Europe's Peninsulas and Physical Regions

Europe is conventionally treated as one of the world's seven continents, yet it is, in strict physical terms, the westernmost peninsula of the single Eurasian landmass rather than an island continent in its own right. Covering approximately 10.18 million square kilometers, it is the second-smallest continent after Oceania, but its outline is so deeply indented by seas and gulfs that geographers have long described it as a "peninsula of peninsulas": the Iberian Peninsula in the southwest, home to Spain and Portugal; the Italian Peninsula, projecting into the central Mediterranean; the Balkan Peninsula in the southeast, stretching from the Adriatic to the Aegean and the Black Sea; the Scandinavian Peninsula in the north, shared by Norway and Sweden; and the smaller Jutland Peninsula occupied by mainland Denmark. This extreme coastal irregularity gives Europe an unusually long coastline relative to its land area, a feature that historians such as the geographer Peter Haggett have long linked to the continent's early maritime trade networks and its many natural harbors, from the Bay of Biscay to the Aegean archipelago.