Europe’s Largest Countries: Majestic Mountains, Dense Forests, and Expansive Coastlines

At approximately four million square miles, Europe is the world’s second-smallest continent. Despite its size, its largest countries (and smaller ones for that matter) host a dizzying array of landscapes. Simply put, European geography is anything but boring.

Even within a single country, like Spain and Italy, it is almost like there are two different worlds split into the more arid, Mediterranean parts of the south and the mountainous northern regions near ranges like the Cantabrians, Alps, and Pyrenees. And within those halves, there are numerous sub-worlds. Scandinavia, despite stereotypes of perpetual winter and snow, might surprise travelers with its mountains, red barns, and dairy farms on the plains. And that is not to say anything about Russia, which has a sheer size that encompasses everything from tundra in the north to steppe in the south and everything in between.

With such a varied landscape, it is no surprise that Europe has given rise to so many different peoples and languages in such a small area. Here are the continent’s biggest countries.

It is hard to give a topographic account of the United Kingdom, which, despite being half the size of its neighbor France, boasts an incredibly diverse array of farmlands, plains, moorlands, and mountains spread out over 6,000 islands. Much like Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher, the U.K. has a similar attraction in the form of the White Cliffs of Dover. This formation, which got its name from the fact that the cliffs glisten white in the sun thanks to their chalky makeup, is considered the gateway to the British Isles — the place Julius Caesar and subsequent invaders noted as the perfect defense position in their bids to conquer the islands. Since Roman times, numerous forts, castles, and gun emplacements still cover the area, a testament to its strategic importance in the defense of British soil.

The Lake District of Northwest England in Cumbria is another major tourist attraction, whose lakes against a backdrop of hills provided English Romantic poet William Wordsworth with his inspiration. The region, as Wordsworth noted, is renowned for its Spring displays of daffodils, which surround stately homes and castles that once hosted the British elite during their holidays in centuries past. Going further north, one eventually runs into the Highlands of Scotland and the Hebrides, which deserve their own description. These islands are one of the last holdouts of the Celtic Scottish Gaelic language and culture, and their topography has a bit for everyone. Islands like Skye are hilly — almost mountainous — while others like Lewis consist of flatlands with rugged, sandy beaches. Most are uninhabited, making them the perfect, unique place for a nature-lover’s getaway.

Poland is a mixed bag, a country consisting of flat plains with mountains, lakes, and forests on the edges. Central Poland — the country’s heartland — is best known as the “Polish Plain,” cut by the Vistula River — Poland’s agricultural lifeblood. The plain eventually runs into the Baltic Sea, which is known for its beautiful beaches and its amber, which, if you’re lucky, you can harvest on the beach as part of local competitions. This area is Poland’s historical heartland, containing the capital, Warsaw, and other major cities such as Torun, Gdansk, and Lodz.

The rest of Poland is another story. In the southern Zakopane and Podkarpackie regions, near the borders with Slovakia and Ukraine, are the Tatra Mountains, which are considered a subsection of the Carpathians. The region offers hiking and skiing opportunities through verdant pastures and past deep-blue lakes on which sit the wooden churches so typical of the Carpathians — one of Europe’s hidden gems as far as churches go. Culturally, it is also unique within Poland thanks to its people: the Gorale highlanders and the Lemko, both of whom speak dialects closer to Slovak and Ukrainian, respectively, and have maintained their traditions against the forces of assimilation and two world wars.

In the northeast is the forested Masurian Lakeland district, whose topography alternates between forest, lake, pasture, and meadow. It is one of Poland’s most popular destinations, with plenty of opportunities for waterskiing, hiking, and nature-sighting. History buffs are also in for a treat, as the region contains the famous red-brick castles of the Teutonic Order, such as Malbork, Elblag, and Ketrzyn.

Finland is nicknamed the “Land of a Thousand Lakes,” and this is not an exaggeration — in fact, it’s actually an understatement. The country has a whopping 187,888 lakes, which are surrounded by a landscape that is still, even in the modern day, 75 percent forest. It is impossible to go over all of Finland’s lakes, but the most popular are generally those in the Saimaa Lake District, which are referred to by the Mikkeli tourism board as a maze of lakes interspersed with numerous islands. Unsurprisingly, the forests and lakes are essential to Finnish mythology, culture, and folklore, playing a central role in the national epic, “Kalevala,” and numerous other works of art, writing, and music.

Up north, the forests give way to the Finnish Arctic, also known as Lapland — the part of Finland above the Arctic Circle. This area includes Finland’s third-largest lake, Lake Inari, as well as numerous smaller lakes, swamps, forests, and tundra. A handful of indigenous Sami continue to herd reindeer just as their ancestors did for millennia. Like its counterparts in Norway and Sweden, it is the perfect place to go skiing, hiking, and see the starry sky and the Northern Lights, uncontaminated by light pollution. In the summer, it becomes the land of the midnight sun.

Smack in the middle of Europe, Germany’s topography consists of approximately four regions. From the Rhine in Baden-Wurttemberg near the French and Swiss borders to  Austria and the Czech Republic, the mountains and forests dominate. The two main ranges are the Bavarian Alps in Bavaria and Saxony’s Erzgebirge, also known as the “ore mountains” due to their history of silver and tin mining. Being among two of Germany’s wealthiest, most industrialized areas, they are dotted with castles, estates, and beautiful towns such as Nuremberg, Munich, and Freiburg. The further north one goes, the flatter it gets, until you arrive at the sandy beaches of the Baltic and North Seas. Eastern Germany is primarily dedicated to agriculture on large farms, a legacy of East Germany’s collectivization during the communist era.

Perhaps Germany’s most salient feature is its many rivers, which define the country’s limits to this day. The Rhine forms Germany’s western border, and has been the gateway to the Germanic-speaking world since Roman times. Many of the country’s most beautiful and/or historic cities are found in the Rhine valley, including Cologne, Leverkusen, Mainz, and Worms, among which are numerous picturesque villages all with their own histories, dialects, and traditions. In the east, Germany ends on the Oder River, which has long been a meeting place of the Germanic and Slavic worlds since ancient times. In keeping with that history, thanks to a series of canals, Germany is linked to Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

Norway resembles Sweden in terms of its shape, except it gets a lot narrower the further north one goes. Unlike its neighbor to the East, however, Norway is a highland country, wherein most of the landmass consists of the Scandinavian mountains and their foothills, which run across the entire length of the country from south to north like a spine. In the south, the mountains and hills are hospitable to dairy farming, which explains the red barns of small family farms that dot the landscape.

Norway’s broken, mountainous geography and its numerous rivers have given the country two major geographic features that are easily noticeable on any map: the famous fjords and the country’s 239,057 islands. The fjords are probably the most magnificent part of Norway’s geography. Fjords are long, narrow inlets that formed when the sea flooded into valleys after the retreat of the glaciers. Basically, when you enter a fjord, you are sailing on the ocean flanked on both sides by mountains. It is like sailing from the ocean into a river, except that these inlets are still part of the Atlantic.

As for the islands, most of them are off the western coast, but because of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Norway technically stretches well towards the North Pole. If you end up visiting Svalbard, make sure you know how to shoot a gun. Anyone who leaves the settlement of Longyearben must carry a rifle and flare gun to protect against polar bears that roam the outskirts of the town.

Sweden is quite large, but long, running from the southern Baltic to the polar regions of the Sami lands near the Finnish border, known as Swedish Lapland. It is an attractive destination for outdoor enthusiasts, thanks to its pristine mountains, forests, and plains, all dotted from north to south with numerous freshwater lakes.

Southern Sweden is mostly rolling plains and hills, also hosting — perhaps unexpectedly for visitors — the country’s top Baltic beaches. Tourists can also expect to see a lot of cows, as the plains provide the perfect pasturage for the production of milk. Further north are mountains, which run along the border with Norway all the way into the north of the country. Along the mountains are forests, which increase in density the further north one goes and provide homes to animals such as lynx and reindeer, which are of particular importance to the Sami people of Sweden’s tundra regions.

By the time one hits Swedish Lapland, one has passed north of the Arctic Circle. This means you’re in the land of the midnight sun — ergo, there is a period when the sun doesn’t set in the summer, and a period in the winter when it doesn’t rise at all. It is there that you can see the fabled northern lights in all of their glory. The land is mostly forested, although there are also some areas of tundra where the ground is permanently frozen and few plants grow.

Spain occupies the bulk of the Iberian Peninsula, which it shares with its Portuguese neighbor to the West and the tiny principality of Andorra to the East. Geographically, the country is marked with mountain ranges, river valleys, and two long coastlines along the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Up north, Spain is a mountaineer’s paradise. The Cantabrian mountains are a lesser-known European destination not yet affected by overtourism. Today, they welcome hikers, pilgrims hiking the Camino de Santiago on the way to Santiago de Compostela, and magnificent sanctuaries like Covadonga with its church cut into the mountainside. Along the Atlantic coast, in towns like Gijon, it is not uncommon to wake up to fog so thick, you cannot see through it. The Pyrenees complete the chain of mountains in the north, running into the Mediterranean in Catalonia. 

South of the Duero lies the Meseta Central, Spain’s arid heartland. While the Meseta may not seem as exciting, given its flatness, the region of Castilla hosts some of the country’s most underrated wineries in equally underrated yet picturesque towns. Eventually, one hits the Mediterranean, either near Malaga’s Costa del Sol – a major tourist hotspot — or the eastern shore around Valencia, Catalonia, and Murcia. Spain also possesses two archipelagos: the Balearic Islands, which are a half-hour flight eastward from Barcelona and a major destination for party-goers, and the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco. The Canary Islands, in particular, are known for their volcanoes, which formed the islands millions of years ago.

France is a flat country, with two-thirds of the country’s landmass consisting of rolling hills and plains. But flatness doesn’t mean boring. The Loire Valley of Northwestern France is known for its chateaux belonging to France’s bygone aristocracy and the vineyards around them, which produce the world’s finest wine. Moving south and west, one eventually hits the Atlantic coast and the Pyrenees on the Spanish border, where traditional lifestyles of shepherding and animal husbandry are making a bit of a comeback.

The rest of France’s land is primarily forest, which covers around 31 percent of the country. They are primarily located in the eastern region of Alsace-Lorraine’s Vosges Mountains and the Alpine regions of the southwest, offering the usual spots for hiking. Directly south are the Alps, where skiing and hiking are the primary pastimes, depending on the season. Here, one may be lucky enough to see the vestiges of the pre-French cultures of the area, where people historically spoke the Occitan and Arpitan languages rather than the modern Metropolitan French. Nearing the Mediterranean, one enters Provence. This is a region filled with fairytale medieval villages that grow lavender and make rose wine, alongside the modern, bustling Côte d’Azur, which is better known for its beaches and nightclubs. 

Any description of France is incomplete without Napoleon Bonaparte’s home of Corsica, known locally as l’isula bella for its mountainous terrain that falls gently into the Mediterranean. A tourist might not even feel like they are in France — Corsica is culturally very close to the Italian region of Tuscany, which is no surprise, considering the island’s native language is modern Italian’s closest relative.

Ukraine is primarily flat and agricultural, with much of its 233,030 square miles consisting of flat, fertile plains and lowlands cut by rivers like the Dnieper and the Don. This is what gives the country its moniker “The breadbasket of Europe.” The country’s blue and yellow bicolor flag pays homage to the open skies and golden fields of grain that have made the country famous — and contested.

Amidst the plains, three physical features stand out. The Pripet Marshes, located on the northern border with Belarus, consist of swamps and forests home to lynxes, foxes, wolves, and elk. The Carpathian Mountains in the west mix the old and the new, as luxury spas and ski resorts coexist alongside agricultural villages whose rhythms and language – whether Ukrainian, Hungarian, or Romanian – have remained relatively unchanged for centuries. At the foothills of the Carpathians are Ukraine’s cultural jewels (where Ukrainian national identity was born), of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil — magnificent Austro-Hungarian cities with architecture to match.

Finally, there is the Crimean Peninsula — currently under Russian control — which juts out into the Black Sea and creates the Sea of Azov to the east. This top vacation spot boasts a subtropical climate, beaches, and unique wine. Its history is fascinating and often unexpected. The cave city of Mangup, for instance, was built by Crimean Goths, a remnant of the barbarians who invaded the Roman Empire. The castle of Feodosiya was built by the Genoese at a time when the city was under the Italian Republic’s control.

The U.S. Department of State has issued a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory for Ukraine.

Spanning over one million square miles, 11 time zones, and taking up 11 percent of the world’s landmass, Russia is by far Europe’s largest country. As the Russian national anthem goes, the country possesses an incredible diversity of landscapes, “from the southern seas to the polar fringe” and from Kaliningrad to Chukotka in the Far East. A traveler to Russia can experience the tundras of the north, where Siberian natives live as they have for centuries, herding reindeer. There are also the taiga forests of Siberia, the lake-dotted forests of Karelia, the steppes of the southwest, which extend to the Mongolian and Chinese borders, and the deserts on the borders with the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics.

Throughout Russia are several mountain ranges that historically have formed some sort of natural barrier between Russia and its neighbors. The Ural Mountains, long a source of valuable minerals and coal, form the barrier between Europe and Asia. To the South, the restive North Caucasus, filled with unique ethnic groups and at least 52 languages, including Chechen, Dagestani, Caucasian Avar, Ossetian, and many more, gives way to the shores of the Caspian and Black seas. Out east on the Mongolian border, the Altai mountains preserve, at least in the smaller villages, the old pastoral ways of life centered around horses, sheep, and other domestic animals.

The U.S. Department of State has issued a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory for Russia.