European Plain

The European Plain or Great European Plain is a plain in Europe. It is the largest mountain-free landform in Europe, although a number of highlands are identified within. It stretches from the Pyrenees Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east.

It consists of the North European Plain and the East European Plain. The subdivision is a historical one, rather than geomorphological: the East European Plain was part of the European Plain within the Russian Empire and therefore was formerly known as the Russian Plain.

In Western Europe, the plain is relatively narrow (mostly within 200 miles) in the northern part of Europe, but it broadens significantly toward its eastern part in Western Russia.

The plains are cut by many important rivers like the Loire, Rhine and Vistula in the west; the Northern Dvina and Daugava flowing northwards in Eastern Europe and Russia and the Volga, the Don and the Dnieper flowing southwards of the European Russia.

The European plain was once largely covered by forest, before human settlement and the resulting deforestation that occurred. One of the last (and largest) remnants of this primeval forest is Białowieża Forest, which straddles the border between Belarus and Poland.