EUROPE 



3010 



EUROPE 



EUROPE: THE CONTINENT AND ITS HISTORY 



A. D. INNES. M.A.. Author of A General Sketch of Political History, and B. C. WALLIS, B.Sc. 



This article, like those on Africa, Asia, North America, etc., is a general sketch of the physical and racial 

 features, industries and history of the continent. In addition there are articles on each of its countries, 

 whether old or new, on all cities and toivns of importance, rivers, lakes, and mountain ranges. See also the 

 biographies of Napoleon ; Metternich and other great European figures ; also articles on French Revolution : 

 Reformation ; Renaissance, and other movements 



Europe is almost the smallest of 

 the six continents, and covers about 

 3f million sq. m. It is thus about 

 the same size as Canada atid 

 slightly larger than Australia. 

 Excluding Russia, where two- 

 fifths of the continent is in an in- 

 determinate political condition, 

 France has the greatest area in 

 Europe. Spain, Germany, and 

 Sweden are almost as large; Nor- 

 way, Rumania, and Italy are about 

 the same size as the British Isles, 

 which has about three-fifths the 

 area of France. 



The total population of Europe 

 lies between 350 and 400 millions 

 of people, of whom about a quarter 

 live in Soviet Russia. Germany is 

 the next most populous state; 

 then the United Kingdom, France, 

 and Italy. Several countries have 

 roughly about half the population 

 of one or other of these four 

 Spain, Poland, Rumania, Czecho 

 Slovakia. The remaining states 

 have less than 10 million in- 

 habitants each. 



The chief factor regarding popu- 

 lation is not so much its absolute 

 number as its relative distribution 

 over the land. The people of 

 Europe live almost wholly S. of 

 the latitude of Petrograd (60 N. ). 

 Not numerous between the lati- 

 tudes of Petrograd and Copen- 

 hagen, they are most numerous in 

 a belt of country, about 200 miles 

 or less in width, roughly in the 

 latitudes of London, Cologne, and 

 Cracow (50-52 N.). 



Belts of Population 



From Lancashire and the W. 

 Riding of Yorkshire, through the 

 midland counties to the London 

 area, across the sea through Bel- 

 gium and S. Holland, through the 

 middle of Germany near Cologne, 

 Leipzig, and Dresden, through 

 Bohemia, Moravia, S. Poland 

 (Galicia), and the Ukraine to the 

 valley of the Don, the people are 

 clustered together in a belt of 

 dense population most numerous 

 between Cologne, Lille, and Rot- 

 terdam, and gradually thinning out 

 eastwards. From this belt two 

 projections of dense population go 

 southwards one up the Rhine val- 

 ley to Zurich and Bern, the other 

 across the Danube at Vienna to 

 Graz and Zagreb (Agram). 



Apart from this great populous 

 area, the only other large densely 

 peopled portions are the coastal 



strip of Portugal and N.W. Spain 

 and part of Italy. In the latter 

 peninsula, the plain of Lombardy, 

 and a strip of land on each flank 

 of the Apennines reaching some 

 distance S. of Naples, have large 

 numbers to the sq. m. Sicily is 

 almost equally densely populated. 

 These areas with many people do 

 not merge suddenly into sparsely 

 inhabited tracts except where 

 they reach the mountains, the 

 Alps, or the Carpathians. The 

 peninsulas of Jutland, the Balkans, 

 and Spain (except for a fringe along 

 the N.E. coast) have few people ; 

 the Rhdne valley in France is 

 densely peopled alongside the river. 



These facts give an added im- 

 portance to certain of the small 

 states. Belgium, Holland, Czecho- 

 slovakia, and Poland are thus in- 

 trinsically greater than Spain, 

 Sweden, or the major portion of 

 Russia, the 'and of the Great Rus- 

 sians, because-density of population 

 implies closer community of inter- 

 ests and a fuller national life. 

 Anthropological Classification 



Anthropologists classify people 

 physically with reference to the 

 shape of the skull. The two ex- 

 tremes are round heads where the 

 width exceeds 85 p.c., and long 

 heads where the width is less than 

 77 p.c. of the length. Except in 

 Portugal, England, and the areas 

 near the Rhine, the districts of 

 dense population are inhabited by 

 round heads : the Slavs, Italians, 

 and South Germans in these areas 

 are round-headed. In Portugal 

 the people are long-headed. Else- 

 where in the densely peopled areas 

 they are mixed, approaching on 

 the average the long-headed type 



PHYSICAL FEATURES. From the 

 physical point of view the conti- 

 nent of Europe may be regarded 

 as a peninsula of Asia, extending 

 westwards about one-sixth of he 

 distance round the world from the 

 indefinite E. boundary which is 

 only approximately marked by 

 the Ural Mountains. This penin- 

 sular characteristic enters even 

 into the details of the continent, 

 for in addition to the great Scan- 

 dinavian peninsula in the north 

 and the smaller peninsula of Jut- 

 land, there are the three Mediter- 

 ranean peninsulas, the Iberian, 

 Italic, and Balkan peninsulas. The 

 truly Asiatic character of Europe 

 is revealed by the mountain back- 



bone and the great plain which 

 lies between the backbone and the 

 N. seas. 



The Alps are merely the central 

 European portion of a great Old 

 World chain of folded mountains 

 which extends from S. Spain by 

 way of the Atlas Mountains in 

 N.W. Africa, the Apennines, Alps, 

 Balkans, and the Caucasus through 

 the Himalayas almost to the 

 shores of the S. China Sea. From 

 the French shores of the Bay of 

 Biscay the Great European plain 

 stretches E. with ever-increasing 

 width until it reaches from the 

 Arctic to the Caspian, and forms 

 a W. continuation of the great 

 plains of N. Asia. 



The only section of Europe 

 which is not physically Asiatic is 

 the N.W., where the Scandi- 

 navian mountains and the uplands 

 of Scotland and Iceland belong to a 

 continental land mass, older than 

 the rest of Europe, which, it is 

 conjectured, once joined Scan- 

 dinavia to Greenland, and has 

 become submerged. The E. boun- 

 dary of Europe is a purely con- 

 ventional line, the political fron- 

 tier which separated Russia in 

 Europe from Russia in Asia. 



It follows the Ural Mountains 

 across the uninhabitable tundra, 

 but lies well to the E. of the S. 

 two -thirds of this range ; in the S. 

 it follows the Ural river almost to 

 Orenburg, and then it lies W. of 

 that river until it reaches the 

 Caspian. Even were the boundary 

 purely physical, i.e. the Ural 

 mountains and river, it would not 

 serve any better than the present 

 administrative limit to separate 

 the natural vegetation, the types of 

 cultivation, or the peoples of W. 

 Asia from E. Europe. The steppes, 

 the forests, the nomad Kirghiz are 

 continuous across the frontier. 

 The Great Rivers 



Beginning with the Garonne, 

 many rivers flow across the Great 

 European Plain The chief of these 

 are the Loire, Seine, Oder, Vistula, 

 and the streams that cross N. 

 Russia to the Arctic. The Iberian 

 streams, Douro, Tagus, Guadiana, 

 Guadalquivir, and Ebro have 

 carved valleys in the plateau. The 

 Po, the Vardar, Struma, and Ma- 

 ritza flow to the Adriatic or the 

 Aegean, their course guided by the 

 great chain of mountains. The 

 Dniester, Dnieper, Don, and Volga 



