Europe's physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can be considered separately. Europe's rich agricultural and industrial diversity has made the continent a centre of trade and commerce for centuries. It is centrally located between the two other “Old World” continents, Africa and Asia.
Europe did use to have lots of larger states and empires but most of them have broken up and are mostly arranged along ethnic lines. So there aren't many multi-ethnic states left in Europe anymore and a lot of these states were created due to wars.
