The 52 European nations involved will make up nine groups. The nine top seeds, which include England and Wales, will all be in separate groups.
The rest of the teams will be drawn to make up the other members of the nine groups. There will be seven groups with six teams and two with five. For the sake of TV broadcasting purposes, England will be in a group of six teams.
Each of the nine group winners will progress to the World Cup, while the eight best runners-up will play qualification matches against each other.
As the draw for the qualifying games for the 2018 World Cup take place in St Petersburg, England has been drawn to play against, Slovakia, Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta.
Below if the European draw in full:
GROUP A: Holland, France, Sweden, Bulgaria, Belarus, Luxembourg
GROUP B: Portugal, Switzerland, Hungary, Faroe Islands, Latvia, Andorra
GROUP C: Germany, Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, Norway, Azerbaijan, San Marino
GROUP D: Wales, Austria, Serbia, Republic of Ireland, Moldova, Georgia
GROUP E: Romania, Denmark, Poland, Montenegro, Armenia, Kazakhstan
GROUP F: England, Slovakia, Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuania, Malta
GROUP G: Spain, Italy, Albania, Israel, FYR Macedonia, Liechtenstein
GROUP H: Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Estonia, Cyprus
GROUP I: Croatia, Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland
