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Frequently asked questions

Q1: Are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Cyprus really in Europe?

A: As definitions of Europe vary, this article attempts to follow Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy. That means covering the view that they are in Europe, as well as the view that they are not. The issue has been raised repeatedly here, extensively in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, and briefly mentioned in many other discussions.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Europe was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 26, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
March 5, 2008	Good article nominee	Not listed

Current status: Former good article nominee

This level-2 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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Area of Europe

What is the exact area of Europe? According to this article, it is 10,186,000 sq. km, but according to the Collins World Atlas in my local library, it is 9,908,599 sq. km (they counted to the single digits!). Why are there a big difference between these sources? 120.16.170.140 (talk) 05:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Area will differ based on different definitions of Europe. CMD (talk) 08:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because the Collins World Atlas is published by the British. They have included the North Caucasus as a part of Asia. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:F0F5:3D10:42B7:F29D (talk) 14:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Armenia again

I see that I should have noted that the consensus is firmly established to include Armenia in the article for reasons given in a note. But therein lies the problem. The note reads "Armenia can be considered part of Eastern Europe or West Asia; it has strong historical and sociopolitical connections with Europe. The population and area figures include the entire state, respectively." This is just as much a justification for including Australia and Canada in the article, not making it clear at all why they're different. Since they aren't, this makes the justification look specious and ad hoc as though it's really being given only for the purpose of placating some group of people. This isn't a great impression for a Wikipedia article to give. At the moment, I'm not arguing one way or the about Armenia's inclusion but that the way it's been included looks almost like an acknowledgement that it doesn't really belong. Largoplazo (talk) 18:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a standalone it might give that impression, but it comes after the much earlier Definition section which should provide a reader a reasonably clear understanding of the issue of Europe's 'borders'. Would an internal link, eg. "can be considered", help? CMD (talk) 06:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, most countries outside Europe classify the countries of the South Caucasus region as Asian countries instead of European countries. The only one which classify these countries as European countries are themselves.

The same can be said of Cypus and Turkey, and to a lesser extent, Kazakhstan. 2001:8003:9100:2C01:F0F5:3D10:42B7:F29D (talk) 14:16, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Turkish peninsula west of Istanbul considered Europe?

Europe orthographic Caucasus Urals boundary (with borders): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary_(with_borders).svg

Just asking, thanks. Teastain (talk) 19:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is considered Europe (as is also clear from the opening lines of the Turkey article.) Arnoutf (talk) 20:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, East Thrace is a part of Europe, but it is a geographical region, not a peninsula. 203.46.37.2 (talk) 07:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

EUROPE IS NOT A CONTINENT!

there is no geological evidence to support the statement of Europe being a continent. 197.229.7.18 (talk) 13:27, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You will get further if you lower your voice. I suggest delete and start again. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 13:29, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree shouting is not helping. And in any case you should make an argument that geology is decisive. For that you may want to look at the continent article which explains that it is not that continent are not solely defined by geology but also by convention (ie agreement). And in any case what geography would you use? Continued landmass, which would render Eurasia-Africa a single continent (and Great Britain possibly not part of it) as would it combine the Americas into one continent, or would you refer to tectonic plate, which would make India arguably a continent distinct from Eurasia. Arnoutf (talk) 21:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since Europe is called the Eurasian peninsula

there is a conventional boundary between this peninsula and the mainland somewhere, especially since some sources indicate the area. Looking at the map, I intuitively feel that it is a line from the White Sea to the Sea of Azov. Could this be true? Mir.Nalezinski (talk) 20:40, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It could be true, depends how someone defines peninsulas and how that definition would apply. CMD (talk) 23:21, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The more eastern Ural mountains range (basically between the Aral sea and the Kara sea) is generally considered the border between Europe and Asia. But indeed the issue remains what constitutes a peninsula - whould that be any narrowing of landmasses? Taken such argument in absurdis you could argue that the sea of Bengal to the Laptev sea makes for the isthmus splitting the "East Asia peninsual" from the rest of the continent. Arnoutf (talk) 07:44, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The area of the peninsula (here the European one) will probably be obtained by assuming the shortest arc on the globe with the maximum possible area (here on the eastern side). The area of the European Peninsula is of course smaller than the area of Europe. Has anyone calculated the area of the European Peninsula discussed here? Mir.Nalezinski (talk) 08:12, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But, for example, the Somali Peninsula is 750,000 km² (the sixth largest peninsula in the world in terms of area) and looking at the map you may have trouble determining the conventional border of this peninsula... Mir.Nalezinski (talk) 08:18, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Still remains the question whether Europe should be called a peninsula. At some stage the isthmus connecting it to a mainland is going to be to wide or the land mass to large to still talk about peninsula. The mere fact that peninsula are surrounded by water on three sides (compared to islands on all sides) is not very helpful as all sea sides (except in the case of perfect circular islands) could be argued to be peninsulas, just like all landmasses (including the entire Eurasia/Africa landmass) could be labelled an island (as it is surrounded by water on all sides). The only reliable source I found was a national geographic (archived source https://web.archive.org/web/20121005064158/http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/peninsula/?ar_a=1) which post a call out the Europe is sometimes (i.e. not always) called peninsula. Arnoutf (talk) 12:25, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]