The geographical limits of Europe adopted here are essentially the same as those adopted for Flora Europaea, with the omission of the Azores, the Arctic islands and the tundra zone (respectively included in Regions 02, 05 and 06). The Caucasus, sometimes considered to be part of Europe, is treated as Region 74 within Division 7 (northern, central and southwestern Asia). Outside of the eight groups of polities here delimited, separate units have been allocated for a number of major physiographic entities such as the Mediterranean, the Alps and Carpathians, and the Ural.

Organized floristic study and the writing of floras as they are today internationally known began in Renaissance Europe, but had antecedents in ancient Greece and in China and Japan. Significant advances in methodology came through the work of such scholars as Charles de l'Écluse (Clusius), Johann and Caspar Bauhin, John Ray, Albrecht von Haller, Carl Linnaeus, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle, William J. and Joseph D. Hooker, Karl Philip von Martius, George Bentham, Nathaniel L. Britton and Gustav Hegi and, in the modern era, the Flora SSSR work-group, the Flora Europaea Organisation, the Flora of Australia project, and the original, abortive Flora North America Program.