1. Europe is very crowded but the population is decreasing.
2. Europe has many ethnic conflicts.
3. Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian are Romance language.
4. The Romance languages evolved from Latin, the language of Rome.
5. English is a Germanic language. It has more in common with German than with the Romance languages.
6. Russian and Polish are Slavic languages.
7. The Alps are mountains in Central Europe.
8. Switzerland is located in the Alps.
9. The Pyranees are a mountain chain that separates Spain and France.
10. Spain and Portugal comprise the Iberian peninsula.
11. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are three small nations northeast of France. They are known collectively as the Benelux nations.
12. The Basques are an ethnic group in Spain with a different language and culture than the rest of the nation.
13. Many Basques resist Spanish authority and want to form a separate nation.
14. The Mediterranean Sea separates Europe from Africa.
15. The Mediterranean Sea flows through the Strait of Gibraltar and past the Rock of Gibraltar.
16. Belarus and Ukraine are industrial nations in Eastern Europe that were once part of the Soviet Union.
17. Yugoslavia has dissolved into many warring factions including Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
18. Greenland is the world largest island. Despite its name, there is little plantlife on Greenland.
19. Denmark controls Greenland.
20. The Celts were ancient people who occupied Western Europe before the Romans.
21. Celtic languages are almost extinct, but their influences live on in stories and myths.
22. Gasoline is more expensive in Europe than in America.
23. A tariff is a fee for an imported good.
24. Spain is the least crowded nation in Europe.
25. Agriculture is the primary occupation in Spain.
26. Germany remained divided from World War II to 1989.
27. The United Kingdom is comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
28. Ireland is an island west of Great Britain.
29. Most of the Irish people are Roman Catholic. They are unhappy that six counties in Northern Ireland are part of the United Kingdom.
30. Poland was a communist nation until labor leader Lech Walesa led a series of strikes that transformed it into a democracy.
31. Playwright Vaclav Havel led Czechoslovakia after ending communist rule in 1989. This industrial nation has since split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia

SOURCE: Dowling, Mike., "The Electronic Passport to Europe Today"