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 "[t]he 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.
Internationalism is a political principle that advocates greater political or economic cooperation among states and nations. It is associated with other political movements and ideologies, but can also reflect a doctrine, belief system, or movement in itself.
Supporters of internationalism are known as internationalists and generally believe that humans should unite across national, political, cultural, racial, or class boundaries to advance their common interests, or that governments should cooperate because their mutual long-term interests are of greater importance than their short-term disputes. (Full article...)
Once allies during World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became competitors on the world stage and engaged in the Cold War, so called because it never resulted in overt, declared total war between the two powers. It was instead characterized by espionage, political subversion and proxy wars. Western Europe and Asia were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan, whereas Central and Eastern Europe fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and eventually behind an "Iron Curtain". Europe was divided into a US-led Western Bloc and a USSR-led Eastern Bloc. Internationally, alliances with the two blocs gradually shifted, with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement. The war also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers; part of the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a mutually assured destruction standoff. (Full article...)
A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact, or exchange of letters, among other terms. However, only documents that are legally binding on the parties are considered treaties under international law. Treaties vary in their obligations (the extent to which states are bound to the rules), precision (the extent to which the rules are unambiguous), and delegation (the extent to which third parties have authority to interpret, apply and make rules). (Full article...)
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A global issue is a matter of public concern worldwide. This list of global issues presents problems or phenomena affecting people around the world, including but not limited to widespread social issues, economic issues, and environmental issues. Organizations that maintain or have published an official list of global issues include the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum. (Full article...)
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The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They were created with the aim of "peace and prosperity for people and the planet..." – while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests. The SDGs highlight the connections between the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development. Sustainability is at the center of the SDGs.
A research published in 2024 predicted SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) scores of global regions until 2040 using machine learning models . The forecast results for 2030 show that “OECD countries” (80) (with a 2.8% change) and “Eastern Europe and Central Asia” (74) (with a 2.37% change) are expected to achieve the highest SDG scores. “Latin America and the Caribbean” (73) (with a 4.17% change), “East and South Asia” (69) (with a 2.64% change), “Middle East and North Africa” (68) (with a 2.32% change), and “Sub-Saharan Africa” (56) (with a 7.2% change) will display lower levels of SDG achievement, respectively . (Full article...)
Image 2Exaggerated 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 5Pangaea 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 6Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
Image 11Earth'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 12Change 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 13Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
Image 16A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
Image 17Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
Image 18A 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 29Artist'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 40First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
Image 41Geologic 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 44Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
Image 45Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
Image 46Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
Image 49A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
Image 50An 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 51An 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 52Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years from now (from Earth)
Image 62Artist'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 roundmicrobialites. The Moon, still orbiting Earth much closer than today and still dominating Earth's sky, produced strong tides. (from History of Earth)
Image 64A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
Image 65An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Image 66Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
Image 67Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
Image 68Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
Image 69Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
Image 70Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
Image 82The 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)
Chengdu is in central Sichuan. The surrounding Chengdu Plain is known as the "Country of Heaven" and the "Land of Abundance." Its prehistoric settlers included the Sanxingdui culture. The site of Dujiangyan, an ancient irrigation system, is designated as a World Heritage Site. The Jin River flows through the city. Chengdu's culture largely reflects that of its province, Sichuan; in 2011, it was recognized by UNESCO as a city of gastronomy. It is associated with the giant panda, a Chinese national symbol, which inhabits the area of Sichuan; the city is home to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. (Full article...)
... that at the time of its construction in 1920, the Howard Theatre in Atlanta was the second-largest movie theater in the world, with a seating capacity of 2,700?
... that undercover journalists at the Greenpeace publication Unearthed tricked an ExxonMobil lobbyist into revealing the company's agenda by posing as job recruiters?
... that the archaeologist Alan Wace worked undercover for British intelligence during both world wars?
... that "Look at the world" is a 1996 choral harvest anthem with text and music by John Rutter, written for CPRE "on the theme of the environment and our responsibility towards it"?
... that the title page of Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum shows an eagle atop a globe flanked by serpents, which symbolizes worldly triumph?
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma (the official name until 1989), is a country in Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by Bangladesh and India to its northwest, China to its northeast, Laos and Thailand to its east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to its south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, and its largest city is Yangon (formerly Rangoon).
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...)
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Rano Kau, Parque National Rapa Nui, Easter Island The protected areas of Chile are areas that have natural beauty or significant historical value protected by the government of Chile. These protected areas cover over 140,000 km2 (54,054 sq mi), which is 19% of the territory of Chile. The National System of Protected Wild Areas (SNASPE by its Spanish acronym) is regulated by law #18,362 passed in 1984, and administered by the National Forest Corporation (CONAF).
Protected areas in Tanzania (Hifahdi za Mali hai za Tanzania, in Swahili) are extremely varied, ranging from sea habitats over grasslands to the top of the Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. About a third of the country's total area is protected to a certain degree as a national park, game reserve, marine park, forest reserve or the like. 840 protected areas are spread across 7,330 km2 of ocean and 361,594 km2 of land in Tanzania. The coastal and marine areas are less protected than terrestrial ecosystems, which are given the highest level of protection. Tanzania is one of the world's major biodiversity hotspots thanks to its vast national parks, "the Eastern Arc" mountains, wetlands, coastal forests, marine, and freshwater systems as remarkable reservoirs of plant and animal species. A wide range of endemic species of birds, reptiles, snakes, amphibians, wild coffee variations, and the well-known African violet flower can also be found in Tanzania. (Full article...)
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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 994 km2 (384 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...)
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Map of protected areas of the Czech Republic: national parks (grey) and protected landscape areas (green) There are several types of protected areas of the Czech Republic. The main form of landscape protection is delimitation of special protected areas. All the types of protected areas are determined by law. (Full article...)
A total of 8 forms of protected area are recognized under the Cambodian Protected Area Law of 2008. These are: (Full article...)
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Redwood grove in Redwood National Park According to the California Protected Areas Database (CPAD), in the state of California, United States, there are over 14,000 inventoried protected areas administered by public agencies and non-profits. In addition, there are private conservation areas and other easements. They include almost one-third of California's scenic coastline, including coastal wetlands, estuaries, beaches, and dune systems. The California State Parks system alone has 270 units and covers 1.3 million acres (5,300 km2), with over 280 miles (450 km) of coastline, 625 miles (1,006 km) of lake and river frontage, nearly 18,000 campsites, and 3,000 miles (5,000 km) of hiking, biking, and equestrian trails.
Obtaining an accurate total of all protected land in California and elsewhere is a complex task. Many parcels have inholdings, private lands within the protected areas, which may or may not be accounted for when calculating total area. Also, occasionally one parcel of land is included in two or more inventories. Over 90% of Yosemite National Park for example, is listed both as wilderness by the National Wilderness Preservation System, and as national park land by the National Park Service. The Cosumnes River Preserve is an extreme example, owned and managed by a handful of public agencies and private landowners, including the Bureau of Land Management, the County of Sacramento and The Nature Conservancy. Despite the difficulties, the CPAD gives the total area of protected land at 49,294,000 acres (199,490 km2), or 47.05% of the state (not including easements); a considerable amount for the most populous state in the country. (Full article...)
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone The protected areas of the United States are managed by an array of different federal, state, tribal and local level authorities and receive widely varying levels of protection. Some areas are managed as wilderness, while others are operated with acceptable commercial exploitation. , the 42,826 protected areas covered 1,235,486 km2 (477,024 sq mi), or 13 percent of the land area of the United States. This is also one-tenth of the protected land area of the world. The U.S. also had a total of 871 National Marine Protected Areas, covering an additional 1,240,000 sq mi (3,200,000 km2), or 26 percent of the total marine area of the United States. (Full article...)
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Part of the Brecon Beacons National Park, looking from the highest point of Pen y Fan (886 m/2907 feet) to Cribyn (795 m/2608 feet). Protected areas of the United Kingdom are areas in the United Kingdom which need and /or receive protection because of their environmental, historical or cultural value to the nation. Methods and aims of protection vary depending on the nature and importance of the resource. Protection operates at local, regional, national and international levels, and may be backed by legislation and international treaty, or less formally by planning policy.
Within the United Kingdom, different approaches are taken to some forms of protection within the constituent countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while other forms of protection are more consistent across the UK. Protected areas can be divided according to the type of resource which each seeks to protect. Primarily, these are: scenic or landscape value; biodiversity value (species and habitats); geodiversity value (relating to geology and geomorphology); and cultural or historic value. Several types of protected areas are focused on more than one of these areas. (Full article...)
Image 2A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
Image 3Only 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
Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
Pangaea 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)
Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)
Earth'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)
Change in average surface air temperature and drivers for that change. Human activity has caused increased temperatures, with natural forces adding some variability. (from Earth)
Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
A 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)
A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)
Lithified 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)
View of Earth from the Moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
Artist'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)
Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
Peopling of the world, the Southern Dispersal scenario
Notre-Dame de Paris, France
Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (from History of Earth)
A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
Geologic 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.
Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)
A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
An 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)
An 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)
A 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)
A 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)
Empires of the world in 1898
Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
A 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)
"Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found, was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
Ajloun Castle, Jordan
Battle during the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)
The 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)
A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
A 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)
Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut, observing Earth from the Cupola module at the International Space Station on 11 September 2010 (from Earth)
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United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
Only 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
Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.
1516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller
Time zones of the world
Mollweide projection of the world
The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
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