Physical map of Europe

Physical map of Europe shows the shape of the land with shaded relief and colors for elevation. Rivers and lakes are drawn in blue, and dashed lines show country borders. Download the labeled map or use the version without names as a worksheet.

Physical map of Europe
Physical map of EuropePNG 2200×1739 (1.3 MB)Physical map of Europe (PDF A4) (607 KB)

How to read this map

Named features on this map include Alps, North European Plain, Iberian Peninsula, Atlas Mountains, Pontic-Caspian steppe, Saharan Atlas, Scandinavian Mountains, Carpathian Mountains, Appennino Ligure, Pyrenees, Central Russian Upland, Pontic Mountains, Balkan Mountains, Dinaric Alps, Cantabrian Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Sierra Morena, Hardangervidda, Rif, Tell Atlas, Mount Elbrus, Mont Blanc, Lalla-Khadîdja. The terrain colors help locate these features within the surrounding lowlands, plateaus and mountain belts.

The mapped river network includes Rhein, Sukhona, Ural, IJssel, Dnieper, Dicle, Dnepre, Pechora. Only selected rivers are labeled at this scale; a missing label does not mean that a river is absent.

Greens show lower elevations; tan and brown show higher land, with pale tones toward the highest terrain. Shadows emphasize the slopes. Vertical relief is exaggerated to make landforms easier to read, so the map is not a slope survey. Blue tones distinguish seas from land; the legend is a guide to land elevation, not a chart of water depth.

The relief uses Terrain Tiles, a composite of SRTM, GMTED2010 and ETOPO1 elevation data distributed through the AWS Open Data program. Boundaries, rivers, lakes and feature names come from Natural Earth. These are small-scale educational maps rather than navigation or engineering surveys.

Blank physical map

The blank version keeps the mapped features and removes the place labels. Download it for a geography worksheet or practice identifying the features.

Physical map of Europe without names
Blank version of physical map of europe.PNG 2200×1739 (1.3 MB)Physical map of Europe: blank (PDF A4) (554 KB)

Features and names

ReferenceName or description
Named physical featureAlps
Named physical featureNorth European Plain
Named physical featureIberian Peninsula
Named physical featureAtlas Mountains
Named physical featurePontic-Caspian steppe
Named physical featureSaharan Atlas
Named physical featureScandinavian Mountains
Named physical featureCarpathian Mountains
Named physical featureAppennino Ligure
Named physical featurePyrenees
Named physical featureCentral Russian Upland
Named physical featurePontic Mountains
Named physical featureBalkan Mountains
Named physical featureDinaric Alps
Named physical featureCantabrian Mountains
Named physical featureSierra Nevada
Named physical featureSierra Morena
Named physical featureHardangervidda
Named physical featureRif
Named physical featureTell Atlas
Named physical featureMount Elbrus
Named physical featureMont Blanc
Named physical featureLalla-Khadîdja

Data sources and license

Map design and rendered images: Atlas of Maps, CC BY 4.0. Source databases retain their own licenses; the map license does not replace them.

Also see the political map of Europe with countries and capitals.

Frequently asked questions

What does a physical map show?

A physical map shows landforms and water: mountains, plateaus, lowlands, rivers, lakes and seas. This map uses elevation colors and hill shading instead of coloring each country separately.

Can I download physical map of europe without labels?

Yes. The blank relief map retains the terrain, rivers and outlines but removes place names. Both versions are available as PNG and PDF; the PDF uses A4 paper and can be scaled to US Letter.

Use this map

You can download, print and share this map for free, in class, in school projects, in presentations and on websites, as long as you credit the source: Physical map of Europe · Atlas of Maps (atlasofmaps.com), license CC BY 4.0.

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