Europe is a diverse and historically-rich continent but there are still many things that people don’t know about it. In this article, we’re going to go over nine facts about Europe that you never knew!
Table of Contents
Europe land area vs. USA
Europe is only 3.5% bigger than the USA by land area (9,833,520 km² vs 10,180,000 km²*)
*excluding Russia
Number of countries in Europe
There are a total of 44 countries in Europe according to the United Nations. Only 27 of these are members of the European Union.
Number of languages in Europe
There are over 200 languages spoken in Europe, However, there are only 24 official languages in the European Union:
- Bulgarian
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Estonian
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hungarian
- Irish
- Italian
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Maltese
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
Average tax rate in Europe
The average personal income tax rate in the European Union is 38%. Montenegro has the lowest personal income tax rate in Europe at 9% while Finland has the highest personal income tax rate in Europe at 57%.
Population of Europe
The total population of Europe is 746.4 million (as of 2018). This would make it the third most populous country (next to China and India) if the European continent were a unified nation.
Most populous cities in Europe
The top 10 most populous cities in Europe are:
- Istanbul, Turkey (15,840,900)
- Moscow, Russia (12,632,409)
- London, United Kingdom (8,799,800)
- Saint Petersburg, Russia (5,376,672)
- Berlin, Germany (3,677,472)
- Madrid, Spain (3,305,408)
- Kyiv, Ukraine (2,920,873)
- Rome, Italy (2,761,632)
- Bucharest, Romania (2,161,347)
- Paris, France (2,139,907)
Most visited cities in Europe
The top 10 most visited cities in Europe (as of 2019) are:
- London, United Kingdom (19.6 million visitors)
- Paris, France (19.1 million visitors)
- Istanbul, Turkey (14.7 million visitors)
- Antalya, Turkey (13.3 million visitors)
- Rome, Italy (10.3 million visitors)
- Prague, Czech Republic (9.2 million visitors)
- Amsterdam, Netherlands (8.8 million visitors)
- Barcelona, Spain (7 million visitors)
- Vienna, Austria (6.6 million visitors)
- Milan, Italy (6.6 million visitors)
Most visited countries in Europe
The top 10 most visited countries in Europe are:
- France (89.4 million visitors)
- Spain (82.7 million visitors)
- Italy (62.1 million visitors)
- Turkey (45.7 million visitors)
- Germany (38.8 million visitors)
- United Kingdom (36.3 million visitors)
- Austria (30.8 million visitors)
- Greece (30.1 million visitors)
- Russia (24.5 million visitors)
- Portugal (22.8 million visitors)
The world’s largest and smallest country are both in Europe
Both Russia, the largest country in the world with over 17 million square kilometers of land area, and Vatican City, the smallest country in the world with 0.44 square kilometers, are both in Europe.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed learning about these nine interesting facts about the European continent. Feel free to share this article on social media and mention any facts that you think I should’ve included!