenous population with a language and culture unrelated to the peoples around them, and a long history as a unified nation in the midst of a region known historically for its diversity and political fragmentation.