Portal:Europe
Europe is one of the traditional seven political continents, and a peninsular sub-continent of the geographic continent Eurasia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea. Europe is sometimes referred to as a "peninsula of peninsulas". Europe covers approximately 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2% of the Earth's surface and about 6.8% of the planet's total land area. It hosts around fifty sovereign states, the precise number depending on the underlying definition of Europe's border, as well as on the inclusion or exclusion of states which are not fully recognized internationally. Europe contains both a part of Russia, the world's largest country by area and Europe's largest by population, and the Vatican, the smallest on both counts (not counting the non-sovereign Pitcairn Islands in the Pacific). Europe is the third most populous continent after Asia and Africa with a population of 731,000,000 or about 11% of the world's population. According to UN population projection (medium variant), Europe's share will fall to 7% in 2050, numbering 653 million. However, Europe's borders and population are in dispute, as the term continent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or a physiographic one. Europe is the birthplace of Western culture. European nations played a predominant role in global affairs from the 16th century onwards, especially after the beginning of colonization. By the 17th and 18th centuries European nations controlled most of Africa, the Americas, and large portions of Asia. World War I and World War II led to a decline in European dominance in world affairs as the United States and Soviet Union took prominence. The Cold War between those two superpowers divided Europe along the Iron Curtain. European integration led to the formation of the Council of Europe and the European Union in Western Europe, both of which have been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Selected panorama
Porto is Portugal's second city and capital of the Norte NUTS II region. The city is located in the estuary of the Douro river in northern Portugal. The largest city in the region, Porto is considered the economic and cultural heart of the entire region. The city, which had an estimated population of 238,465 in 2005, lies at the center of the political Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto, with a population of 1.57 million (2006), and of a broader metropolitan agglomeration with over 2.9 million inhabitants in the 2001 census. Selected article Did you know...
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L'Hemisferic, an IMAX Cinema, planetarium and Laserium, on the grounds of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències ("City of Arts and Sciences"), in Valencia, Spain. In the newsWikinews Europe portal
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