Portal:World

The World Portal

*The Blue Marble*, a photograph of the planet Earth made on 7 December 1972 by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft.

The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object, while others analyze the world as a complex made up of parts.

In scientific cosmology, the world or universe is commonly defined as "the totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". Theories of modality talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. Phenomenology, starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon, or the "horizon of all horizons". In philosophy of mind, the world is contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind.

Theology conceptualizes the world in relation to God, for example, as God's creation, as identical to God, or as the two being interdependent. In religions, there is a tendency to downgrade the material or sensory world in favor of a spiritual world to be sought through religious practice. A comprehensive representation of the world and our place in it, as is found in religions, is known as a worldview. Cosmogony is the field that studies the origin or creation of the world, while eschatology refers to the science or doctrine of the last things or of the end of the world.

In various contexts, the term "world" takes a more restricted meaning associated, for example, with the Earth and all life on it, with humanity as a whole, or with an international or intercontinental scope. In this sense, world history refers to the history of humanity as a whole, and world politics is the discipline of political science studying issues that transcend nations and continents. Other examples include terms such as "world religion", "world language", "world government", "world war", "world population", "world economy", or "world championship". (Full article...)

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Selected articles - show another

Image 1
World Englishes is a term for emerging localised or indigenised varieties of English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States. The study of World Englishes consists of identifying varieties of English used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally and analyzing how sociolinguistic histories, multicultural backgrounds and contexts of function influence the use of English in different regions of the world.

The issue of World Englishes was first raised in 1978 to examine concepts of regional Englishes globally. Pragmatic factors such as appropriateness, comprehensibility and interpretability justified the use of English as an international and intra-national language. In 1988, at a Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, the International Committee of the Study of World Englishes (ICWE) was formed. In 1992, the ICWE formally launched the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE) at a conference of "World Englishes Today", at the University of Illinois, USA. There are two academic journals devoted to the study of this topic, titled English World-Wide (since 1980) and World Englishes (since 1982). There are a number of published handbooks and textbooks on the subject. (Full article...)
Image 2

The League of Nations (LN or LoN; French: Société des Nations [sɔsjete de nɑsjɔ̃], SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18 April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations. As the template for modern global governance, the League profoundly shaped the modern world.

The League's primary goals were stated in its eponymous Covenant. They included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Its other concerns included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe. The Covenant of the League of Nations was signed on 28 June 1919 as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and it became effective with the rest of the Treaty on 10 January 1920. Australia was granted the right to participate as an autonomous member nation, marking the start of Australian independence on the global stage. The first meeting of the Council of the League took place on 16 January 1920, and the first meeting of the Assembly of the League took place on 15 November 1920. In 1919, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League. (Full article...)
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A sovereign state is a state that has the supreme sovereignty or ultimate authority over a territory. It is commonly understood that a sovereign state is independent. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may also refer to a constituent country, or a dependent territory.

A sovereign state is usually required to have a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under another, and the capacity to interact with other sovereign states. In actual practice, recognition or non-recognition by other states plays an important role in determining the status of a country. Unrecognized states often have difficulty engaging in diplomatic relations with other sovereign states. (Full article...)
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Juno in the Underworld by Jan Brueghel the Younger, between 1626 and 1630

The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself". Common features of underworld myths are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some heroic purpose. Other myths reinforce traditions that the entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony, such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead Patroclus haunting Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose. People with high social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld. (Full article...)
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A facsimile of the signature-and-seals page of the 1864 Geneva Convention, which established humane rules of war

The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention colloquially denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945), which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel; establish protections for the wounded and sick; and provide protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone.

The Geneva Conventions define the rights and protections afforded to non-combatants who fulfill the criteria of being protected persons. The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in their entirety or with reservations, by 196 countries. The Geneva Conventions concern only protected non-combatants in war. The use of wartime conventional weapons is addressed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, while the biological and chemical warfare in international armed conflicts is addressed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. (Full article...)
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Global urbanization map showing the percentage of urbanization and the biggest global population centres per country in 2018, based on UN estimates.

Urbanization (or urbanisation in British English) is the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It can also mean population growth in urban areas instead of rural ones. It is predominantly the process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more people begin living and working in central areas.

Although the two concepts are sometimes used interchangeably, urbanization should be distinguished from urban growth. Urbanization refers to the proportion of the total national population living in areas classified as urban, whereas urban growth strictly refers to the absolute number of people living in those areas. It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanized. This is predicted to generate artificial scarcities of land, lack of drinking water, playgrounds and so on for most urban dwellers. The predicted urban population growth is equivalent to approximately 3 billion urbanites by 2050, much of which will occur in Africa and Asia. Notably, the United Nations has also recently projected that nearly all global population growth from 2017 to 2030 will be by cities, with about 1.1 billion new urbanites over the next 10 years. In the long term, urbanization is expected to significantly impact the quality of life in negative ways. (Full article...)
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Non-UN member states recognised by at least one UN member state
Non-UN member states recognised only by other non-UN member states or not recognized by any other state

A number of polities have declared independence and sought diplomatic recognition from the international community as sovereign states, but have not been universally recognised as such. These entities often have de facto control of their territory. A number of such entities have existed in the past.

There are two traditional theories used to indicate how a sovereign state comes into being. The declarative theory (codified in the 1933 Montevideo Convention) defines a state as a person in international law if it meets the following criteria: (Full article...)

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General images - load new batch

The following are images from various world-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico
Image 2An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Image 3A High Desert storm in the Mojave (from Earth)
Image 4An artist's impression of the Archean, the eon after Earth's formation, featuring round stromatolites, which are early oxygen-producing forms of life from billions of years ago. After the Late Heavy Bombardment, Earth's crust had cooled, its water-rich barren surface is marked by continents and volcanoes, with the Moon still orbiting Earth half as far as it is today, appearing 2.8 times larger and producing strong tides. (from Earth)
Image 5Change in average surface air temperature and drivers for that change. Human activity has caused increased temperatures, with natural forces adding some variability. (from Earth)
Image 6Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)
Image 7A view of Earth with different layers of its atmosphere visible: the troposphere with its clouds casting shadows, a band of stratospheric blue sky at the horizon, and a line of green airglow of the lower thermosphere around an altitude of 100 km, at the edge of space (from Earth)
Image 8An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
Image 9The pale orange dot, an artist's impression of the early Earth which might have appeared orange through its hazy methane rich prebiotic second atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere at this stage was somewhat comparable to today's atmosphere of Titan. (from History of Earth)
Image 10Carving of Persian and Median soldiers, Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 5th century BCE
Image 1113th-century French historiated initial with the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (the clergy), those who fought (the knights), and those who worked (the peasantry) (from Human history)
Image 12Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
Image 13Earth's night-side upper atmosphere appearing from the bottom as bands of afterglow illuminating the troposphere in orange with silhouettes of clouds, and the stratosphere in white and blue. Next the mesosphere (pink area) extends to the orange and faintly green line of the lowest airglow, at about one hundred kilometers at the edge of space and the lower edge of the thermosphere (invisible). Continuing with green and red bands of aurorae stretching over several hundred kilometers. (from Earth)
Image 14Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
Image 15Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
Image 16Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
Image 17Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
Image 18Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
Image 19Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years in the future (from Earth)
Image 20Cuneiform inscription, eastern Turkey
Image 21Lithified stromatolites on the shores of Lake Thetis, Western Australia. Archean stromatolites are the first direct fossil traces of life on Earth. (from History of Earth)
Image 22Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
Image 23Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)
Image 24The replicator in virtually all known life is deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is far more complex than the original replicator and its replication systems are highly elaborate. (from History of Earth)
Image 25Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
Image 26Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Image 27Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
Image 28A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
Image 29Wittenberg, birthplace of Protestantism (from Human history)
Image 30A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
Image 31An animation of the changing density of productive vegetation on land (low in brown; heavy in dark green) and phytoplankton at the ocean surface (low in purple; high in yellow) (from Earth)
Image 32A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
Image 33One of the eleven Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela constructed during the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia (from Human history)
Image 34A banded iron formation from the 3.15 Ga Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa. Red layers represent the times when oxygen was available; gray layers were formed in anoxic circumstances. (from History of Earth)
Image 35Exaggerated illustration of Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun, marking that the orbital extreme points (apoapsis and periapsis) are not the same as the four seasonal extreme points, the equinox and solstice (from Earth)
Image 36"Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found, was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
Image 37Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
Image 38A view of Earth with its global ocean and cloud cover, which dominate Earth's surface and hydrosphere; at Earth's polar regions, its hydrosphere forms larger areas of ice cover. (from Earth)
Image 39Peopling of the world, the Southern Dispersal scenario
Image 40Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
Image 41Artist's impression of Earth during the later Archean, the largely cooled planetary crust and water-rich barren surface, marked by volcanoes and continents, features already round microbialites. The Moon, still orbiting Earth much closer than today and still dominating Earth's sky, produced strong tides. (from History of Earth)
Image 42Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
Image 43Ajloun Castle, Jordan
Image 44Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)
Image 45Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
Image 46COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 (from Human history)
Image 47Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (from History of Earth)
Image 48Notre-Dame de Paris, France
Image 49Hagia Sophia, Istanbul – a symbol of Byzantine civilization
Image 50Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
Image 51Pillar erected by Ashoka, a Mauryan Emperor in India
Image 52A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)
Image 53Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
Image 54A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
Image 55Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
Image 56Atomic bombing of Nagasaki, 1945
Image 57Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale. Ma means "million years ago". (from History of Earth)
Image 58Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
Image 59Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
Image 60A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
Image 61Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
Image 62Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut, observing Earth from the Cupola module at the International Space Station on 11 September 2010 (from Earth)
Image 63Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
Image 64Relief of Earth's crust (from Earth)
Image 65A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
Image 66Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
Image 67Scientific worldview. (from World)
Image 68Battle during the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
Image 69Geologic map of North America, color-coded by age. From most recent to oldest, age is indicated by yellow, green, blue, and red. The reds and pinks indicate rock from the Archean.
Image 70A 580 million year old fossil of Spriggina floundensi, an animal from the Ediacaran period. Such life forms could have been ancestors to the many new forms that originated in the Cambrian Explosion. (from History of Earth)
Image 71Pangaea was a supercontinent that existed from about 300 to 180 Ma. The outlines of the modern continents and other landmasses are indicated on this map. (from History of Earth)
Image 72Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
Image 73First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
Image 74Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
Image 75Earth's major plates, which are:
(from Earth)
Image 76Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
Image 77Artist's impression of a Hadean landscape with the relatively newly formed Moon still looming closely over Earth and both bodies sustaining strong volcanism. (from History of Earth)
Image 78James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
Image 79Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
Image 80Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
Image 81A composite image of Earth, with its different types of surface discernible: Earth's surface dominating Ocean (blue), Africa with lush (green) to dry (brown) land and Earth's polar ice in the form of Antarctic sea ice (grey) covering the Antarctic or Southern Ocean and the Antarctic ice sheet (white) covering Antarctica. (from Earth)
Image 82Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
Image 83Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
Image 84Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
Image 85Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
Image 86A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
Image 87Empires of the world in 1898
Image 88Moai, Easter Island (from Human history)

Megacities of the world - show another

Hyderabad (/ˈhaɪdərəbæd/ HY-dər-ə-bad; ISO: Haidarābād, Telugu: [ˈɦaɪ̯daɾaːbaːd] ^ⓘ, Urdu: [ˈɦɛːdəɾaːbaːd]) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies 650 km² (250 sq mi) on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of 542 m (1,778 ft), much of Hyderabad is situated on hilly terrain around artificial lakes, including the Hussain Sagar lake, predating the city's founding, in the north of the city centre. According to the 2011 census of India, Hyderabad is the fourth-most populous city in India with a population of 6.9 million residents within the city limits, and has a population of 9.7 million residents in the metropolitan region, making it the sixth-most populous metropolitan area in India. With an output of US$ 95 billion, Hyderabad has the sixth-largest urban economy in India.

The Qutb Shahi dynasty's Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah established Hyderabad in 1591 to extend the capital beyond the fortified Golconda. In 1687, the city was annexed by the Mughals. In 1724, Asaf Jah I, the Mughal viceroy, declared his sovereignty and founded the Asaf Jahi dynasty, also known as the Nizams. Hyderabad served as the imperial capital of the Asaf Jahis from 1769 to 1948. As capital of the princely state of Hyderabad, the city housed the British Residency and cantonment until Indian independence in 1947. Hyderabad was annexed by the Indian Union in 1948 and continued as a capital of Hyderabad State from 1948 to 1956. After the introduction of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, Hyderabad was made the capital of the newly formed Andhra Pradesh. In 2014, Andhra Pradesh was split to form the state of Telangana, and Hyderabad became the joint capital of the two states with a transitional arrangement scheduled to end in 2024. Since 1956, the city has housed the Rashtrapati Nilayam, the winter office of the president of India. (Full article...)

List of megacities
Bangalore Bangkok Beijing Bogotá Buenos Aires Cairo Chengdu Chennai Chongqing Delhi Dhaka Guangzhou Hangzhou Ho Chi Minh City Istanbul Istanbul Jakarta Karachi Keihanshin Kinshasa Kolkata Lagos Lahore Lima London Los Angeles Manila Mexico City Moscow Mumbai Nagoya New York City Paris Rhine-Ruhr Rio de Janeiro São Paulo Seoul Shanghai Shenzhen Tehran Tianjin Tokyo Xiamen

Did you know - load new batch

... that Carol Wilson had to pretend that she was a schoolteacher when unofficially representing England at the 1971 Women's World Cup?
... that Mark Robinson was a world champion in submission wrestling, sumo and powerlifting?
... that singer Henrietta Loveless performed at the New York World's Fair with the Chocolate Éclair Family?
... that during the 1964 New York World's Fair, police officers used computers at the United States Pavilion to help arrest people?
... that as a result of the Röhm scandal, a Nazi became the world's first openly gay politician in 1932?
... that the tripartite structure of the National War Labor Board helped the United States keep work stoppages to a minimum during World War II?
... that baseball player Joey Marciano is a cousin of world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano?
... that Frederick Murray Trotter had a distinguished career as a field geologist despite losing a part of his skull and an eye to shrapnel during World War I?

Countries of the world - show another

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, on the northeastern corner of the Balkans. The country spans a total of 33,483 km² (12,928 sq mi) and has a population of approximately 2.42 million as of January 2024. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova is a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic with its capital in Chișinău, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

Most of Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Ottoman Empire (to which Moldavia was a vassal state) and became known as Bessarabia. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia to form Romania, but Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Bessarabia briefly became an autonomous state within the Russian Republic. In February 1918, it declared independence and then integrated into Romania later that year following a vote of its assembly. The decision was disputed by Soviet Russia, which in 1924 established, within the Ukrainian SSR, a so-called Moldavian autonomous republic on partially Moldovan-inhabited territories to the east of Bessarabia. In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, leading to the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR). (Full article...)

List of countries

See also: List of sovereign states

Wonders of the World - show another

The Seven Wonders of Portugal (Portuguese: Sete Maravilhas de Portugal) is a list of cultural wonders located in Portugal. The creation of the list was supported by the Ministry of Culture and organized by the companies Y&R Brands S.A. and Realizar S.A.

Initially 793 national monuments of Portugal were listed by Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico (IPPAR) as candidates, however in the first round of selections a board of experts reduced the number to 77. The contenders were further reduced to 21 finalist in four different categories by Conselho de Notáveis at the University of Évora. (Full article...)

List of articles
Wonders of the World Seven Wonders of the Ancient World New7Wonders of the World Seven Wonders of Canada Seven Wonders of Colombia Seven Wonders of Poland Seven Wonders of Romania Seven Wonders of Russia Seven Wonders of Ukraine Seven Wonders of Wales Seven Wonders of the Industrial World Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World 12 Treasures of Spain Eighth Wonder of the World

Related portals

Protected areas of the world - load new batch

Image 1
This is a list of protected areas of Sierra Leone, including national parks, game reserves, conservation areas, wetlands, and those that are listed as proposed protected areas in the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP WCM) database. (Full article...)
Image 2
The Protected areas of New South Wales include both terrestrial and marine protected areas. As of June 2020^[update] there are 225 national parks in New South Wales. A number established since the late 1970s followed campaigns by local residents and environmentalists.

Based on the Collaborative Australian Protected Area Database (CAPAD) 2020 data there are 2136 separate terrestrial protected areas with a total land area of 7,696,641 hectares (19,018,810 acres) (9.61% of the state's area). CAPAD data also shows 18 marine protected areas with a total area of 348,849 hectares (862,020 acres), covering 39.63% of NSW waters. (Full article...)
Image 3
Centre for Nature Education at the Białowieża National Park, Poland

Protected areas of Poland include the following categories, as defined by the Act on Protection of Nature (Polish: Ustawa o ochronie przyrody) of 16 April 2004, by the Polish Parliament: (Full article...)
Image 4
Protected areas of Tamil Nadu cover an area of 3,305 km² (1,276 sq mi), constituting 2.54% of the geographic area and 15% of the 22,643 km² (8,743 sq mi) recorded forest area of the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. It ranks 14th among all the states and union territories of India in terms of total protected area.

Protected areas in South India were created from private hunting grounds of the erstwhile Maharajas of the princely states. Mudumalai National Park was established in 1940 and was the first modern wildlife sanctuary in South India. The protected areas are administered by the Ministry of Environment and Forests of Government of India and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. (Full article...)
Image 5
Vegetation outside Goz Beïda

The wildlife of Chad is composed of its flora and fauna. West African lions, buffalo, hippopotamuses, Kordofan giraffes, antelopes, African leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, Bush elephants, and many species of snakes are found there, although most large carnivore populations have been drastically reduced since the early 20th century. Elephant poaching, particularly in the south of the country in areas such as Zakouma National Park, is a severe problem. (Full article...)
Image 6
Viru bog in Lahemaa National Park

Protected areas in Estonia are national parks, nature reserves and landscape protection areas (nature parks).

Estonia has five national parks, 167 nature reserves and 152 landscape conservation areas. In addition, there are 116 (118) protected areas with an old (Soviet-era) protection regulation and 537 parks. In total, 18.1% of Estonia are protected nature areas, with Lääne County having the highest percentage (32%) and Põlva County the lowest percentage of protected areas, about 9%. (Full article...)
Image 7
The following list of protected areas of British Columbia includes all federally and provincially protected areas within the Canadian province of British Columbia. As of 2015, approximately 15.46% of the province's land area and 3.17% of the province's waters are protected. (Full article...)
Image 8

Canada's National Parks and National Reserves by provinces and territories

This is a list of protected areas of the Northwest Territories. (Full article...)
Image 9
The protected areas of Nepal cover mainly forested land and are located at various altitudes in the Terai, in the foothills of the Himalayas and in the mountains, thus encompassing a multitude of landscapes and preserving a vast biodiversity in the Palearctic and Indomalayan realms.
Nepal covers 147,181 km² (56,827 sq mi) in the central part of the Himalayas. Altitudes range from 67 m (220 ft) in the south-eastern Terai to 8,848 m (29,029 ft) at Mount Everest within a short horizontal span. This extreme altitudinal gradient has resulted in 11 bio-climatic zones ranging from lower tropical below 500 m (1,600 ft) to nival above 5,000 m (16,000 ft) in the High Himalayas, encompassing nine terrestrial ecoregions with 36 vegetation types.

Additionally, nine Ramsar sites were declared between 1988 and 2008. Two wildlife reserves were declared as national parks in 2017. (Full article...)
Image 10
The main protected areas of Croatia are national parks, nature parks and strict reserves. There are 444 protected areas of Croatia, encompassing 9% of the country. Those include 8 national parks in Croatia, 2 strict reserves and 11 nature parks. The most famous protected area and the oldest national park in Croatia is the Plitvice Lakes National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Velebit Nature Park is a part of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. The strict and special reserves, as well as the national and nature parks, are managed and protected by the central government, while other protected areas are managed by counties. In 2005, the National Ecological Network was set up, as the first step in preparation of the EU accession and joining of the Natura 2000 network.

The total area of all national parks in the country is 930 km² (359 sq mi), of which 235 km² (91 sq mi) is sea surface. Each of the national parks is maintained by a separate institution, overseen and funded by the government ministry of nature conservation and spatial development. The State Institute for Nature Protection provides centralized oversight and expertise. (Full article...)
Image 11
Illinois has a variety of protected areas, including over 123 state-protected areas, dozens of federally protected areas, hundreds of county-level and municipal park areas. Illinois also contains sites designated as internationally important protected areas. These multiple levels of protection contribute to a statewide network of numerous recreation opportunities and conservation schemes, sometimes in a small area. For example, DeKalb County contains a 1,000-acre (4.0 km²) forest preserve system and a 1,500-acre (6.1 km²) state park (Shabbona Lake State Park); within DeKalb County, the DeKalb Park District in the City of DeKalb has a 700-acre (2.8 km²) park system. (Full article...)
Image 12
Protected areas of Norway include:
- National parks of Norway
About 17 percent of the mainland of Norway is protected. Of this, ca. 8.3 percent is national parks, 1.3 percent is nature reserves and 4.7 percent otherwise protected. (Full article...)
Image 13

Total size of protected area of Bosnia and Herzegovina amounts of 57.83694 hectares (142.9182 acres), which is 1,13% of its entire territory. This is a list of areas protected by corresponding levels of the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, namely at the entity's levels, and with various categorizations. (Full article...)
Image 14
Protected areas of Canada consist of approximately 12.1 percent of the nation's landmass and freshwater are considered conservation areas, including 11.4 percent designated as protected areas. Approximately 13.8 percent of Canada's territorial waters are conserved, including 8.9 percent designated as protected areas. Terrestrial areas conserved have increased by 65 percent in the 21st century, while marine areas conserved have increased by more than 3,800 percent.

Conservation and protected areas have different mandates depending on the organization which manages them, with some areas having a greater focus on ecological integrity, historical preservation, public usage, scientific research, or a combination of usages. Some areas such as the Polar Bear Pass, are co-managed and overseen by government and local indigenous agencies. (Full article...)
Image 15
A family of Asiatic lions at Gir National Park

The Gujarat state of western India has four National Parks and twenty-three wildlife sanctuaries which are managed by the Forest Department of the Government of Gujarat. (Full article...)

List of protected areas

Selected world maps

Image 1The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
Image 2A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
Image 3Mollweide projection of the world
$Image 4Only a few of the largest large igneous provinces appear (coloured dark purple) on this geological map, which depicts crustal geologic provinces as seen in seismic refraction data$

Image 4Only a few of the largest large igneous provinces appear (coloured dark purple) on this geological map, which depicts crustal geologic provinces as seen in seismic refraction data
Image 5Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
Image 6The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.
Image 71516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller
Image 8United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
Image 9Time zones of the world

See also: Clickable world map • List of map projections

World records

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[WW1-1] Cancelled due to World War I

[WW2-2] Cancelled due to World War II

[COVID2021-3] Postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic

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[b]

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v t e Earth
Continents	Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America
Oceans	Arctic Ocean Atlantic Ocean Indian Ocean Pacific Ocean Southern Ocean
Geology	Age of Earth Geology Earth science Erosion Extremes on Earth Future Geological history time scale Geologic record Geophysics Gravity History of Earth Magnetic field Plate tectonics Structure
Atmosphere	Atmosphere of Earth Climate Global warming Weather
Environment	Biome Biosphere Ecology Ecosystem Human impact on the environment Evolutionary history of life Nature
Cartography	Digital mapping Satellite imagery Virtual globe World map
Culture and society	List of sovereign states dependent territories In culture Earth Day World economy Etymology World history Time zones World
Planetary science	Earth's orbit Evolution of Solar System Geology of solar terrestrial planets Location in the Universe The Moon Solar System
Outline of Earth

v t e World's largest cities
City proper	Capitals Americas (North Latin Central South) Asia (Arab world ASEAN Arabia East, South and Southeast Asia) Europe (European Union Nordic)
Metropolitan area	Americas (North South West Indies) Europe (European Union Nordic) Asia Africa Middle East
Urban area/agglomeration	Asia Africa Europe European Union Nordic North America Oceania Transborder
Historical	World Europe
Related articles	Arcology Ecumenopolis Global city Megacity Megalopolis Conurbation Satellite city population Primate city Secondary city

v t e Lists of World Heritage Sites
Locations	Africa Americas North America Central America Caribbean South America Asia Eastern Northern and Central Southeast Southern Western Europe Eastern Northern Southern Western Oceania
Related	World Heritage in Danger Former sites By country By year of inscription

v t e Carnival around the world
Asia	Indonesia Solo Jember Jakarta
Europe	Austria Belgium Aalst Binche Croatia Denmark England France Nice Paris Belarus, Russia, Ukraine Germany Cologne Mainz Greece Hungary Italy Venice Viareggio Ivrea Lithuania Malta Netherlands Portugal Madeira Ovar Spain Cádiz Las Palmas Santa Cruz Switzerland Basel Turkey
North America	Canada Ottawa Quebec City Toronto México United States Mobile New Orleans New York City
Caribbean	Antigua Bahamas Barbados Cayman Islands Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Haiti Nevis Puerto Rico (Ponce) Trinidad and Tobago
South America	Argentina Buenos Aires Murga Bolivia Oruro Brazil Bahia Rio Colombia Barranquilla Negros y Blancos French Guiana Cayenne Guyana Uruguay
Oceania	Australia

v t e World Sailing
World championships in sailing Sailing at the Summer Olympics Sailing at the Summer Paralympics Sailing at the Youth Olympic Games
Confederations	ASF ASCON EUROSAF OSAF SASC
World Championships	Sailing World Championships Youth Sailing World Championships ISAF Offshore Team Racing World Championship ISAF Open Match Racing World Championship Para World Sailing Championships ISAF Team Racing World Championship Women's Match Racing World Championship eSailing World Championship
World Cup	Sailing World Cup
Special events	America's Cup Extreme Sailing Series PWA World Tour Star Sailors League Vendée Globe Volvo Ocean Race World Match Racing Tour
Presidents	Sir Ralph Gore (1946–1955) Sir Peter Scott (1955–1969) Beppe Croce (1969–1986) Peter Tallberg (1986–1994) Paul Henderson (1994–2004) Göran Petersson (2004–2012) Carlo Croce (2012–2016) Kim Andersen (2016–2020) Quanhai Li (2020-present)
Awards	World Sailor of the Year ISAF Sailing Hall of Fame Beppe Croce Trophy