Crucible of culture and universal values, seat of inventions which ensured, for a time, its primacy on the rest of the world, the “Old continent” diffused its beliefs, its techniques, its political ideas beyond its borders. But if Europe is a product of the history before being an object of the geography, the latter always does not manage to justify the borders which the first tent to draw with the liking of the fluctuation of the Empires and the movements of nationalities.
Covering 10.4 million square kilometers, this small continent - only Oceania is less wide - is in fact a simple ramified prolongation of the Asian mass, which is four times vaster. It extends in the manner of a starfish its arms and its archipelagoes towards north (Scandinavia), the west (British Isles) and the south (Mediterranean peninsulas). The mass compacts properly continental - France, Germany, Central Europe, septentrional Italy, Europe of the East - is limited to 8.5 million square kilometers, of which more half are occupied by Russia.