Geographical Regions of Europe: The Western Fringe

The countries on Europe's western fringe are extremely diverse topographically. On one extreme, France extends to the slopes of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, while on the other, a major part of the Netherlands lies below sea level. An arc of lowlands runs from the foothills of the Pyrenees in the southwest into Germany on the northeast. To the west of it lie the rolling hills of Brittany and Normandy, and to the east the Massif Central, the Ardennes plateau, the Vosges and Jura mountains, and finally, the Alps themselves.

Climatically the western fringe of Europe is characterized by mild, generally snowless winters and cool, often cloudy summers. There is precipitation throughout the year, with slightly more occurring in the early autumn than in the rest of the year. Throughout the region, a broadleaf deciduous forest constitutes the native vegetation, though there are also extensive stands of pine in the sandy coastal districts of southwestern France and in the Netherlands.

The soils over most of the region belong to a group known as gray-brown podzols, which, despite being leached by the frequent rains, contain some organic matter in the form of leaf mold. They vary in productivity according to the parent material from which they are derived. Thus, the lime-rich rendzinas of France and the fine loess soils of the French-Belgian borderlands are among the most fertile in the region. The sands of the Dutch-Belgian Campine district are virtually sterile by comparison.

Seen as a group, the countries of Europe's western fringe are fairly well supplied with minerals of economic importance, though individually there are some critical shortages. All three have coal deposits, sharing part of a structural basin along the eastern edge of the lowland, but the shares of France and the Netherlands are clearly inadequate to their needs. On the other hand, France has the largest production of iron ore in western Europe as well as important deposits of potash and bauxite. France also has reserves of petroleum and natural gas from the foothills of the Pyrenees, but these meet only a minor portion of its energy needs. The Netherlands, on the other hand, has a large natural gas field near Groningen, and its development revolutionized the availability of energy for areas within a 300-mile (480-km) radius. France counts heavily on hydroelectricity produced in the Pyrenees and Maritime Alps to make up for its shortages of coal and natural gas. All of the western-fringe countries, however, depend on imported petroleum. The region's largest refineries are located near Rotterdam.

Agriculture is intensive and efficient in the western fringe of Europe, but industry and commerce play a larger role in the overall economy of the region. Owing to the region's strategic location on the western doorstep of Europe, the continent's two greatest seaports are found in the Low Countries—Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine and Antwerp on the estuary of the Scheldt. Among the region's industries that have developed an international market are the fashions and automobiles of Paris, the diamonds of Amsterdam and Antwerp, the electronics of Eindhoven, and the oil refining of Rotterdam.

The western fringe of Europe offers some sharp contrasts in population density and urbanization. The Netherlands and Belgium, among the smallest countries on the continent, rank as the two most densely populated. France, by contrast, is western Europe's largest country in area but is one of the least densely populated. Nevertheless, Paris is the largest urban agglomeration on the European mainland west of Moscow. Europe's western fringe region has no other conurbations of more than 2 million people, but several of 1 to 2 million.

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