Ukraine is the largest country in Europe that lies wholly within Europe.
Ukraine has a total area of about 603,628 square kilometres, making it Europe’s largest entirely European sovereign state. Russia is larger overall, but it spans both Europe and Asia and is therefore excluded from this geographic comparison.
Ukraine lies between Central and Eastern Europe and has coastlines on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Its landscape includes broad plains, fertile chernozem soils, the Carpathian Mountains in the west, and the Dnieper River system.
France is sometimes given as an alternative because metropolitan France is larger than Ukraine in some comparisons, but France has overseas territories outside Europe. Depending on whether overseas areas and transcontinental states are included, rankings can change; the wholly European criterion makes Ukraine the clear answer.