1991 Original AIR FRANCE Airlines TRAVEL POSTER French EUROPE Spain VENICE Italy

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Seller: Top-Rated Seller judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,805) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 285493926231 1991 Original AIR FRANCE Airlines TRAVEL POSTER French EUROPE Spain VENICE Italy. DESCRIPTION :  Up for auction is an ORIGINAL vintage ADVERTISING TRAVEL POSTER which was DESIGNED and PUBLISHED by the French airlines "AIR FRANCE" to be displayed in Israeli TRAVEL AGENCIES - It is printed on a thick stiff LAMINATED BOARD  . This POSTER if for EUROPE - "EUROPE" and it consists on five colorful photos ( All 5 photographers are fully credited ) - VENICE , SPAIN ( LA MANCHA ) , ITALY , PORTUGAL and MORE . The poster was PUBLISHED by AIR FRANCE by printer "PENNEL" and/or "FRAZIER" in Paris France , Very likely in 1991 ( 12.91 is mentioned ).  Size around 32" x 24" . Very good condition .  Suitable for immediate display .  ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) .  Poster will be sent  in a special protective rigid sealed packaging. PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal  & All credit cards. SHIPPMENT : Shipp worldwide via registered airmail is $ 29 .  ( Due to the exceptional size of the poster ) .Will be sent inside a protective packaging . Will be sent around 5-10 days after payment .  Air France (French pronunciation: ​[ɛːʁ fʁɑ̃s]; formally Société Air France, S.A.), stylized as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance. As of 2013 Air France serves 36 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 168 destinations in 78 countries (93 including overseas departments and territories of France) and also carried 46,803,000 passengers in 2015. The airline's global hub is at Charles de Gaulle Airport with Orly Airport as the primary domestic hub. Air France's corporate headquarters, previously in Montparnasse, Paris,[4] are located on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.[5] Air France was formed on 7 October 1933 from a merger of Air Orient, Air Union, Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne (CIDNA), and Société Générale de Transport Aérien (SGTA). During the Cold War, from 1950 until 1990, it was one of the three main Allied scheduled airlines operating in Germany at West Berlin's Tempelhof and Tegel airports. In 1990, it acquired the operations of French domestic carrier Air Inter and international rival UTA – Union de Transports Aériens. It served as France's primary national flag carrier for seven decades prior to its 2003 merger with KLM. Between April 2001 and March 2002, the airline carried 43.3 million passengers and had a total revenue of €12.53bn. In November 2004, Air France ranked as the largest European airline with 25.5% total market share, and was the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenue. Air France operates a mixed fleet of Airbus and Boeing widebody jets on long-haul routes, and uses Airbus A320 family aircraft on short-haul routes. Air France introduced the A380 on 20 November 2009 with service to New York City's JFK Airport from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. The carrier's regional airline subsidiary, HOP!, operates the majority of its regional domestic and European scheduled services with a fleet of regional jetaircraft.[6] Contents 1 History 1.1 Formation and early years 1.2 Jet age re-organisation 1.3 Concorde service and rivalry 1.4 Acquisitions and privatisation 1.5 Air France-KLM merger 1.6 Open Skies venture 1.7 2010s 2 Corporate affairs and identity 2.1 Head office 2.2 Foreign offices 2.3 Crew base 2.4 Vaccination centre 2.5 Aérogare des Invalides 2.6 Subsidiaries and franchises 2.7 Air France Asie and Air France Cargo Asie 2.8 Outsourcing 2.9 Livery 2.10 Marketing 2.11 Uniforms 2.12 Branding 3 Destinations 3.1 Hub information 3.2 Codeshare agreements 4 Fleet 4.1 Current fleet 4.1.1 Orders 4.1.2 Airbus A380 4.1.3 Widebody fleet 4.1.4 Narrowbody fleet 4.2 Fleet history 4.2.1 Concorde 4.2.2 Boeing 747 5 Cabin 5.1 La Première 5.2 Business 5.3 Premium Economy 5.4 Economy 6 Services 6.1 In-flight catering 6.2 In-flight entertainment 6.3 Le Salon 6.4 Flying Blue 7 In popular culture 7.1 Anniversary jet 8 Incidents and accidents 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links History[edit] Formation and early years[edit] The inauguration of the Aérogare des Invalides on 21 August 1951 Air France was formed on 7 October 1933, from a merger of Air Orient, Air Union, Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne (CIDNA) and Société Générale des Transports Aériens (SGTA). Of these airlines, SGTA was the first commercial airline company in France, having been founded as Lignes Aériennes Farman in 1919. The constituent members of Air France had already built extensive networks across Europe, to French colonies in North Africa and farther afield. During World War II, Air France moved its operations to Casablanca (Morocco). In 1936, Air France added French-built twin engine Potez 62 aircraft to its fleet featuring a two compartment cabin that could accommodate 14 to 16 passengers. A high wing monoplane, it had a wooden fuselage with composite coating while the wings were fabric covered with a metal leading edge. Equipped with Hispano-Suiza V-engines, they were used on routes in Europe, South America and the Far East. Although cruising at only 175 miles per hour, the Potez 62 was a robust and reliable workhorse for Air France and remained in service until the Second World War with one used by the Free French Air Force.[7] 1936 Air France ad for service using Potez 62 twin-engine aircraft. Air France Douglas DC-3 at Manchester Airport in 1952 On 26 June 1945 all of France's air transport companies were nationalised.[8] On 29 December 1945, a decree of the French Government granted Air France the management of the entire French air transport network.[9] Air France appointed its first flight attendants in 1946. The same year the airline opened its first air terminal at Les Invalides in central Paris. It was linked to Paris Le Bourget Airport, Air France's first operations and engineering base, by coach. At that time the network covered 160,000 km, claimed to be the longest in the world.[10] Société Nationale Air France was set up on 1 January 1946. European schedules were initially operated by a fleet of Douglas DC-3 aircraft. On 1 July 1946, Air France started direct flights between Paris and New York via refuelling stops at Shannon and Gander. Douglas DC-4 piston-engine airliners covered the route in just under 20 hours.[10] In September 1947 Air France's network stretched east from New York, Fort de France and Buenos Aires to Shanghai. Lockheed Super Constellation of Air France at London (Heathrow) Airport in April 1955 By 1948 Air France operated 130 aircraft, one of the largest fleets in the world.[10] Between 1947 and 1965 the airline operated Lockheed Constellations on passenger and cargo services worldwide.[11] In 1946 and 1948, respectively, the French government authorised the creation of two private airlines: Transports Aériens Internationaux – later Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux – (TAI) and SATI. In 1949 the latter became part of Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT), a private French international airline.[10][12] Compagnie Nationale Air France was created by act of parliament on 16 June 1948. Initially, the government held 70%. In subsequent years the French state's direct and indirect shareholdings reached almost 100%. In mid-2002 the state held 54%.[10][13] On 4 August 1948 Max Hymans was appointed the president. During his 13-year tenure he would implement modernisation practices centred on the introduction of jet aircraft. In 1949 the company became a co-founder of Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA), an airline telecommunications services company.[10] Jet age re-organisation[edit] Passengers disembarking from a Sud-Est SE-161 In 1952 Air France moved its operations and engineering base to the new Paris Orly Airport South terminal. By then the network covered 250,000 km.[10] Air France entered the jet age in 1953 with the original, short-lived de Havilland Comet series 1, the world's first jetliner. During the mid-1950s it also operated the Vickers Viscount turboprop, with twelve entering services between May 1953 and August 1954 on the European routes. On 26 September1953z the government instructed Air France to share long-distance routes with new private airlines. This was followed by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport's imposition of an accord on Air France, Aigle Azur, TAI and UAT, under which some routes to Africa, Asia and the Pacific region were transferred to private carriers.[10] On 23 February 1960, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport transferred Air France's domestic monopoly to Air Inter. To compensate for the loss of its domestic network Air France was given a stake in Air Inter. The following day Air France was instructed to share African routes with Air Afrique and UAT.[10][13] The airline started uninterrupted jet operations in 1960 with the Sud Aviation Caravelle and the Boeing 707;[10] jet airliners cut travel times in half and improved comfort.[10] Air France later became an early Boeing 747 operator and eventually had one of the world's largest 747 fleets. Air France Caravelle jetliner in 1977 On 1 February 1963 the government formalised division of routes between Air France and its private sector rivals. Air France was to withdraw services to West Africa (except Senegal), Central Africa (except Burundi and Rwanda), Southern Africa (including South Africa), Libya in North Africa, Bahrain and Oman in the Middle East, Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) in South Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand as well as New Caledonia and Tahiti. These routes were allocated to the new Union de Transports Aériens (UTA), a new private airline resulting from the merger of TAI and UAT. UTA also got exclusive rights between Japan, New Caledonia and New Zealand, South Africa and Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, as well as Los Angeles and Tahiti.[10][13][14] From 1974, Air France began shifting the bulk of operations to the new Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris. By the early 1980s, only Corsica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, most services to French Guiana, Réunion, the Maghreb region, Eastern Europe (except the USSR), Southern Europe (except Greece and Italy), and one daily service to New York (JFK) remained at Orly. In 1974, Air France also became the world's first operator of the Airbus A300twin-engine widebody plane, Airbus Industrie's first commercial airliner for which it was a launch customer.[15] Concorde service and rivalry[edit] Air France Concorde at CDG Airport in 2003 On 21 January 1976, Air France operated its inaugural supersonic transport (SST) service on the Paris (Charles de Gaulle) to Rio (via Dakar) route with Anglo-French BAC-Aérospatiale Concorde F-BVFA. Supersonic services from Paris (CDG) to Washington Dulles International Airport began on 24 May 1976, also with F-BVFA. Service to New York (JFK) – the only remaining Concorde service until its end – commenced on 22 November 1977. Paris to New York was flown in 3 hours 23 minutes, at about twice the speed of sound. Approval for flights to the United States was initially withheld due to noise protests. Eventually, services to Mexico City via Washington, D.C. were started. Air France became one of only two airlines – British Airways being the other – to regularly operate supersonic services, and continued daily transatlantic Concorde service until late May 2003.[16] By 1983, Air France's golden jubilee, the workforce numbered more than 34,000, its fleet about 100 jet aircraft (including 33 Boeing 747s) and its 634,400 km network served 150 destinations in 73 countries. This made Air France the fourth-largest scheduled passenger airline in the world, as well as the second-largest scheduled freight carrier.[10] Air France also codeshared with regional French airlines, TATbeing the most prominent. TAT would later operate several regional international routes on behalf of Air France.[17] In 1983 Air France began passenger flights to South Korea, being the first European airline to do so.[18] In 1986 the government relaxed its policy of dividing traffic rights for scheduled services between Air France, Air Inter and UTA, without route overlaps between them. The decision opened some of Air France's most lucrative routes on which it had enjoyed a government-sanctioned monopoly since 1963 and which were within its exclusive sphere of influence, to rival airlines, notably UTA. The changes enabled UTA to launch scheduled services to new destinations within Air France's sphere, in competition with that airline.[19][20][21] Air France operated 33 Boeing 747s by 1983. Here, a 747-100 is seen at CDG Airport in 1978. Paris-San Francisco became the first route UTA served in competition with Air France non-stop from Paris. Air France responded by extending some non-stop Paris-Los Angeles services to Papeete, Tahiti, which competed with UTA on Los Angeles-Papeete. UTA's ability to secure traffic rights outside its traditional sphere in competition with Air France was the result of a campaign to lobby the government to enable it to grow faster, becoming more dynamic and more profitable. This infuriated Air France.[22] In 1987 Air France together with Lufthansa, Iberia and SAS founded Amadeus, an IT company (also known as a GDS) that would enable travel agencies to sell the founders and other airlines' products from a single system.[23] In 1988, Air France was a launch customer for the fly-by-wire (FBW) A320 narrowbody twin, along with Air Inter and British Caledonian. It became the first airline to take delivery of the A320 in March 1988, and along with Air Inter became the first airlines to introduce Airbus A320 service on short-haul routes.[24] Acquisitions and privatisation[edit] Dassault Mercure of Air Inter which became part of Air France in 1990 On 12 January 1990, the operations of government-owned Air France, semi-public Air Inter and wholly private Union de Transports Aériens (UTA) were merged into an enlarged Air France.[10] Air France's acquisition of UTA and Air Inter was part of an early 1990s government plan to create a unified, national air carrier with the economies of scale and global reach to counter potential threats from the liberalisation of the EU's internal air transport market.[25] On 25 July 1994, a new holding company, Groupe Air France, was set up by decree. Groupe Air France became operational on 1 September 1994. It acquired the Air France group's majority shareholdings in Air France and Air Inter (subsequently renamed Air Inter Europe). On 31 August 1994, Stephen Wolf, a former United Airlines CEO, was apthe pointed adviser to the Air France group's chairman Christian Blanc. Wolf was credited with the introduction of Air France's hub and spoke operation at Paris Charles de Gaulle. (Wolf resigned in 1996 to take over as CEO at US Airways.)[26][27] In 1997, Air France Europe was absorbed into Air France. On 19 February 1999, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's Plural Left government approved Air France's partial privatisation. Its shares were listed on the Paris stock exchange on 22 February 1999. In June 1999, Air France and Delta Air Lines formed a bilateral transatlantic partnership. On 22 June 2000, this expanded into the SkyTeam global airline alliance.[28][10] Air France-KLM merger[edit] The merger of Air France and KLM occurred in 2004 On 30 September 2003, Air France and Netherlands-based KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced the merger of the two airlines, the new company to be known as Air France-KLM. The merger became reality on 5 May 2004. At that point former Air France shareholders owned 81% of the new firm (44% owned by the French state, 37% by private shareholders), former KLM shareholders the rest. The decision of the Jean-Pierre Raffarin government to reduce the French state's shareholding in the former Air France group from 54.4% to 44% of the newly created Air France-KLM Group effectively privatised the new airline. In December 2004 the state sold 18.4% of its equity in Air France-KLM. The state's shareholding in Air France-KLM subsequently fell to just under 20%.[28] Air France-KLM became the largest airline in the world in terms of operating revenues, and third-largest (largest in Europe) in passenger kilometres.[28] Although owned by a single company, Air France and KLM continued to fly under their own brand names. Air France-KLM remained part of the SkyTeam alliance, which then included Aeroflot, Delta Air Lines, Aeroméxico, Korean Air, Czech Airlines, Alitalia, Northwest Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Air Europa, Continental Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Vietnam Airlines and Saudi Arabian Airlines. As of March 2004, Air France employed 71,654 people.[29] As of March 2007, the airline employed 102,422 personnel.[28] Open Skies venture[edit] On 17 October 2007, the creation of a profit and revenue-sharing transatlantic joint venture between Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines was announced during a press conference at Air France-KLM's headquarters. The venture became effective on 29 March 2008. It aimed to exploit transatlantic opportunities to capture a major share of long-haul business traffic from London Heathrow Airport, which opened to unrestricted competition on that day as a result of the "Open Skies" pact between the EU and US. It was envisaged that Air France and Delta would begin nine daily round trips between London-Heathrow and destinations in the USA, including a daily London (Heathrow) to Los Angeles service by Air France. Once the new Air France-Delta venture received antitrust immunity, it was to be extended to the other two transatlantic SkyTeam partners, enabling all four partners to codeshare flights as well as to share revenue and profit.[30][31] The new transatlantic joint venture marks the Air France-KLM Group's second major expansion in the London market, following the launch of CityJet-operated short-haul services from London City Airport that have been aimed at business travellers in the City's financial services industry.[30] However, the daily London (Heathrow) to Los Angeles service was not as successful as hoped, and was discontinued in November 2008.[32] 2010s[edit] On 12 January 2012, Air France-KLM announced their three-year transformation plan, called Transform 2015, to restore profitability. This plan works by restoring competitiveness through cost-cutting, restructuring the short- and medium-haul operations and rapidly reducing debt. The main objective of this plan was to turn Air France-KLM back into a world player by 2015. Air France had been losing 700 million euros a year. As the financial results of 2011 demonstrated, the long-haul operations, also subject to increasing competition, would not be able to offset these losses. On 22 February 2012, Air France released their plan for summer schedule. Because of the uncertain economic environment, Air France-KLM set a limit of 1.4% maximum increase in capacity from 25 March 2012 – 28 October 2012.[33][34][35] On 21 June 2012, Air France-KLM had announced its decision to cut just under 10% of the total 53,000 workforce (about 5,000 jobs) by the end of 2013 in an attempt to restore profitability. The airline expected to lose 1,700 jobs through natural turnover and the rest by voluntary redundancies.[36] As of August 2012, the Transform 2015 plan was accepted by ground staff and pilot unions but rejected by cabin crew unions.[37] At the beginning of July 2012, it was announced that Air France-KLM found partners for the new African start-up airline Air Cemac, which was co-founded by six countries in Central Africa to replace the former Air Afrique. But several problems and two partners, who decided to back out, delayed the implementation of the project. Following its launch, Air Cemac announced it would commence operations in 2013.[38] In September 2013, Air France introduced a brand new Economy product along with an improved Premium Economy seat and service. It is expected that the new improvements would be fitted on aircraft from June 2014 onwards.[39] In October 2013, Air France-KLM announced they were writing off the 25% stake in Alitalia, as it was hesitant the struggling carrier would obtain the 300 million euros in financing. The group has denied Alitalia of additional funds as it is currently struggling to restructure itself to profitability with the Transform 2015 plan.[40] In December 2013, Air France announced that Cityjet no longer meets the short haul needs of the group and is in the process of closing a deal with German firm Intro Aviation by the end of Q1 of 2014.[41] In 2014, the airline was targeted by a negative publicity campaign, spearheaded by PETA, for being the only major airline that permits the transport of primates for research.[42][43][44][45] On 4 February 2014, the new business product was unveiled, featuring a fully flat bed from Zodiac Aerospace. The seat will be fitted on Boeing 777 aircraft from June 2014 onwards.[46] In September 2014, Air France announced it would sell a 3 percent stake in travel technology company Amadeus IT Group for $438 million.[47] Late in 2015, Air France faced a financial crisis, which was exacerbated by a pilot's strike against the airline. The airline answered the strike by announcing it would cut some 2,900 jobs.[48] In December 2015, Air France announced to retire their last Boeing 747-400 with a special scenic flight on 14 January 2016. The airline operated the 747 in several variants since 1970.[49] In January 2017, Air France received its first Boeing 787-9. In November 2017, CityJet no longer operated on Air France flights and the affected destinations were served by Air France and HOP! from then on.[50] In July 2017, Air France-KLM entered into a multi-airline strategic partnership with Delta Air Lines, China Eastern Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways, solidifying the existing ties between the carriers. Under the agreement Delta and China Eastern are each buying 10% of Air France-KLM while Air France-KLM will buy 31% of Virgin Atlantic.[51] Air France announced to seize their services in Iran from September 2018, explaining the concern that the route to Iran is not commercially viable anymore due to the redefined US sanctions.[52] Corporate affairs and identity[edit] Head office[edit] Head office of Air France in Roissypôle, Charles de Gaulle Airport, Tremblay-en-France Air France's head office is located in the Roissypôle complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport and in the commune of Tremblay-en-France, Seine-Saint-Denis, near the city of Paris.[53][54][55][56][57] Wil S. Hylton of The New York Times described the facility as "a huge white box that squats near the runways at Charles de Gaulle Airport."[58] The 130,000 square metres (1,400,000 sq ft) complex was completed in December 1995. The French firm Groupement d'Etudes et de Méthodes d'Ordonnancement (GEMO) managed the project. The architect was Valode & Pistre and the design consultants were Sechaud-Boyssut and Trouvin. The project cost 137,000,000 euros[55] (less than 700 million francs[59]). The runways of the airport are visible from the building.[60] The Air France Operations Control Centre (OCC, French: Centre de Contrôle des Opérations, CCO), which coordinates Air France flights worldwide, is situated at the AF head office.[61][62] Former head office, Square Max Hymans For about 30 years prior to December 1995, Air France's headquarters were located in a tower adjacent to the Gare Montparnasse rail station in the Montparnasse area and the 15th arrondissement of Paris.[63] By 1991 two bids for the purchase of the Square Max Hymans building had been made.[64] By 1992 the complex was sold to Mutuelle générale de l'Éducation nationale (fr) (MGEN) for 1.6 billion francs.[65] By that year Air France had planned to move its head office to Roissypôle,[66] taking 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft) of space inside the hotel, office, and shopping complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport.[67] After Air France moved to Tremblay-en-France, the ownership of the former head office complex was transferred.[68] On a previous occasion the head office was at 2 rue marbeuf in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.[69] Foreign offices[edit] Air France's United States offices are in the 125 West 55th Street building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.[70] Air France first signed a lease to occupy the building in 1991.[71] The site also formerly housed the New York City city ticket office for Air France. Air France-KLM's head office for the United Kingdom and Ireland operations, which includes facilities for Air France and KLM, is located in Plesman House in Hatton Cross. The facility's inauguration was on 6 July 2006. Air France moved the office from Hounslow to Hatton.[72] Crew base[edit] Air France Cité PN, located at Charles de Gaulle Airport, acts as the airline's crew base. The building, developed by Valode & Pistre, opened in February 2006. The first phase consisted of 33,400 square metres (360,000 sq ft) of space and 4,300 parking spaces. The building is connected to the Air France head office.[73] Vaccination centre[edit] Air France operates the Air France Vaccinations Centre in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.[74][75] The centre distributes vaccines for international travel. Since 2001 the centre was the only French vaccination centre certified International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001.[76] In 2005 the centre moved from the Aérogare des Invalides to its current location.[77] Aérogare des Invalides, 7th arrondissement, Paris Aérogare des Invalides[edit] The Aérogare des Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris houses the Agence Air France Invalides and the Air France Museum.[78][79] Until 2005 the building hosted the Air France Vaccinations Centre.[77] On 28 August 1959 Air France opened a ticket and information agency in the former air terminal in Invalides, targeting transit passengers and customers from offices and companies in the Invalides area.[80] Subsidiaries and franchises[edit] Air France regional jet operated by Brit Air, now HOP! The subsidiaries of Air France include:[81] Air France Consulting Quali-audit[82] BlueLink HOP! Joon Servair Société de construction et de réparation de matériel aéronautique (CRMA) Sodexi Air France and Dutch affiliate Transavia formed Transavia France, a low-cost joint venture in May 2007, based at Orly Airport.[83] Air Corsica, CityJet and HOP! all operate flights on behalf of Air France, either as subsidiaries or as franchisees. Air France Asie and Air France Cargo Asie[edit] Air France Cargo Asie Boeing 747-200F Owing to the disputed status of Taiwan, Air France could not operate flights to the island under its own name. In 1993, its subsidiary, Air Charter, began operating flights between Paris and Taipei via Hong Kong,[84] but after Air Charter ceased operations in 1998, a subsidiary called Air France Asie was established.[85] The airline was one of a number of airline subsidiaries flying under the "Asia" name with the purpose of flying to Taiwan, which included Japan Asia Airways (a Japan Airlines subsidiary), KLM Asia, British Asia Airways, Swissair Asia, and Australia Asia Airlines (a Qantas subsidiary). The livery of Air France Asie differed from that of Air France by having blue and white stripes on the tailfin, rather than blue, white and red ones, representing the French Tricolour. Air France Asie used two Airbus A340-200 aircraft, F-GLZD and F-GLZE, and two Boeing 747-428Ms, F-GISA and F-GISC. Similarly, Air France Cargo Asie used a 747-200 Combi (for passengers and freight), F-GCBH) or the all-cargo (F-GCBL, F-GPAN and F-GBOX). Air France Asie ceased operations in 2004 while Air France Cargo Asie ceased operations in 2007. Outsourcing[edit] In 2010 Air France migrated from an internally managed Passenger service system (Alpha3) that manages reservation, inventory and pricing to an external system (Altéa) managed by Amadeus. In rail ventures, Air France and Veolia are looking into jointly operating high-speed rail services in Europe. Routes have become available to operators in accordance with European rail liberalisation on 1 January 2010.[86] Livery[edit] Boeing 777-200ER with Air France's Eurowhite 1970s–2008 livery Air France Boeing 777-300ER in the new livery landing at Montreal-Trudeau. Air France's present livery is a "Eurowhite" scheme, comprising a white fuselage with the blue Air France title and design. The tail is white with a series of parallel red and blue lines across the it at an angle, and a small European flag at the top. This livery has been in use since the late 1970s. Prior to the "Eurowhite" livery, Air France aircraft had a bare-metal underside, extending up to a blue cheat-line that ran across the cabin windows. Above the cheat-line the fuselage was again white, with Air France titles and a French flag. The tail was white with two thick blue lines, which tapered from the rear of the tail and met at point towards the front bottom. This basic livery, with minor variations, would appear on all post-war Air France aircraft until the late 1970s. On January 2009, to coincide with Air France's new logo, a new livery was unveiled.[87] Air France rolled out their new livery on 11 February 2009. The 2009 livery saw the tail slightly changed; there are now 3 blue bars running down instead of 4 previously. The bars also now curve at the bottom, reflecting the design of the logo. Marketing[edit] The new official song played before and after Air France flights (during boarding and after landing) is 'The World Can Be Yours' by Telepopmusik. Air France has used different popular music groups for its marketing and on-board ambience, ranging from The Chemical Brothers in 1999 to Telepopmusik in 2010.[88] Air France launched a new ad campaign in 2015 designed by BETC and directed by We Are From LA, focusing on French culture. Along with the ad campaign and print ads, Air France also introduced a similarly themed safety video. The music is a customised version of Glass Candy's song Warm in the Winter.[89] Uniforms[edit] Air France uniforms denote the ranks for the flight attendants. Two silver sleeve stripes denote a Chief Purser. One silver sleeve stripe denote a Purser. Flight attendants do not have any sleeve stripes. The female cabin crew uniforms feature the stripes on the breast pocket rather than the sleeve for their male counterparts. Air France's current uniforms were created by French fashion designer Christian Lacroix.[90] Branding[edit] Upon its formation, Air France adopted the seahorse logo of its predecessor Air Orient, known as the hippocampe ailé (sometimes derisively called "la crevette" – or shrimp – by its employees), as its insignia.[91][92] Prior to the Air France-KLM merger, the hippocampe ailé was used on the nose section of aircraft next to the Groupe Air France title; after the merger, the Air France-KLM logo was substituted at the nose area, and the hippocampe ailé was relocated to engine nacelles. The acronym "AF" has also featured prominently on the airline's flag and its signage. On 7 January 2009, Air France officially changed its logo to a red stripe. Destinations[edit] This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Air France destinations as of 2017   Metropolitan France   Destinations   Seasonal   Future   Terminated An Air France Boeing 777-300ERspecially painted in SkyTeam livery to commemorate the airline's membership Main article: List of Air France destinations Air France is a full service global airline. As of 2011, it flies to 36 domestic destinations and 168 international destinations in 93 countries (including Overseas departments and territories of France) across 6 continents. This includes Air France Cargo services and destinations served by franchisees Air Corsica, CityJet and HOP!. Most of Air France's international flights operate from Paris-Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. Air France also has a strong presence at Paris-Orly, Lyon-Saint-Exupéry, Marseilles Provence, Toulouse Blagnac, Nice Côte d'Azur and Bordeaux-Merignac airports. Hub information[edit] Charles de Gaulle Airport: Air France's intercontinental and biggest hub, with 335 daily departures. It is also a hub for Air France's subsidiary HOP!. Orly Airport: Air France's second biggest hub serving 40 destinations around the world, it is also a hub for Air France's subsidiary HOP!. Long-haul flights are mainly operated to destinations in French overseas departments. Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport: Air France's third biggest hub serving 37 destinations in France and Europe, also a hub for Air France's subsidiary HOP!. Marseille Provence Airport: This is Air France's newest hub as part of its offensive in the French regions. It serves 30 destinations in France, Europe and Africa. Nice Côte d'Azur Airport: Air France flies to four destinations from Nice. Toulouse-Blagnac Airport: Air France flies to 14 destinations from Toulouse. Codeshare agreements[edit] Air France codeshares with the following airlines:[93] Adria Airways Aeroflot Aerolíneas Argentinas Aeroméxico Air Antilles Air Astana Air Austral Air Burkina Air Corsica Air Europa Air Malta Air Mauritius Air Serbia Air Seychelles Air Tahiti Nui airBaltic Aircalin Alitalia AtlasGlobal Austrian Airlines Azerbaijan Airlines Bangkok Airways Belavia Bulgaria Air China Eastern Airlines China Southern Airlines CityJet Comair Croatia Airlines Czech Airlines Delta Air Lines Etihad Airways Finnair Flybe Garuda Indonesia Gol Transportes Aéreos HOP! Japan Airlines Jet Airways Kenya Airways KLM Korean Air LATAM Brasil Luxair Middle East Airlines MNG Airlines Montenegro Airlines Qantas [94] Saudia Singapore Airlines[95][96] Swiss International Air Lines TAAG Angola Airlines TAROM Ukraine International Airlines Vietnam Airlines WestJet Winair Fleet[edit] Current fleet[edit] Airbus A318 Airbus A319 Airbus A320 Airbus A321 Airbus A330-200 Airbus A340-300 Airbus A380 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner As of September 2018, the Air France fleet consists of the following aircraft:[97] Air France Passenger Fleet Aircraft In Service Orders Passengers Notes F J W Y Total Airbus A318-100 18 — — — — 131 131 Largest operator Airbus A319-100 35 — — — — 142 142 143 143 Airbus A320-200 36 — — 14 — 144 168 F-GKXS and F-HEPI in SkyTeam livery — 174 174 178 178 Airbus A321-100 5 — — — — 212 212 Former Air Inter fleet Airbus A321-200 11 — — — — 200 200 F-GTAE in SkyTeam livery 212 212 Airbus A330-200 15 — — 40 21 147 208 F-GZCP crashed as Air France Flight 447 Airbus A340-300 6 — — 30 21 224 275 All to be retired by 2020 To be replaced by Boeing 787-9. Airbus A350-900 — 11[98] — 34 24 266 324[99] Entering service in 2019[100] Airbus A380-800 10 — 9 80 38 389 516 To be refurbished with renewed cabins starting in 2020. Boeing 777-200ER 25 — — 40 24 216 280 28 260 312 Boeing 777-300ER 43 — 4 58 28 206 296 Launch customers F-GZNE, F-GZNN and F-GZNT in SkyTeam livery. — 42 24 315 381 14 32 422 468 Boeing 787-9 6 11 — 30 21 225 276 Deliveries through 2024 Air France Cargo Fleet Boeing 777F 2 — Cargo Launch customer Total 212 22 Orders[edit] On 16 September 2011, Air France-KLM announced their order of 50 Airbus A350 and Boeing 787s with 60 options to operate 43 Airbus A350-900 and 30 Boeing 787-9 through 2024 : Air France will receive its first A350 in 2018 and later, both airlines will operate both types of aircraft.[101] The first Boeing 787-9 entered into service with KLM in 2015 and will also enter service with Air France in early 2017.[102] Airbus A380[edit] Air France signed as a launch customer for the Airbus A380-800 "superjumbo" in 2001.[103] Air France had ordered 12 Airbus A380-800 aircraft, with options on a further two. Air France was the first airline in Europe to be operating the A380 with Lufthansa following in June 2010. The first A380 was delivered on 30 October 2009, and the Paris to New York route was used as the first route. All of Air France's Airbus A380s depart from their international hub at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Terminal 2E (Main Terminal, Satellites 3 and 4). Air France will keep its 10 Airbus A380 and plans to renew their cabins from 2020 onwards, with densification up to 70 seats.[104] Widebody fleet[edit] Boeing 777-200ER Air France-KLM has a commitment for 37 Boeing 787s, 25 directly and 12 through AerCap: 16 for Air France and 21 for KLM. Air France plans to take delivery of five 787-9s in 2017 and two in 2018 to replace some A340-300s, subsequent A340s would be replaced by A350s from 2019, Air France-KLM has 28 A350s on firm order.[104] Narrowbody fleet[edit] Air France has to decide in 2018 how its narrowbody fleet should be replaced: it operates 117 A320 family aircraft including 41 A320s and 18 A318s. KLM operates a younger fleet of Boeing 737NGs that doesn't need replacement soon.[104] Fleet history[edit] Before its current fleet, Air France has operated the following aircraft types:[105] Air France historical fleet Aircraft Introduced Retired Notes/Refs Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde 1976 2003 F-BTSC was crashed as Air France Flight 4590 Airbus A300B2-100 1974 1986 Airbus A300B4-200 1976 1998 Airbus A310-200 1984 2002 Airbus A310-300 1989 2002 Airbus A320-100 1988 2008 F-GFKC was crashed as Air France Flight 296 Airbus A340-200 1993 1999 Amiot AAC.1 Toucan (Junkers Ju 52/3m) 1945 1953 Boeing 707-320B 1960 1982 [106] Boeing 707-320C 1960 1984 [106] Boeing 707-320 Intercontinental 1959 1979 [106] Boeing 727-200 1968 1993[107] Boeing 737-200 1982 2002 Boeing 737-300 1991 2004 Boeing 737-500 1990 2007 Boeing 747-100 1970 2008 Boeing 747-200B 1977 2005 Boeing 747-200F 1974 2003 Boeing 747-200M 1977 2005 Boeing 747-200M/SUD 1992 2007 Acquired from Union des Transports Aériens Converted from two 747-200M aircraft. Boeing 747-300 1991 2007 Boeing 747-300M 1991 2007 Boeing 747-400 1991 2016 Replaced by Airbus A380 Four aircraft were converted into freighters One aircraft sold to Air Atlanta Icelandic. Boeing 747-400BCF 2009 2011 Converted from 747-400 passenger aircraft. Boeing 747-400ERF 2002 2015 Replaced by Boeing 777F. Boeing 747-400M 1992 2012 Boeing 767-200ER 1991 1992 Boeing 767-300ER 1991 2003 Breguet Deux-Ponts 1952 1971 [108] de Havilland Comet 1953 1954 [109] Douglas DC-3 1946 1962 [110] Douglas DC-4 1946 1971 [111] Douglas DC-6 1949 1968 [112] Fokker F27 1967 1997 [113] Fokker 100 1997 1999 Junkers Ju 52/3m 1945 1953 Latécoère 631 1947 Unknown Lockheed L-049 Constellation 1946 1950 Lockheed L-749 Constellation 1947 1961 [114] Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation 1953 1968 [115] Lockheed L-1649A Starliner 1957 1963 [116] Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 1989 1991 McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 1992 1995 SNCASE Languedoc 1945 1952 [117] Sud-Ouest Bretagne Unknown Unknown Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle 1959 1981 [118] Transall C-160 1973 1978 Vickers Viscount 700 1953 1968 [119] Air France also briefly operated Convair 990 and Douglas DC-8-61 jet aircraft.[120] Concorde[edit] Aerial view of Air France Concorde F-BVFA at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia The five Air France Concordes were retired on 31 May 2003, as a result of insufficient demand following the 25 July 2000 crash of AF Concorde F-BTSC, at Gonesse (near Charles de Gaulle Airport), as well as higher fuel and maintenance costs. British Airways flew its last Concorde service on 24 October 2003. Concorde F-BVFA was transferred to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport. F-BVFB was given to the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum in Germany, F-BTSD to the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, while F-BVFC returned to its place of manufacture in Toulouse, at the Airbus factory. F-BVFF is the only example to remain at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Boeing 747[edit] Air France Boeing 747-400 The airline started operating the 747 on 3 June 1970, when a 747-100 was put into service that was delivered 20 March that year.[121] It would go on to operate the -200, -300 and -400 variants. On 11 and 14 January 2016, Air France finally retired its last Boeing 747-400. They were replaced by A380s and 777-300ERs. Freighter versions were replaced by Boeing 777Fs.[122][123] Cabin[edit] La Première seats on a Boeing 777 Air France offers a mix of three and four cabin configurations for international long haul routes, featuring La Première (select aircraft), Business, Premium Economy and Economy. Personal screens with audio video on demand is available in all cabins on all long-haul aircraft. European short-haul and medium-haul flights feature a three cabin configuration with Business, Premium Economy, and Economy. La Première[edit] La Première, Air France's long-haul first class product, is available on the Airbus A380-800 and selected Boeing 777-300ERaircraft.[124] The Première cabin features wood and leather seats which recline 180°, forming two-metre long beds. Each seat features a 10.4" touchscreen personal screen with interactive gaming and audio video on demand, a privacy divider, automassage feature, reading light, storage drawer, noise-cancelling headphones, personal telephone, and laptop power ports. Each passenger is also provided with a personalised coat service, pure merino wool blanket, a "boudoir-style" cushion, and a travel kit featuring Biologique Recherche facial and body care products to moisturize and refresh the skin. Turndown serviceincludes a mattress, a duvet, hypoallergenic feather pillow, sleepwear, a dust bag for shoes, and a pair of slippers[125] À la carte on-demand meal services feature entrées created by Chef Guy Martin. Private lounge access is offered worldwide featuring a chauffeured car to the aircraft. La Première is not available on the Airbus A330-200, Airbus A340-300, Boeing 777-200ER and selected Boeing 777-300ER aircraft where Business is the highest cabin class. Four-class 777-200ER and 777-300ER configurations are equipped with four and eight La Première seats respectively, while the Airbus A380 feature 9 La Première seats. Business[edit] Business, Air France's long-haul business class product, is available on all long haul aircraft. Business features angled lie-flat seats which recline to two metres in length. Each seat includes a 10.4" touchscreen TV monitor with interactive gaming and AVOD, reading light, personal telephone, and laptop power ports. Meal service features three-course meals and a cheese service, or an express menu served shortly after takeoff. Air France has released a brand new business class product, the seat is a Zodiac Aerospace Cirrus and is designed by Mark Collins of Design Investment, specialized in the world of high-end transportation and by the design and branding agency, Brandimage. The new seat would be installed on the Boeing 777 aircraft from June 2014 until summer 2016, all other aircraft types would then be retrofitted. A total of 2,102 seats would be installed. The new cabin features a 1-2-1 layout as opposed to the 2-3-2 layout found currently on the 777. The new 16-inch (41 cm) screen offers a unique onboard navigation experience similar to a tablet. With a completely redesigned user interface and available in 12 languages (French, English,Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian and Arabic), choosing an entertainment program from over 1,000 hours of entertainment. The seat converts into a fully flat bed with 180 degrees recline, it features a touchscreen remote control, USB port, universal electrical outlet, new noise cancelling headphones, privacy screen, an Air France signature padded headboard, ample storage space, adjustable headrest, and a duvet with XXL feather down pillow.[126] Premium Economy[edit] Premium Economy, is Air France's premium economy product for long haul flights, which became available on the Boeing 777-200ER, 777-300ER, Airbus A340-300 and Airbus A330-200 in late 2009 and early 2010, and on the A380-800 in late 2010 and early 2011. It is a dedicated cabin section with a 2-4-2 (2-3-2 on the long haul Airbus fleet and 3-3-3 for Alize on the 777-300 serving Indian Ocean and Caribbean routes) configuration with 38″ pitch (36″ for long haul Alize seats), 123° reclining fixed shell seats, including an adjustable headrest, a 10.4″ touchscreen, personal reading lamp, universal power ports, and an adjustable leg rest (40% more space, compared to Voyageur seats; the seats are 20% wider and offer 20% more legroom). There are 38 seats on the Airbus A380, 32 on the Boeing 777-300ER, 24 on the Boeing 777-200 and 21 on the Airbus A340-300 & A330-200 (between the Business and Economy cabin; behind Business on the A380 upper deck).[127] Passengers receive double baggage allowance, priority airport services, lounge access (for a fee), and extra frequent flier mileage. On board, business class amenities include Sennheiser noise-cancelling headphones, an amenity kit (featuring socks, eye mask, toothbrush & toothpaste, and earplugs), improved blankets, and an enhanced meal service with second hot meal, candies, and ice-cream all served with real glass and metal cutlery.[128] A new improved Premium Economy seat using the same shell will be introduced from June 2014 on the Boeing 777 aircraft, featuring better cushioning and improved foot rest, adding comfort to the passenger.[39] Economy[edit] Economy cabin on an Airbus A380 Economy, Air France's economy class long haul product, features seats that recline up to 118°. The current long-haul Economy seat, which debuted on the Boeing 777-300ER, includes winged headrests, a personal telephone, and a touchscreen TV monitor with AVOD Interactive Entertainment System which have been installed on all of Air France's long haul fleet. On long haul flights, a menu is presented with a choice of two meals. Short and medium haul Economy services are operated by Airbus A320 family aircraft with different seating arrangements. Air France is one of the few airlines who features winged headrests on short to medium haul aircraft in both classes. On short haul flights a snack is served, while on medium haul flights a three course cold meal is served. Free alcoholic beverages are available on all flights, including champagne.[129][130] On most aircraft, Air France offers extra legroom seats in economy called Seat Plus. These seats are located in the economy class exit rows and other rows depending on the plane, as well as the economy seats on the 747's upper deck, offering at least 4" more seat pitch(36" versus the usual 32" in standard economy seats), the 747's Seat Plus section also provides an extra half-inch of seat width. Seat Plus prices vary by flight time, but it is free to elites and passengers with a full fare economy ticket. Air France has introduced a brand new economy long haul product which features a new slimline seat providing up to an inch more legroom, wider table, universal electrical sockets, retractable armrests, winged leather headrests, more storage space, high definition 10-inch screens featuring the latest in flight entertainment with a USB port, a headphones holder, and newly designed pillows featuring different patterns of the Air France logo. The seats would be installed along with the new La Première, Business, and Premium Economy seats from June 2014 till summer 2016 on the Boeing 777 aircraft, the core of the fleet. All other aircraft will be retrofitted except the Airbus A340-300 and Boeing 747-400 as they would be leaving the fleet soon.[131] Services[edit] In-flight catering[edit] Gourmet appetizer and seasonal salad in Business For La Première, Air France's first class menu is designed by Guy Martin, chef of Le Grand Vefour, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Paris.[132] Menu items include hors d'oeuvres, entrées, bread basket, and cheeses, along with a dessert cart including pastries, petit fours, and tartlets.[133] On long-haul flights, Air France also serves complimentary champagne to passengers in all classes.[134] In-flight entertainment[edit] Air France offers Audio Video on Demand (AVOD) in all cabins on all long haul aircraft. The in flight entertainment system features multiple channels of video, audio, music, and games. Air France Magazine, the airline's in-flight publication, is included at each seat, and Air France Madame, a fashion luxury magazine with a feminine perspective, is included in La Première and Business cabins and lounges.[135] On all flights, all films may be watched in English, Spanish, and French. Selected films on all flights are also available in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, and Korean. The airline offers Berlitz International language courses via the in-flight entertainment system.[136] On 29 May 2013, KLM and Air France launched a pilot to test inflight Wi-Fi. Both airlines have equipped one Boeing 777-300ER of each of their fleets with Wi-Fi. Using the inflight Wi-Fi, passengers can stay online using their Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, laptops, or tablets. Wireless service will commence once the flight has reached 20,000 feet.[137] Le Salon[edit] Air France Le Salon La Première Air France lounges are known as Le Salon, and are open to La Première, Business, and Premium Economy passengers, as well as Flying Blue Gold, Flying Blue Platinum, SkyTeam Elite and Elite Plus members. Worldwide, there are 530 Air France and Skyteam lounges in 300 international airports on every continent except Antarctica.[138] Flying Blue[edit] Main article: Flying Blue Flying Blue, the frequent flyer program of Air France-KLM, awards members points based on miles travelled and class of service. Membership into the program is free. The program is divided into standard (Ivory), Elite (Silver) and Elite Plus (Gold and Platinum) statuses. Ivory is the basic level which is attained upon entry into the program. Elite status is attained by accruing a certain number of miles within one calendar year. Elite Silver, Elite Plus Gold, and Elite Plus Platinum cards have added benefits. An invitation-only card called Club 2000 is attributed to some VIPs, celebrities and politicians.[139] Officially, it provides the same benefits as Platinum status but numerous sources confirm it almost guarantees upgrade to Business or La Première.[140] Flying Blue succeeded Air France's previous frequent flyer program, Fréquence Plus, which operated until the Air France-KLM merger in 2003.[141] In popular culture[edit] Air France is the official airline of the Cannes Film Festival.[142] Air France "flight 273" is the plane that "Chat Noir" in "Magic Kaito 1412" episode 18: Golden Eye (Part 2): Kid vs Chat Noir Showdown, uses to escape.[143] Anniversary jet[edit] On 14 November 2008, Air France released the first picture[144] of an Airbus A320 with registration F-GFKJ that has been repainted in the full 1946 paint scheme[145]to celebrate the airline's 75 years anniversary. This heritage aircraft was planned to fly under the special colours until early 2010.[146] The aircraft was officially withdrawn from use and scrapped at Phoenix Goodyear Airport in September 2013 *****  Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia and is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the waterways of the Turkish Straits.[9] Although some of this border is over land, Europe is generally accorded the status of a full continent because of its great physical size and the weight of history and tradition. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi), or 2% of the Earth's surface (6.8% of land area), making it the sixth largest continent. Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states, of which Russia is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of about 741 million (about 11% of the world population) as of 2018.[2][3] The European climate is largely affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent, even at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast. Europe, in particular ancient Greece and ancient Rome, was the birthplace of Western civilisation.[10][11][12] The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the subsequent Migration Period marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art and science led to the modern era. Since the Age of Discovery, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers colonized at various times the Americas, almost all of Africa and Oceania and the majority of Asia. The Age of Enlightenment, the subsequent 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. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural and social change in Western Europe and eventually the wider world. Both world wars took place for the most part in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence.[13] During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union (EU), a separate political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation.[14] The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the euro, is the most commonly used among Europeans; and the EU's Schengen Area abolishes border and immigration controls between most of its member states. Contents 1 Name 2 Definition 2.1 Contemporary definition 2.2 History of the concept 3 History 3.1 Prehistory 3.2 Classical antiquity 3.3 Early Middle Ages 3.4 High and Late Middle Ages 3.5 Early modern period 3.6 18th and 19th centuries 3.7 20th century to the present 4 Geography 4.1 Climate 4.2 Geology 4.3 Flora 4.4 Fauna 5 Politics 6 List of states and territories 7 Economy 7.1 Economic history 8 Demographics 8.1 Ethnic groups 8.2 Migration 8.3 Languages 8.4 Major cities 9 Culture 9.1 Religion 9.2 Sport 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 Sources 14 External links Name Further information: Europa (mythology) Statue representing Europa at Palazzo Ferreria, in Valletta, Malta First Map of the world according to Anaximander (6th century BC) In classical Greek mythology, Europa (Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē) was a Phoenician princess. One view is that her name derives from the ancient Greek elements εὐρύς (eurús), "wide, broad" and ὤψ (ōps, gen. ὠπός, ōpós) "eye, face, countenance", hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean "wide-gazing" or "broad of aspect".[15][16][17] Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it.[15] An alternative view is that of R.S.P. Beekes who has argued in favor of a Pre-Indo-European origin for the name, explains that a derivation from ancient Greek eurus would yield a different toponym than Europa. Beekes has located toponyms related to that of Europa in the territory of ancient Greece and localities like that of Europos in ancient Macedonia.[18] There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for "west", this being either Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (said of the sun) or Phoenician 'ereb "evening, west",[19] which is at the origin of Arabic Maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Michael A. Barry finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night, [the country of] sunset", in opposition to Asu "[the country of] sunrise", i.e. Asia. The same naming motive according to "cartographic convention" appears in Greek Ἀνατολή (Anatolḗ "[sun] rise", "east", hence Anatolia).[20] Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor",[21] while Beekes considers a connection to Semitic languages improbable.[18] Next to these hypotheses there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning "darkness", which also produced Greek Erebus.[citation needed] Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲/欧洲), which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲) (zhōu means "continent"); a similar Chinese-derived term Ōshū (欧州) is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, Ōshū Rengō (欧州連合), despite the katakana Yōroppa (ヨーロッパ) being more commonly used. In some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan ("land of the Franks") is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa.[22] Definition Further information: List of transcontinental countries and Boundaries between the continents of Earth Contemporary definition Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries[23] Key: blue: states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia; green: countries not geographically in Europe, but closely associated with the continent Alb. Andorra Austria Azer. Belarus Belg. Bosnia Bulgaria Channel Is.(UK) Croatia Czech Rep. Denmark Estonia Finland France Gib. (UK) Germany Georgia Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy IoM (UK) S. Mar. Kazakhstan Kos. Latvia Liech. Lithuania Lux. Malta Moldova Mon. Mont. Nether. N. Mac. Norway Svalbard (Nor) Poland Portugal Romania Russia Serbia Slovakia Slo. Spain Sweden Switz- erland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Far. (Dk) Vat. Armenia Cyprus Greenland (Dk) Adr- iatic Sea Arctic Ocean Baltic Sea Aegean Sea Barents Sea Bay of Biscay Black Sea Caspian Sea Celtic Sea Greenland Sea Baffin Bay Gulf of Cádiz Ligurian Sea Mediterranean Sea North Atlantic Ocean North Sea Norwegian Sea Strait of Gibraltar The prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century. Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the east and northeast are usually taken to be the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.[24] A medieval T and O map printed by Günther Zainer in 1472, showing the three continents as domains of the sons of Noah — Asia to Sem (Shem), Europe to Iafeth (Japheth), and Africa to Cham (Ham) Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus is closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is considered part of Europe politically and it is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of Northwest Africa for centuries, but now it is considered to be part of Europe as well.[25] "Europe" as used specifically in British English may also refer to Continental Europe exclusively.[26] The term "continent" usually implies the physical geography of a large land mass completely or almost completely surrounded by water at its borders. However the Europe-Asia part of the border is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent with this definition because of its partial adherence to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains rather than a series of partly joined waterways suggested by cartographer Herman Moll in 1715. These water divides extend with a few relatively small interruptions (compared to the aforementioned mountain ranges) from the Turkish straits running into the Mediterranean Sea to the upper part of the Ob River that drains into the Arctic Ocean. Prior to the adoption of the current convention that includes mountain divides, the border between Europe and Asia had been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity, but always as a series of rivers, seas, and straits that were believed to extend an unknown distance east and north from the Mediterranean Sea without the inclusion of any mountain ranges. The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border between Europe and Asia does not follow any state boundaries and now only follows a few bodies of water. Turkey is generally considered a transcontinental country divided entirely by water, while Russia and Kazakhstan are only partly divided by waterways. France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom are also transcontinental (or more properly, intercontinental, when oceans or large seas are involved) in that their main land areas are in Europe while pockets of their territories are located on other continents separated from Europe by large bodies of water. Spain, for example, has territories south of the Mediterranean Sea namely Ceuta and Melilla which are parts of Africa and share a border with Morocco. According to the current convention, Georgia and Azerbaijan are transcontinental countries where waterways have been completely replaced by mountains as the divide between continents. History of the concept Early history Depiction of Europa regina ('Queen Europe') in 1582. The first recorded usage of Eurṓpē as a geographic term is in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni River on the territory of Georgia) in the Caucasus, a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC.[27] Herodotus mentioned that the world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile and the Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia.[28] Europe's eastern frontier was defined in the 1st century by geographer Strabo at the River Don.[29] The Book of Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from Northwest Africa, to the Don, separating it from Asia.[30] The convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of the Roman era used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius,[31] Strabo[32] and Ptolemy,[33] who took the Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary. The term "Europe" is first used for a cultural sphere in the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox churches and to the Islamic world. A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy.[34] The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: Europa often[dubious – discuss] figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin.[35] Modern definitions Further information: Regions of Europe and Continental Europe A New Map of Europe According to the Newest Observations (1721) by Hermann Moll draws the eastern boundary of Europe along the Don River flowing southwest, and the Tobol, Irtysh, and Ob Rivers flowing north 1916 political map of Europe showing most of Moll's waterways replaced by von Strahlenberg's Ural Mountains and Freshfield's Caucasus Crest, land features of a type that normally defines a subcontinent The question of defining a precise eastern boundary of Europe arises in the Early Modern period, as the eastern extension of Muscovy began to include North Asia. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, the traditional division of the landmass of Eurasia into two continents, Europe and Asia, followed Ptolemy, with the boundary following the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea, the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and the Don (ancient Tanais). But maps produced during the 16th to 18th centuries tended to differ in how to continue the boundary beyond the Don bend at Kalach-na-Donu (where it is closest to the Volga, now joined with it by the Volga–Don Canal), into territory not described in any detail by the ancient geographers. Around 1715, Herman Moll produced a map showing the northern part of the Ob River and the Irtysh River, a major tributary of the former, as components of a series of partly-joined waterways taking the boundary between Europe and Asia from the Turkish Straits and the Don River all the way to the Arctic Ocean. In 1721, he produced a more up to date map that was easier to read. However, his idea to use major rivers almost exclusively as the line of demarcation was never taken up by the Russian Empire. Four years later, in 1725, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg was the first to depart from the classical Don boundary by proposing that mountain ranges could be included as boundaries between continents whenever there were deemed to be no suitable waterways, the Ob and Irtysh Rivers notwithstanding. He drew a new line along the Volga, following the Volga north until the Samara Bend, along Obshchy Syrt (the drainage divide between Volga and Ural) and then north along Ural Mountains.[36] This was adopted by the Russian Empire, and introduced the convention that would eventually become commonly accepted, but not without criticism by many modern analytical geographers like Halford Mackinder who saw little validity in the Ural Mountains as a boundary between continents.[37] The mapmakers continued to differ on the boundary between the lower Don and Samara well into the 19th century. The 1745 atlas published by the Russian Academy of Sciences has the boundary follow the Don beyond Kalach as far as Serafimovich before cutting north towards Arkhangelsk, while other 18th- to 19th-century mapmakers such as John Cary followed Strahlenberg's prescription. To the south, the Kuma–Manych Depression was identified circa 1773 by a German naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas, as a valley that once connected the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea,[38][39] and subsequently was proposed as a natural boundary between continents. By the mid-19th century, there were three main conventions, one following the Don, the Volga–Don Canal and the Volga, the other following the Kuma–Manych Depression to the Caspian and then the Ural River, and the third abandoning the Don altogether, following the Greater Caucasus watershed to the Caspian. The question was still treated as a "controversy" in geographical literature of the 1860s, with Douglas Freshfield advocating the Caucasus crest boundary as the "best possible", citing support from various "modern geographers".[40] In Russia and the Soviet Union, the boundary along the Kuma–Manych Depression was the most commonly used as early as 1906.[41] In 1958, the Soviet Geographical Society formally recommended that the boundary between the Europe and Asia be drawn in textbooks from Baydaratskaya Bay, on the Kara Sea, along the eastern foot of Ural Mountains, then following the Ural River until the Mugodzhar Hills, and then the Emba River; and Kuma–Manych Depression,[42] thus placing the Caucasus entirely in Asia and the Urals entirely in Europe.[43] However, most geographers in the Soviet Union favoured the boundary along the Caucasus crest[44] and this became the common convention in the later 20th century, although the Kuma–Manych boundary remained in use in some 20th-century maps. History Main article: History of Europe Prehistory Main article: Prehistoric Europe Paleolithic cave paintings from Lascaux in France (c 15,000 BC) Stonehenge in the United Kingdom (Late Neolithic from 3000–2000 BC). Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe.[45] Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain.[46] Neanderthal man (named after the Neandertal valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago (115,000 years ago it is found already in Poland[47]) and disappeared from the fossil record about 28,000 years ago, with their final refuge being present-day Portugal. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared in Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago.[48] The earliest sites in Europe dated 48,000 years ago are Riparo Mochi (Italy), Geissenklösterle (Germany), and Isturitz (France)[49][50] The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock, increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began around 7000 BC in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and the Near East.[51] It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean coast (Cardial culture). Between 4500 and 3000 BC, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artifacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs.[52] The Corded Ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this period giant megalithic monuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge, were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.[53][54] The European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BC in Greece with the Minoan civilisation on Crete, the first advanced civilisation in Europe.[55] The Minoans were followed by the Myceneans, who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC, ushering the European Iron Age.[56] Iron Age colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BC, the year the first Olympic Games.[57] Classical antiquity Main article: Classical antiquity See also: Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome The Parthenon in Athens (432 BC) Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and rationalist culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece.[58] The Greek city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece.[58] In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens.[59] The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer;[60] in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes.[61][62][63] In the course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history,[64] as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilisation. The conquests of Alexander the Great brought the Middle East into the Greek cultural sphere. Expanding from their base in central Italy beginning in the 3rd century BC, the Romans gradually expanded to eventually rule the entire Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe by the turn of the millennium Greece was followed by Rome, which left its mark on law, politics, language, engineering, architecture, government and many more key aspects in western civilisation.[58] Rome began as a small city-state, founded, according to tradition, in 753 BC as an elective kingdom. Tradition has it that there were seven kings of Rome with Romulus, the founder, being the first and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus falling to a republican uprising led by Lucius Junius Brutus, but modern scholars doubt many of those stories and even the Romans themselves acknowledged that the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 387 BC destroyed many sources on their early history. By 200 BC, Rome had conquered Italy, and over the following two centuries it conquered Greece and Hispania (Spain and Portugal), the North African coast, much of the Middle East, Gaul (France and Belgium), and Britannia (England and Wales). The forty-year conquest of Britannia left 250,000 Britons dead, and emperor Antoninus Pius built the Antonine Wall across Scotland's Central Belt to defend the province from the Caledonians; it marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire. The Roman Republic ended in 27 BC, when Augustus proclaimed the Roman Empire. The two centuries that followed are known as the pax romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.[65] The empire continued to expand under emperors such as Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, who spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes.[66][67] Christianity was legalised by Constantine I in 313 AD after three centuries of imperial persecution. Constantine also permanently moved the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour (modern-day Istanbul) in 330 AD. Christianity became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 AD, and in 391–392 AD, the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions.[68] This is sometimes considered to mark the end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD; the closure of the pagan Platonic Academy of Athens in 529 AD;[69] or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century AD. Early Middle Ages Main articles: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages See also: Dark Ages (historiography) and Age of Migrations Europe c. 650 Charlemagne's empire in 814:      Francia,      Tributaries During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and, later on, the Vikings, Pechenegs, Cumans and Magyars.[65] Germanic tribes settled in the former Roman provinces of England and Spain, while other groups pressed into northern France and Italy.[70] Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".[71] Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Western Europe though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire.[72] As the political boundaries of the Roman Empire collapsed in the west, Christianity spread beyond the old borders of the Empire and into lands that had never been under Rome. While the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and brought the Christian church under state control.[73] He reconquered North Africa, southern Spain, and Italy.[74] The Ostrogothic Kingdom, which sought to preserve Roman culture and adopt its values, later changed course and became anti-Constantinople, so Justinian waged war against the Ostrogoths for 30 years and destroyed much of urban life in Italy, and reduced agriculture to subsistence farming.[75] During this period, the Roman Catholic Church expanded into northern Europe and spread Catholicism among the Germanic peoples.[76] Catholic Christianity reached the Vikings and other Scandinavians in later centuries. From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were severely weakened due the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the Levant and North Africa and making inroads into Asia Minor. In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region.[77] Over the next centuries Muslim forces took Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily and parts of southern Italy.[78] Between 711 and 726, the Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Visigothic Kingdom, which occupied the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania (southwestern France). The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance. In the remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle Pyrenees the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms of Asturias, Leon and Galicia were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive the Moors out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focussed on their own internal power struggles. As a result, the Reconquista took the greater part of eight hundred years, in which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos and Bermudos would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders. Viking raids and division of the Frankish Empire at the Treaty of Verdun in 843 One of the biggest threats during the Dark Ages were the Vikings, Norse seafarers who raided, raped, and pillaged across the Western world. Many Vikings died in battles in continental Europe, and in 844 they lost many men and ships to King Ramiro in northern Spain.[79] A few months later, another fleet took Seville, only to be driven off with further heavy losses.[80] In 911, the Vikings attacked Paris, and the Franks decided to give the Viking king Rollo land along the English Channel coast in exchange for peace. This land was named "Normandy" for the Norse "Northmen", and the Norse settlers became known as "Normans", adopting the French culture and language and becoming French vassals. In 1066, the Normans went on to conquer England in the first successful cross-Channel invasion since Roman times.[81] During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe respectively.[82] Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I.[83] His conquests laid the foundation for the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.[84] East Central Europe saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption of Christianity (circa 1000 AD). The powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under Svatopluk I and causing a series of armed conflicts with East Francia. Further south, the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted Christianity: the First Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Principality (later Kingdom and Empire), and the Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of Croatia). To the East, the Kievan Rus expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the religion of state.[85][86] Further East, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later.[87] High and Late Middle Ages Main articles: High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, and Middle Ages See also: Medieval demography The maritime republics of medieval Italy reestablished contacts between Europe, Asia and Africa with extensive trade networks and colonies across the Mediterranean, and had an essential role in the Crusades.[88][89] The period between the year 1000 and 1300 is known as the High Middle Ages, during which the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in the Renaissance of the 12th century. Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes along the coast of the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. The growing wealth and independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in the European scene. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000.[90] The Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe.[91] A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament.[92] The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.[91] Tancred of Sicily and Philip II of France, during the Third Crusade (1189–1192) The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land.[93] In Europe itself, the Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. Popes also encouraged crusading in the Iberian Peninsula.[94] In the east, a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims and reconquered the Balkans. However, it faced a new enemy in the form of seaborne attacks by the Normans, who conquered Southern Italy and Sicily. Even more dangerous than the Franco-Norsemen was a new enemy from the steppe: the Seljuk Turks. The Empire was weakened following the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert and was weakened considerably by the Frankish-Venetian sack of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade.[95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103] Although it would recover Constantinople in 1261, Byzantium fell in 1453 when Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Empire.[104][105][106] The sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in 1238, during the Mongol invasion of Europe. In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east.[107] Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols.[108] The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries.[109][110] After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: Moldova and Walachia. Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans.[111] From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480 and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia. The state was consolidated under Ivan III the Great and Ivan the Terrible, steadily expanding to the east and south over the next centuries. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages.[112] The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by half.[113][114] Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,[115] and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period.[116] Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European population at the time.[117] The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, beggars, and lepers.[118] The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 18th century.[119] During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.[120] Early modern period Main article: Early modern period See also: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Age of Discovery The School of Athens by Raphael (1511): Contemporaries such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci (centre) are portrayed as classical scholars of the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often translated from Arabic into Latin.[121][122][123] The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging merchant class.[124][125][126] Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.[127][128] European lands ruled by Philip II of Spain around 1580. The Spanish Empire relied on armaments from Milan, Genoese and German bankers, Genoese (Andrea Doria), Portuguese (Magellan, Queirós, Torres) and Venetian sailors, German and Italian soldiers (e.g. Ambrosio Spinola), English (in America and Triangular trade) and Chinese (in the Philippines) merchants, and Native American allies (as in the conquest of Mexico).[129][130] Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had suffered greatly.[131] In the 15th century, Europe started to extend itself beyond its geographic frontiers. Spain and Portugal, the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world.[132][133] Exploration reached the Southern Hemisphere in the Atlantic and the Southern tip of Africa. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492, and Vasco da Gama opened the ocean route to the East linking the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in 1498. Ferdinand Magellan reached Asia westward across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans in the Spanish expedition of Magellan-Elcano, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the globe, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano (1519–22). Soon after, the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing large global empires in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania.[134] France, the Dutch Republic and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. The Italian Wars (1494–1559) led to the development of the first modern professional army in Europe, the Tercios. Their superiority became evident at the Battle of Bicocca (1522) against French-Swiss-Italian forces, which marked the end of massive pike assaults after thousands of Swiss pikemen fell to the Spanish arquebusiers without the latter suffering a single casualty.[135] Over the course of the 16th century, Spanish and Italian troops marched north to fight on Dutch and German battlefields, dying there in large numbers.[136][137] The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation in 1517 when German theologian Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses criticising the selling of indulgences to the church door. He was subsequently excommunicated in the papal bull Exsurge Domine in 1520, and his followers were condemned in the 1521 Diet of Worms, which divided German princes between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths.[138] By the mid-1560s, two discernible opposing blocs had taken shape: a southern European Catholic bloc led by Spain and a northern European bloc led by England. English Protestants viewed Spain and the Society of Jesus together as a growing force attempting to conquer England for Rome.[139] Religious fighting and warfare spread with Protestantism. War broke out first in Germany, where Imperial troops defeated the Protestant army of the Schmalkaldic League at the Battle of Mühlberg, putting an end to the Schmalkaldic War (1546–47).[140] Between 2 and 3 million people were killed in the French Wars of Religion (1562–98).[141] The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Catholic Habsburgs and Dutch Calvinists resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people.[141] In the Cologne War (1583–88), Catholic forces faced off against German Calvinist and Dutch troops. The Thirty Years War (1618–48) crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population.[142] During the Thirty Years' War, in which various Protestant forces battled Imperial armies, France provided subsidies to Habsburg enemies, especially Sweden. The destruction of the Swedish army by an Austro-Spanish force at the Battle of Nördlingen (1634) forced France to intervene militarily in the Thirty Years' War. In 1643, the French defeated one of Spain's best armies at the Battle of Rocroi. Spain was no longer able to launch major offensive operations in central Europe.[143] In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), France rose to predominance within Western Europe.[144] France fought a series of wars over domination of Western Europe, including the Franco-Spanish War, the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession; these wars cost France over 1,000,000 battle casualties.[145][146] The 17th century in central and eastern Europe was a period of general decline.[147] Central and Eastern Europe experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between 1501 and 1700.[148] From the Union of Krewo (1385) central and eastern Europe was dominated by Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Between 1648 and 1655 in the central and eastern Europe ended hegemony of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of the Golden Horde were conquered by Russia, Tatars from the Crimean Khanate frequently raided Eastern Slavic lands to capture slaves.[149] Further east, the Nogai Horde and Kazakh Khanate frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of Russia, Ukraine and Poland for hundreds of years, until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia). The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention, and scientific development.[150] Among the great figures of the Western scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.[151] According to Peter Barrett, "It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world."[121] 18th and 19th centuries Main article: Modern history See also: Industrial Revolution, French Revolution, and Age of Enlightenment The national boundaries within Europe set by the Congress of Vienna The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts.[152][153][154] Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror.[155] Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of western and central Europe before collapsing in 1814 with the Battle of Paris between the Sixth Coalition—consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia—and the French Empire.[156][157] Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of the nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French models of administration, law, and education.[158][159][160] The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers": the UK, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.[161] This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted.[162] The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation-state, from smaller principalities. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.[163] In parallel, the Eastern Question grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent, the Great Powers struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. The Russian Empire stood to benefit from the decline, whereas the Habsburg Empire and Britain perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be in their best interests. Meanwhile, the Serbian revolution (1804) and Greek War of Independence (1821) marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, which ended with the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913.[164] Formal recognition of the de facto independent principalities of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania ensued at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Many Ottoman Muslims faced either extermination at the hands of the newly independent states, or were expelled to the shrinking Ottoman possessions in Europe or to Anatolia; between 1821 and 1922 alone, more than 5 million Ottoman Muslims were driven away from their homes, while another 5.5 million died in wars or due to starvation and disease.[165] Marshall's Temple Works (1840), the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class.[166] Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions,[167] and the abolition of slavery.[168] In Britain, the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.[169] Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900.[170] The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the Irish Potato Famine, caused death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people.[171] In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States.[172] Demographic growth meant that, by 1900, Europe's share of the world's population was 25%.[173] 20th century to the present Main articles: Modern era and History of Europe See also: World War I, Great Depression, Interwar period, World War II, Cold War, and History of the European Union Map of European colonial empires throughout the world in 1914. France's annexation of Algeria cost the lives of 15,000 Frenchmen and 285,000 Algerians,[174] and by many estimates over 10 million Algerians were killed during the French rule.[175] During the Aceh War between the Sultanate of Aceh and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 60,000–70,000 Indonesians were killed. The Herero and Namaqua peoples of Namibia endured a brutal genocide waged by Germany which caused over 100,000 deaths, while the Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa killed 75,000–145,000 Africans. The Portuguese conquest of Mozambique resulted in over 100,000 deaths among Portugal's adversaries and the indigenous populations. The conquest of Ethiopia by Italy at two separate points in time decimated the population, killing 17,000 in 1896 and another 275,000 from the opposing forces in 1936.[176] Belgium killed more Africans in Congo than soldiers died during the entire First World War.[177] Britain's exploitation of India let in between 15 and 29 million Indians die from starvation.[178] Two world wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Yugoslav nationalist[179] Gavrilo Princip.[180] Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). Allies and Central Powers in the First World War, 4 August 1914   Allies   Allied colonies, dominions or occupied territory   Central Powers   Central Powers' colonies or occupied territory On 4 August 1914, Germany invaded and occupied Belgium. On 17 August 1914, the Russian army launched an assault on the eastern German province of East Prussia, but they would be dealt a fatal blow at the Battle of Tannenberg on 26-30 August 1914. As 1914 came to a close, the Germans were facing off against the French and British in northern France and in the Alsace and Lorraine regions of eastern France, and the opposing armies dug trenches and set up defensive positions. From 1915 to 1917, the two armies often engaged in trench warfare and massive offensives. The Battle of the Somme was the largest battle on the Western Front; the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000 and the Germans 500,000. The Battle of Verdun saw around 377,231 French and 337,000 Germans become casualties. At the Battle of Passchendaele, mustard gas was used by both sides as chemical weapons, and several troops on both sides died in battle. In 1915, the tide of the war was changed when the Kingdom of Italy decided to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente, seeking to acquire Austrian Tyrol and some possessions along the Adriatic Sea. This violated the "Triple Alliance" proposed in the 19th century, and Austria-Hungary was ill-prepared for yet another front to fight on. The Royal Italian Army launched several offensives along the Isonzo River, with eleven battles of the Isonzo being fought during the war. Over the course of the war, 462,391 Italian soldiers died; 420,000 of the dead were lost on the Alpine front with Austria-Hungary, the rest fell in France, Albania, or Macedonia.[181] Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) in November 1916 In 1917, German troops began to arrive in Italy to assist the crumbling Austro-Hungarian forces, and the Germans destroyed an Italian army at the Battle of Caporetto. This led to British and French (and later American) troops arriving in Italy to assist the Italian military against the Central forces, and the Allied troops succeeded in taking parts of northern Italy and on the Adriatic sea. In the Balkans, the Serbians resisted the Austrians until Bulgaria and the German Empire sent troops to assist in the conquest of Serbia in December 1915. The Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front, which had performed poorly, was soon subordinated to the Imperial German Army's high command, and the Germans destroyed a Russian army at the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in 1916. The Russians launched a massive counterattack against the Central Powers in Poland, and this "Brusilov Offensive" inflicted very high losses on the Austro-Hungarians; 1,325,000 Central Powers troops and 500,000 Russian troops were lost. However, the political situation in Russia deteriorated as people became more aware of the corruption in Czar Nicholas II of Russia's government, and the Germans made rapid progress in 1917 after the Russian Revolution toppled the czar. The Germans secured Riga in Latvia in September 1917, and they benefited from the fall of Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government to the Bolsheviks in October 1917. In February-March 1918, the Germans launched a massive offensive after the Russian SFSR came to power, taking advantage of the Russian Civil War to seize large amounts of territory. In March 1918, the Soviets signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending the war on the Eastern Front, and Germany set up various puppet nations in Eastern Europe. Germany's huge successes during the war with the Russians were morale boosts for the Central Powers, but the Germans faced a new problem when they began to use "unrestricted submarine warfare" to attack enemy ships at sea. These tactics led to the sinking of several civilian ships, angering the United States, which lost several civilians aboard these ships. Germany agreed to the "Sussex Pledge", stating that it would halt this strategy. However, the Germans sunk RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, and the British intercepted an offer from the German government made to Mexico that proposed an anti-American alliance. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany, and the USA joined the Allies. In 1918, the American troops took part in the Battle of Belleau Wood and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, major offensives that saw several American troops die on European soil for the first time. The Germans began to suffer as more and more Allied troops arrived, and they launched the desperate "Spring Offensive" of 1918. This offensive was repelled, and the Allies barreled towards Belgium in the Hundred Days Offensive during the autumn of 1918. On 11 November 1918, the Germans agreed to an armistice with the Allies, ending the war. The war left more than 16 million civilians and military dead.[182] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to 1918.[183] Map depicting the military alliances of World War I in 1914–1918 Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union.[184] Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.[185] Excess deaths in Russia over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million.[186] In 1932–1933, under Stalin's leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed to the second Soviet famine which caused millions of deaths;[187] surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Stalin was also responsible for the Great Purge of 1937–38 in which the NKVD executed 681,692 people;[188] millions of people were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[189] Serbian war efforts (1914–1918) cost the country one quarter of its population.[190][191][192][193][194] Nazi Germany began a devastating World War II in Europe by its leader, Adolf Hitler.[195] From left to right, the picture of Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim, Hitler and Risto Ryti, the 5th President of Finland, in 1942, when Hitler visited Finland on Mannerheim's 75th birthday.[196][197][198] The social revolutions sweeping through Russia also affected other European nations following The Great War: in 1919, with the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the First Austrian Republic; in 1922, with Mussolini's one party fascist government in the Kingdom of Italy, and in Atatürk's Turkish Republic, adopting the Western alphabet, and state secularism. Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and 'loans' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler in power of what became Nazi Germany.[199][200] In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans, and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic. At the time, Britain and France preferred a policy of appeasement. Nazi occupied Europe, September 1943 With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which allowed the Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War II.[195][201][202] The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark; 1,400 Nazi soldiers conquered Denmark in one day.[203] The Phoney War continued. In May 1940, Germany conquered the Netherlands and Belgium. That same month, Italy allied with Germany and the two countries conquered France. By August, Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up.[204] Some 43,000 British civilians were killed and 139,000 wounded in the Blitz; much of London was destroyed, with 1,400,245 buildings destroyed or damaged.[205] In April 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.[206] The Soviets and Germans fought an extremely brutal war in the east that cost millions of civilian and soldier lives. The Jews of Russia were wiped out by the German Nazis, who wanted to purge the world of Jews and other "subhumans". On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.[207][208] In 1943, the Allies knocked Italy out of the war. The Italian campaign had the highest casualty rates of the whole war for the western allies.[209] The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945; seated (from the left): Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin A Russian soldier raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag, during the Battle of Berlin (1945). After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank battle in history, was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. In 1944, the Soviets and Allies both launched offensives against the Axis in Europe, with the Western Allies liberating France and much of Western Europe as the Soviets liberated much of Eastern Europe before halting in central Poland. The final year of the war saw the Soviets and Western Allies divide Germany in two after meeting along the Elbe River, while the Soviets and allied partisans liberated the Balkans. The Soviets conquered the German capital of Berlin on 2 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Hitler killed himself; Mussolini was killed by partisans in Italy. The Soviet-German struggle made World War II the bloodiest and costliest conflict in history.[210][211] More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of World War II (70 percent on the eastern front),[212][213] including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust (the genocide against Jews and the massacre of intellectuals, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped people, Slavs, and Red Army prisoners-of-war).[214] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.[215] By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees.[216] Several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people,[217] in particular, German-speakers from all over Eastern Europe. In the aftermath of World War II, American troops were stationed in Western Europe, while Soviet troops occupied several Central and Eastern European states. The Schuman Declaration led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. It began the integration process of the European Union (9 May 1950, at the French Foreign Ministry). World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an "Iron Curtain". Germany was divided between the capitalist West Germany and the communist East Germany. The United States and Western Europe established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Central Europe established the Warsaw Pact.[218] Soviet naval bases and anchor rights abroad (1984) The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year-long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa.[13] During the Cold War, extra-continental military interventions were the preserve of the two superpowers, a few West European countries, and Cuba.[219] Using the small Caribbean nation of Cuba as a surrogate, the Soviets projected power to distant points of the globe, exploiting world trouble spots without directly involving their own troops.[220] Flag of Europe, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955 as the flag for the whole of Europe.[221] In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War. 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.[199] European integration also grew after World War II. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded, following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill, with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals. It includes all European states except for Belarus and Vatican City. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market.[222] In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency.[223] Between 2004 and 2013, more Central and Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to 28 European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.[224] However, the United Kingdom withdrew from the EU on 31 January 2020, as a result of a June 2016 referendum on EU membership.[225] Geography Main article: Geography of Europe Relief map of Europe and surrounding regions Europe makes up the western fifth of the Eurasian landmass.[24] It has a higher ratio of coast to landmass than any other continent or subcontinent.[226] Its maritime borders consist of the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south.[227] Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway. This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-regions like Iceland, Britain, and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off. Climate Main article: Climate of Europe Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for Europe.[228] Biomes of Europe and surrounding regions:      tundra      alpine tundra      taiga      montane forest      temperate broadleaf forest      mediterranean forest      temperate steppe      dry steppe Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies. The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream.[229] The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf Stream not only carries warm water to Europe's coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (61 °F), while it is only 12 °C (54 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (14 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.[229] Similarly, northern parts of Scotland have a temperate marine climate. The yearly average temperature in city of Inverness is 9.05 °C (48.29 °F). However, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, is on roughly the same latitude and has an average temperature of −6.5 °C (20.3 °F), giving it a nearly subarctic climate. In general, Europe is not just colder towards the north compared to the south, but it also gets colder from the west towards the east. The climate is more oceanic in the west, and less so in the east. This can be illustrated by the following table of average temperatures at locations roughly following the 60th, 55th, 50th, 45th and 40th latitudes. None of them is located at high altitude; most of them are close to the sea. (location, approximate latitude and longitude, coldest month average, hottest month average and annual average temperatures in degrees C) Temperatures in °C Location Latitude Longitude Coldest month Hottest month Annual average Lerwick 60 N 1 W 3.5 12.4 7.4 Stockholm 59.5 N 19 E −1.7 18.4 7.4 Helsinki 60 N 25 E −4.7 17.8 5.9 Saint Petersburg 60 N 30 E −5.8 18.8 5.8 Edinburgh 55.5 N 3 W 4.2 15.3 9.3 Copenhagen 55.5 N 12 E 1.4 18.1 9.1 Klaipeda 55.5 N 21 E −1.3 17.9 8.0 Moscow 55.5 N 30 E −6.5 19.2 5.8 Isles of Scilly 50 N 6 W 7.9 16.9 11.8 Brussels 50.5 N 4 E 3.3 18.4 10.5 Krakow 50 N 20 E −2.0 19.2 8.7 Kiev 50.5 N 30 E −3.5 20.5 8.4 Bordeaux 45 N 0 6.6 21.4 13.8 Venice 45.5 N 12 E 3.3 23.0 13.0 Belgrade 45 N 20 E 1.4 23.0 12.5 Astrakhan 46 N 48 E −3.7 25.6 10.5 Coimbra 40 N 8 W 9.9 21.9 16.0 Valencia 39.5 N 0 11.9 26.1 18.4 Naples 40.5 N 14 E 8.7 24.7 15.6 Istanbul 41 N 29 E 6.0 23.8 11.4 [230] It is notable how the average temperatures for the coldest month, as well as the annual average temperatures, drop from the west to the east. For instance, Edinburgh is warmer than Belgrade during the coldest month of the year, although Belgrade is around 10° of latitude farther south. Geology Main articles: Geology of Europe and Geological history of Europe Mount Elbrus in Russia is the highest mountain in Europe.[231][232] The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion years ago, followed by the Volgo–Uralia shield, the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1.1 billion years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around 190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around 50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe, and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe's present shape dates to the late Tertiary period about five million years ago.[233] Europa Point as seen from the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates the continents of Europe and Africa, also being between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary.[234] Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea complex and Barents Sea. The northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded geologically as the "main continent", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older geology of western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia. Flora Having lived side by side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks. Land use map of Europe with arable farmland (yellow), forest (dark green), pasture (light green), and tundra or bogs in the north (dark yellow) The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east–west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south–north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards the sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems. Floristic regions of Europe and neighbouring areas, according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch Probably 80 to 90 percent of Europe was once covered by forest.[235] It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Although over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the broadleaf and mixed forests, taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area is Iceland (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%).[236] In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east–west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north. Fauna Main article: Fauna of Europe Biogeographic regions of Europe and bordering regions Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Spain, etc.). Once roaming the great temperate forests of Eurasia, European bison now live in nature preserves in Białowieża Forest, on the border between Poland and Belarus.[237][238] European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey). Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others. A number of insects, such as the small tortoiseshell butterfly, add to the biodiversity.[239] The extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on the islands of the Mediterranean.[240] Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales. Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention, which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states. Politics Main article: Politics of Europe See also: List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe, International organisations in Europe, Regions of Europe, and European integration A clickable Euler diagram showing the relationships between various multinational European organisations and agreements. vte The political map of Europe is substantially derived from the re-organisation of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The prevalent form of government in Europe is parliamentary democracy, in most cases in the form of Republic; in 1815, the prevalent form of government was still the Monarchy. Europe's remaining eleven monarchies[241] are constitutional. European integration is the process of political, legal, economic (and in some cases social and cultural) integration of European states as it has been pursued by the powers sponsoring the Council of Europe since the end of World War II The European Union has been the focus of economic integration on the continent since its foundation in 1993. More recently, the Eurasian Economic Union has been established as a counterpart comprising former Soviet states. 27 European states are members of the politico-economic European Union, 26 of the border-free Schengen Area and 19 of the monetary union Eurozone. Among the smaller European organisations are the Nordic Council, the Benelux, the Baltic Assembly and the Visegrád Group. List of states and territories Main articles: List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe and Area and population of European countries The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographically or politically. Flag[242] Arms Name Area (km2) Population Population density (per km2) Capital Name(s) in official language(s) Albania 28,748 2,876,591 98.5 Tirana Shqipëria Andorra 468 77,281 179.8 Andorra la Vella Andorra Armenia [j] 29,743 2,924,816 101.5 Yerevan Հայաստան (Hayastan) Austria 83,858 8,823,054 104 Vienna Österreich Azerbaijan [k] 86,600 9,911,646 113 Baku Azǝrbaycan Belarus 207,560 9,504,700 45.8 Minsk Беларусь (Belaruś) Belgium 30,528 11,358,357 372.06 Brussels België/Belgique/Belgien Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,129 3,531,159 68.97 Sarajevo Bosna i Hercegovina/Боснa и Херцеговина Bulgaria 110,910 7,101,859 64.9 Sofia България (Bǎlgariya) Croatia 56,542 4,284,889 75.8 Zagreb Hrvatska Cyprus [d] 9,251 1,170,125 123.4 Nicosia Kýpros/Kıbrıs Czech Republic 78,866 10,610,947 134 Prague Česko Denmark 43,094 5,748,796 133.9 Copenhagen Danmark Estonia 45,226 1,319,133 28 Tallinn Eesti Finland 336,593 5,509,717 16 Helsinki Suomi/Finland France [g] 547,030 67,348,000 116 Paris France Georgia [l] 69,700 3,718,200 53.5 Tbilisi საქართველო (Sakartvelo) Germany 357,168 82,800,000 232 Berlin Deutschland Greece 131,957 10,768,477 82 Athens Ελλάδα (Elláda) Hungary 93,030 9,797,561 105.3 Budapest Magyarország Iceland 103,000 350,710 3.2 Reykjavík Ísland Ireland 70,280 4,761,865 67.7 Dublin Éire/Ireland Italy 301,338 60,589,445 201.3 Rome Italia Kazakhstan [i] 2,724,900 17,987,736 6.49 Nur-Sultan Қазақстан (Qazaqstan) Latvia 64,589 1,925,800 34.3 Riga Latvija Liechtenstein 160 38,111 227 Vaduz Liechtenstein Lithuania 65,300 2,800,667 45.8 Vilnius Lietuva Luxembourg 2,586 602,005 233.7 Luxembourg Lëtzebuerg/Luxemburg/Luxembourg Malta 316 445,426 1,410 Valletta Malta Moldova [a] 33,846 4,434,547 131.0 Chișinău Moldova Monaco 2.020 38,400 18,713 Monaco Monaco Montenegro 13,812 642,550 45.0 Podgorica Crna Gora/Црна Гора Netherlands [h] 41,543 17,271,990 414.9 Amsterdam Nederland North Macedonia 25,713 2,103,721 80.1 Skopje Северна Македонија (Severna Makedonija) Norway 385,203 5,295,619 15.8 Oslo Norge/Noreg/Norga Poland 312,685 38,422,346 123.5 Warsaw Polska Portugal [e] 92,212 10,379,537 115 Lisbon Portugal Romania 238,397 19,638,000 84.4 Bucharest România Russia [b] 17,098,246 144,526,636 8.4 Moscow Россия (Rossiya) San Marino 61.2 33,285 520 San Marino San Marino Serbia [f] 88,361 7,040,272 91.1 Belgrade Srbija/Србија Slovakia 49,035 5,435,343 111.0 Bratislava Slovensko Slovenia 20,273 2,066,880 101.8 Ljubljana Slovenija Spain 505,990 46,698,151 92 Madrid España Sweden 450,295 10,151,588 22.5 Stockholm Sverige Switzerland 41,285 8,401,120 202 Bern Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra Turkey [m] 783,356 80,810,525 105 Ankara Türkiye Ukraine 603,628 42,418,235 73.8 Kiev Україна (Ukraina) United Kingdom 244,820 66,040,229 270.7 London United Kingdom Vatican City 0.44 1,000 2,272 Vatican City Città del Vaticano/Civitas Vaticana Total 50 10,180,000[n] 743,000,000[n] 73 Within the above-mentioned states are several de facto independent countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN: Flag Symbol Name Area (km²) Population Population density (per km²) Capital Abkhazia [p] 8,660 243,206 28 Sukhumi Artsakh [q] 11,458 150,932 12 Stepanakert Kosovo [o] 10,908 1,920,079 159 Pristina Northern Cyprus [d] 3,355 313,626 93 Nicosia South Ossetia [p] 3,900 53,532 13.7 Tskhinvali Transnistria [a] 4,163 475,665 114 Tiraspol Several dependencies and similar territories with broad autonomy are also found within or in close proximity to Europe. This includes Åland (a region of Finland), two constituent countries of the Kingdom of Denmark (other than Denmark itself), three Crown dependencies, and two British Overseas Territories. Svalbard is also included due to its unique status within Norway, although it is not autonomous. Not included are the three countries of the United Kingdom with devolved powers and the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, which despite having a unique degree of autonomy, are not largely self-governing in matters other than international affairs. Areas with little more than a unique tax status, such as Heligoland and the Canary Islands, are also not included for this reason. Flag Symbol Name Sovereign state Area (km²) Population Population density (per km²) Capital Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia UK 254 15,700 59.1 Episkopi Cantonment Åland Finland 13,517 29,489 18.36 Mariehamn Bailiwick of Guernsey [c] UK 78 65,849 844.0 St. Peter Port Bailiwick of Jersey [c] UK 118.2 100,080 819 Saint Helier Faroe Islands Denmark 1,399 50,778 35.2 Tórshavn Gibraltar UK 6.7 32,194 4,328 Gibraltar Greenland Denmark [r] 2,166,086 55,877 0.028 Nuuk Isle of Man [c] UK 572 83,314 148 Douglas Svalbard Norway 61,022 2,667 0.044 Longyearbyen Economy European and bordering nations by GDP (PPP) per capita Main articles: Economy of Europe, List of sovereign states in Europe by GDP (nominal), and List of sovereign states in Europe by GDP (PPP) As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth and it is the richest region as measured by assets under management with over $32.7 trillion compared to North America's $27.1 trillion in 2008.[243] In 2009 Europe remained the wealthiest region. Its $37.1 trillion in assets under management represented one-third of the world's wealth. It was one of several regions where wealth surpassed its precrisis year-end peak.[244] As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its countries. The richer states tend to be in the West; some of the Central and Eastern European economies are still emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia. The European Union, a political entity composed of 28 European states, comprises the largest single economic area in the world. 19 EU countries share the euro as a common currency. Five European countries rank in the top ten of the world's largest national economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (6), Russia (7), the United Kingdom (10), France (11), and Italy (13).[245] There is huge disparity between many European countries in terms of their income. The richest in terms of GDP per capita is Monaco with its US$172,676 per capita (2009) and the poorest is Moldova with its GDP per capita of US$1,631 (2010).[246] Monaco is the richest country in terms of GDP per capita in the world according to the World Bank report. As a whole, Europe's GDP per capita is US$21,767 according to a 2016 International Monetary Fund assessment.[247] Rank Country GDP (nominal, Peak Year) millions of USD Peak Year –  European Union 19,226,235 2008 1  Germany 3,982,235 2020 2  United Kingdom 3,085,300 2007 3  France 2,929,983 2008 4  Italy 2,400,232 2008 5  Russia 2,292,464 2013 6  Spain 1,641,514 2008 7  Netherlands 951,766 2008 8  Turkey 950,328 2013 9   Switzerland 749,424 2020 10  Poland 606,730 2020 Rank Country GDP (PPP, Peak Year) millions of USD Peak Year –  European Union 22,825,236 2019 1  Germany 4,443,569 2019 2  Russia 4,389,960 2019 3  United Kingdom 3,162,408 2019 4  France 3,061,815 2019 5  Italy 2,454,809 2019 6  Turkey 2,361,778 2019 7  Spain 1,923,646 2019 8  Poland 1,287,275 2019 9  Netherlands 1,005,337 2019 10  Belgium 572,902 2019 Economic history Industrial growth (1760–1945) Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism.[248] From Britain, it gradually spread throughout Europe.[249] The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom in the late 18th century,[250] and the 19th century saw Western Europe industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe's industries. Cold War (1945–1991) Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Eurozone (blue colour) After World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin,[251] and continued to suffer relative economic decline in the following decades.[252] Italy was also in a poor economic condition but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quickly and had doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s.[253] France also staged a remarkable comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle.[254] The majority of Central and Eastern European states came under the control of the Soviet Union and thus were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).[255] The states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United States under the Marshall Plan.[256] The western states moved to link their economies together, providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it overtaking the UK as Europe's largest economy. Reunification (1991–present) With the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1991, the post-socialist states began free market reforms. After East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany. By the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1999, 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden. The European Union is now the largest economy in the world.[257] Figures released by Eurostat in 2009 confirmed that the Eurozone had gone into recession in 2008.[258] It impacted much of the region.[259] In 2010, fears of a sovereign debt crisis[260] developed concerning some countries in Europe, especially Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.[261] As a result, measures were taken, especially for Greece, by the leading countries of the Eurozone.[262] The EU-27 unemployment rate was 10.3% in 2012.[263] For those aged 15–24 it was 22.4%.[263] Demographics Main article: Demographics of Europe Population growth in and around Europe in 2010[264] See also: List of European countries by population and Ageing of Europe In 2017, the population of Europe was estimated to be 742 million according to the 2019 revision of the World Population Prospects[2][3], which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world's population. This number includes Siberia, (about 38 million people) but excludes European Turkey (about 12 million). A century ago, Europe had nearly a quarter of the world's population.[265] The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly.[266] Among the continents, Europe has a relatively high population density, second only to Asia. Most of Europe is in a mode of Sub-replacement fertility, which means that each new(-born) generation is being less populous than the older. The most densely populated country in Europe (and in the world) is the microstate of Monaco. Ethnic groups Main article: Ethnic groups in Europe Further information: Genetic history of Europe Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities.[267] According to UN population projection, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high variants, respectively).[266] Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child-bearing age is 1.52.[268] According to some sources,[269] this rate is higher among Muslims in Europe. The UN predicts a steady population decline in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of emigration and low birth rates.[270] Map showing areas of European settlement (people who claim full European descent) Migration Main articles: Immigration to Europe and European diaspora Europe is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people, the IOM's report said.[271] In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe's total population growth.[272] In 2008, 696,000 persons were given citizenship of an EU27 member state, a decrease from 707,000 the previous year.[273] In 2017, approximately 825,000 persons acquired citizenship of an EU28 member state.[274] 2.4 million immigrants from non-EU countries entered the EU in 2017.[275] Early modern emigration from Europe began with Spanish and Portuguese settlers in the 16th century,[276][277] and French and English settlers in the 17th century.[278] But numbers remained relatively small until waves of mass emigration in the 19th century, when millions of poor families left Europe.[279] Today, large populations of European descent are found on every continent. European ancestry predominates in North America, and to a lesser degree in South America (particularly in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, while most of the other Latin American countries also have a considerable population of European origins). Australia and New Zealand have large European derived populations. 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. In Asia, European-derived populations, (specifically Russians), predominate in North Asia and some parts of Northern Kazakhstan.[280] Distribution of major languages of Europe Languages Main article: Languages of Europe Europe has about 225 indigenous languages,[281] mostly falling within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.[233] Slavic languages are mostly spoken in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Romance languages are spoken primarily in Western and Southern Europe as well as in Switzerland in Central Europe and Romania and Moldova in Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken in Western, Northern and Central Europe as well as in Gibraltar and Malta in Southern Europe.[233] Languages in adjacent areas show significant overlaps (such as in English, for example). Other Indo-European languages outside the three main groups include the Baltic group (Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton[233]), Greek, Armenian, and Albanian. A distinct non-Indo-European family of Uralic languages (Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Erzya, Komi, Mari, Moksha, and Udmurt) is spoken mainly in Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and parts of Russia. 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). Kartvelian languages (Georgian, Mingrelian, and Svan) are spoken primarily in Georgia. Two other language families reside in the North Caucasus (termed Northeast Caucasian, most notably including Chechen, Avar, and Lezgin; and Northwest Caucasian, most notably including Adyghe). Maltese is the only Semitic language that is official within the EU, while Basque is the only European language isolate. Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe. Major cities The four largest cities of Europe are Istanbul, Moscow, Paris and London, each have over 10 million residents,[8] and as such have been described as megacities.[282] While Istanbul has the highest total population, one third lies on the Asian side of the Bosporus, making Moscow the most populous city entirely in Europe. The next largest cities in order of population are Saint Petersburg, Madrid, Berlin and Rome, each having over 3 million residents.[8] When considering the commuter belts or metropolitan areas, within the EU (for which comparable data is available) London covers the largest population, followed in order by Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, the Ruhr area, Rome, Milan, Athens and Warsaw.[283] Culture Contemporary political map of Europe showing cultural proximities Main article: Culture of Europe Further information: European folklore and European art "Europe" as a cultural concept is substantially derived from the shared heritage of the Roman Empire and its culture. The boundaries of Europe were historically understood as those of Christendom (or more specifically Latin Christendom), as established or defended throughout the medieval and early modern history of Europe, especially against Islam, as in the Reconquista and the Ottoman wars in Europe.[284] Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir This shared cultural heritage is combined by overlapping indigenous national cultures and folklores, roughly divided into Slavic, Latin (Romance) and Germanic, but with several components not part of either of these group (notably Greek and Celtic). Cultural contact and mixtures characterise much of European regional cultures; Kaplan (2014) describes Europe as "embracing maximum cultural diversity at minimal geographical distances".[clarification needed][285] Different cultural events are organised in Europe, with the aim of bringing different cultures closer together and raising awareness of their importance, such as the European Capital of Culture, the European Region of Gastronomy, the European Youth Capital and the European Capital of Sport. Religion St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the largest church in the world Main article: Religion in Europe Historically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. There are six patron saints of Europe venerated in Roman Catholicism, five of them so declared by Pope John Paul II between 1980–1999: Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). The exception is Benedict of Nursia, who had already been declared "Patron Saint of all Europe" by Pope Paul VI in 1964.[286][circular reference] Religion in Europe according to the Global Religious Landscape survey by the Pew Forum, 2012[287]   Christianity (75.2%)   No religion (18.2%)   Islam (5.9%)   Buddhism (0.2%)   Hinduism (0.2%)   Folk religion (0.1%)   Other religions (0.1%) The largest religion in Europe is Christianity, with 76.2% of Europeans considering themselves Christians,[288] including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and various Protestant denominations. Among Protestants, the most popular are historically state-supported European denominations such as Lutheranism, Anglicanism and the Reformed faith. Other Protestant denominations such as historically significant ones like Anabaptists were never supported by any state and thus are not so widespread, as well as these newly arriving from the United States such as Pentecostalism, Adventism, Methodism, Baptists and various Evangelical Protestants; although Methodism and Baptists both have European origins. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[289] Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church,[290][291] has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilisation since at least the 4th century,[292][293][294][295] and for at least a millennium and a half, Europe has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, even though the religion was inherited from the Middle East. Christian culture was the predominant force in western civilisation, guiding the course of philosophy, art, and science.[296][297] The second most popular religion is Islam (6%)[298] concentrated mainly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, North Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural region). Other religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are minority religions (though Tibetan Buddhism is the majority religion of Russia's Republic of Kalmykia). The 20th century saw the revival of Neopaganism through movements such as Wicca and Druidry. Europe has become a relatively secular continent, with an increasing number and proportion of irreligious, atheist and agnostic people, who make up about 18.2% of Europe's population,[299] currently the largest secular population in the Western world. There are a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, former East Germany, and France.[300] Sport Football is one of the most popular sports in Europe. (San Siro stadium in Milan) This section is an excerpt from Sport in Europe[edit] Spectator sports are popular across Europe. (Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, the largest in Europe) Sport in Europe tends to be highly organized with many sports having professional leagues. The origins of many of the world's most popular sports today lie in the codification of many traditional games, especially in Great Britain. However, a paradoxical feature of European sport is the remarkable extent to which local, regional and national variations continue to exist, and even in some instances to predominate.[301] [147]     ebay5038 folder151
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  • Country/Region of Manufacture: France
  • Type: ORIGINAL COMPANY LAMINATED FRAMED POSTER
  • Airline: Air France

PicClick Insights - 1991 Original AIR FRANCE Airlines TRAVEL POSTER French EUROPE Spain VENICE Italy PicClick Exclusive

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