the least of the four grand divisions of the earth, is situated between 36° and 72° N. lat.; and between 10° degrees W. long. and 65° E. long. being about 3000 miles long from north to south, and 2500 miles broad from east to west. It is bounded by the frozen ocean on the north, by Asia on the east, by the Mediterranean, which separates it from Africa, on the south, and by the Atlantic ocean on the west.

Europe is commonly subdivided into three grand divisions, north, middle, and south. The north or upper division comprehends Russia, or Muscovy, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, and the islands of Britain, Iceland, Greenland, and those of the Baltic. The middle division contains Poland, Germany, and the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria, the Low Countries, or Netherlands, and France. The southern division comprehends Turkey in Europe, the ancient Greece chiefly, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza, and those of the Archipelago.