Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent (particularly by Britons, Azores and Madeira Portuguese, Balearic and Canary Spaniards, Sardinians, Icelanders and other European island nations, and peninsular Scandinavians), is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding the islands of Europe.

The most common definition of continental Europe excludes the Greek Islands, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Islands, Iceland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom and its dependencies. Most definitions extend the boundaries of the continent to its standard boundaries: the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains.

Use in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the Continent is widely and generally used to refer to the mainland of Europe. In addition, the word Europe itself is also regularly used to mean Europe excluding the islands of Great Britain, Iceland, and Ireland (although the term is often used to refer to the European Union).