Portal:World

The World Portal

The world 

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

In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. 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 many 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, on the other hand, 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 commonly 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 often 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 commonly 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 or 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...)

Selected articles -

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  The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and reports to that body and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). UNCTAD is composed of 195 member states and works with nongovernmental organizations worldwide; its permanent secretariat is in Geneva, Switzerland.
  
  The primary objective of UNCTAD is to formulate policies relating to all aspects of development, including trade, aid, transport, finance and technology. It was created in response to concerns among developing countries that existing international institutions like GATT (now replaced by the World Trade Organization), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank were not properly organized to handle the particular problems of developing countries; UNCTAD would provide a forum where developing nations could discuss and address problems relating to their economic development. (Full article...)
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  The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities in all jurisdictions are classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the cities proper, the extent of their urban area, or their metropolitan regions. (Full article...)
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  World population growth from 10,000 BCE to 2021

  
  In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach one billion and only 219 years more to reach 8 billion.
  
  The human population experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000. The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975, peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate declined to 1.1% between 2015 and 2020 and is projected to decline further in the 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates. The UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs projects between 9 and 10 billion people by 2050 and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12 billion by the end of the 21st century, with a growth rate by then of zero. Other demographers predict that the human population will begin to decline in the second half of the 21st century. (Full article...)
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  The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; French: Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Currently in its 77th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The UNGA is responsible for the UN budget, appointing the non-permanent members to the Security Council, appointing the UN secretary-general, receiving reports from other parts of the UN system, and making recommendations through resolutions. It also establishes numerous to advance or assist in its broad mandate. The UNGA is the only UN organ where all member states have equal representation.
  
  The General Assembly meets under its President or the UN secretary-general in annual sessions at the General Assembly Building, within the UN headquarters in New York City. The main part of these meetings generally runs from September through part of January until all issues are addressed, which is often before the next session starts. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and included representatives of the 51 founding nations. (Full article...)
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  The Blue Marble, taken by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972.

  
  
  The Blue Marble is a photograph of Earth taken on December 7, 1972, from a distance of around 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) from the planet's surface. Taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the Moon, it is one of the most reproduced images in history.
  
  It mainly shows Earth from the Mediterranean Sea to Antarctica. This was the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap, despite the Southern Hemisphere being heavily covered in clouds. In addition to the Arabian Peninsula and Madagascar, almost the entire coastline of Africa and most of the Indian Ocean are clearly visible, a cyclone in the Indian Ocean is also visible, the South Asian mainland is on the eastern limb. (Full article...)
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  The reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States (1776). The Latin phrase "novus ordo seclorum", appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the U.S. one-dollar bill since 1935, translates to "New Order of the Ages" and alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States of America is an independent nation-state; conspiracy theorists claim this is an allusion to the "New World Order".

  
  
  The New World Order (NWO) is a conspiracy theory that hypothesizes a secretly emerging totalitarian world government.
  
  The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian one-world government—which will replace sovereign nation-states—and an all-encompassing propaganda whose ideology hails the establishment of the New World Order as the culmination of history's progress. Many influential historical and contemporary figures have therefore been alleged to be part of a cabal that operates through many front organizations to orchestrate significant political and financial events, ranging from causing systemic crises to pushing through controversial policies, at both national and international levels, as steps in an ongoing plot to achieve world domination. (Full article...)
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  This article lists the world's busiest container ports (ports with container terminals that specialize in handling goods transported in intermodal shipping containers), by total number of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) transported through the port. The table lists volume in thousands of TEU per year. The vast majority of containers moved by large, ocean-faring container ships, are 20-foot (1 TEU), and 40-foot (2 TEU) ISO-standard shipping containers, with 40-foot units outnumbering 20-foot units to such an extent, that the actual number of containers moved is between 55%–60% of the number of TEUs counted. (Full article...)

General images -

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

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  A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)

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  Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt (from Human history)

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  Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico (from Human history)

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  Earth's rotation imaged by Deep Space Climate Observatory, showing axis tilt (from Earth)

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  Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE (from Human history)

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  Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola module of the International Space Station observing the Earth below (from Earth)

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  1570 world map, showing Europeans' discoveries (from Human history)

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  Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years from now (from Earth)

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  Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972) (from Human history)

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  A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)

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  University of Timbuktu, Mali (from Human history)

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  Artist's impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk, out of which Earth and other Solar System bodies formed (from Earth)

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  Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)

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  World population, from 10,000 BCE to 2000 CE, with projection to 2100 CE (from Human history)

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  Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)

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  Crusader Krak des Chevaliers, Syria (from Human history)

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  Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)

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  Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)

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  Monumental Cuneiform inscription, Sumer, Mesopotamia, 26th century BCE (from Human history)

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  Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)

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  Astronaut Bruce McCandless II outside of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984 (from History of Earth)

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  Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)

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  Cave painting, Lascaux, France, c. 15,000 BCE (from Human history)

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  Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)

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  Approximately 70.8% of Earth's surface is ocean water, the remaining 29.2% is land. At the polar regions, Earth's ocean and land surface is mostly covered by ice, as depicted in this composite image of the Antarctic sea ice cover over the Southern Ocean (in grey) and Antarctica (in white). (from Earth)

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  Gutenberg Bible, c. 1450, produced using movable type (from Human history)

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  Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)

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  Atomic bombings: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 1945 (from Human history)

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  Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China (from Human history)

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  A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)

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  St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City (from Human history)

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  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 much closer than today, producing strong tides. (from Earth)

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  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)

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  In other contexts, the term world can also refer to the Earth, as seen in this 1972 photograph by the Apollo 17 crew. (from World)

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  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)

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  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.

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  Relief of Earth's crust. (from Earth)

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  Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)

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  Venus figurine, Hohle Fels, Germany, c. 40,000-35,000 BCE (from Human history)

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  Schematic of Earth's magnetosphere, with the solar wind flows from left to right (from Earth)

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  Topographic view of Earth relative to Earth's center (instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps) (from Earth)

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  Battle during 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan (from Human history)

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  Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)

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  Artist'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)

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  World War I trench warfare (from Human history)

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  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)

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  China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century (Shanghai pictured). (from Human history)

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  Empires of the world in 1898 (from Human history)

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  Civilians (here, Mỹ Lai, Vietnam, 1968) suffered greatly in 20th-century wars. (from Human history)

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  Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India (from Human history)

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  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)

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  Overview map of the peopling of the world by early humans during the Upper Paleolithic, following the Southern Dispersal paradigm. Labels are in thousands of years ago. (from Human history)

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  A pillar from Göbekli Tepe (from Human history)

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  A view of Earth with its global ocean and cloud cover, which dominate Earth's surface and hydrosphere. At Earth's polar regions Earth's hydrosphere forms larger areas of ice cover. (from Earth)

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  Earth's atmosphere as it appears from space, as bands of different colours at the horizon. From the bottom, afterglow illuminates the troposphere in orange with silhouettes of clouds, and the stratosphere in white and blue. Next the mesosphere (pink area) extends to just below the edge of space at one hundred kilometers and the pink line of airglow of the lower thermosphere (invisible), which hosts green and red aurorae over several hundred kilometers. (from Earth)

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  Moai, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) (from Human history)

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  Reconstruction of Lucy, the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found (from Human history)

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  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)

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  Global map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)

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  Pillar erected by India's Maurya Emperor Ashoka (from Human history)

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  An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)

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  James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution. (from Human history)

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  The first aeroplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903. (from Human history)

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  Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (from History of Earth)

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  Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru (from Human history)

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  The Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century AD (from Human history)

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  Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE (from Human history)

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  The Pantheon in Rome, Italy, originally a Roman temple, now a Catholic church (from Human history)

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  Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India (from Human history)

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  Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)

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  Earth's land use for human agriculture (from Earth)

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  Earth–Moon system seen from Mars (from Earth)

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  A brass "Benin Bronze" from Nigeria (from Human history)

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  Pale orange dot artist's impression of the early Earth tinted orange by its methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)

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  Earth's major plates, which are:

  •   Pacific Plate
  •   African Plate
  •   North American Plate
  •   Eurasian Plate
  •   Antarctic Plate
  •   Indo-Australian Plate
  •   South American Plate

  (from Earth)
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  Yggdrasil, a modern attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)

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  A view of Earth with different layers of its atmosphere visible: the troposphere with its shadows casting clouds and a band of stratospheric blue sky at the horizon, and above this a line of green airglow of the lower thermosphere around an altitude of 100 km, at the edge of space. (from Earth)

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  A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)

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  An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)

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  Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)

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  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)

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  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)

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  The 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)

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  Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia (from Human history)

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  Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia, early 12th century (from Human history)

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  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)

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  Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, is among the most recognizable symbols of the Byzantine civilization. (from Human history)

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  Notre-Dame de Paris in Paris, France: is among the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of Christendom. (from Human history)

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  Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)

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  Olmec colossal head from La Venta (from Human history)

Megacities of the world -

Tokyo (/ˈtoʊkioʊ/; Japanese: 東京, Tōkyō, [toːkʲoː] (listen)), officially the Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to), is the capital and most populous city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area (13,452 square kilometers or 5,194 square miles) is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 million residents ; the city proper has a population of 13.99 million people. Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, the prefecture forms part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and is the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan.

Originally a fishing village named Edo, the city became politically prominent in 1603, when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. By the mid-18th century, Edo was one of the most populous cities in the world with a population of over one million people. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, which was renamed "Tokyo" (lit. 'Eastern Capital'). Tokyo was devastated by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, and again by Allied bombing raids during World War II. Beginning in the 1950s, the city underwent rapid reconstruction and expansion efforts, going on to lead the Japanese economic miracle. Since 1943, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has administered the prefecture's 23 special wards (formerly Tokyo City), various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area, and two outlying island chains known as the Tokyo Islands. (Full article...)

Did you know -

• ... that the Red Cross Diamond is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world; and it was donated to help the British Red Cross Society during World War I?
• ... that during World War II, 150,000 carillon bells were stored in "bell cemeteries" (German: Glockenfriedhöfe) before being melted down to make shell casings and armaments?
• ... that the play-by-mail game Hyborian War, which began in 1985, allows players to fight battles with mammoths, undead infantry, and mounted flying reptiles in the world of Conan the Barbarian?
• ... that in a 2020 speech, U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo said that Hollywood self-censors when it comes to China?
• ... that Pulaski's Masterpiece, billed as the "world's most valuable dog", disappeared without a trace in 1953?
• ... that the 51st Defense Battalion, formed during World War II, was the first African-American unit in the United States Marine Corps?
• ... that the Marri rose in rebellion in Balochistan in 1918 because they heard rumours of British defeats in the First World War?
• ... that the world's richest self-made woman, Zhong Huijuan, started out as a middle-school chemistry teacher?

Countries of the world -

Costa Rica (UK: /ˌkɒstə ˈriːkə/, US: /ˌkoʊstə/ (listen); Spanish: [ˈkosta ˈrika]; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million0 in a land area of 51,060 km² (19,710 sq mi). An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.

The sovereign state is a unitary presidential constitutional republic. It has a long-standing and stable democracy and a highly educated workforce. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign manufacturing and services companies operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives. (Full article...)

Wonders of the World -

The Seven Wonders of Canada was a 2007 competition sponsored by CBC Television's The National and CBC Radio One's Sounds Like Canada. They sought to determine Canada's "seven wonders" by receiving nominations from viewers, and then from on-line voting of the short list. After the vote, a panel of judges, Ra McGuire, Roy MacGregor and Roberta L. Jamieson, picked the winners based on geographic and poetic criteria. Their seven picks were revealed on The National on June 7, 2007. The Seven Wonders as chosen by Canada were the Sleeping Giant, Niagara Falls, the Bay of Fundy, Nahanni National Park Reserve, the Northern Lights, the Rockies, and the Cabot Trail. (Full article...)

Related portals

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Protected areas of the world -

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  As of present, there are around 400 protected areas in Pakistan that are recognized by IUCN. The total protected land area represents 13% of Pakistan's landmass as of 2020, The Government of Pakistan plans to increase it to at least 15% by 2023. (Full article...)
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  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...)
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  Canada's National Parks and National Reserves by provinces and territories

  
  This is a list of protected areas of Yukon. The Yukon, formerly called Yukon Territory and sometimes referred to as just Yukon is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 35,874 people as of the 2016 Census. (Full article...)
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  Illinois has a variety of protected areas, including 123 state protected areas - state parks, wildlife areas, recreation areas, nature reserves, and state forests. There are also federal and local level protected areas in the state. These levels interact to provide a variety of recreation opportunities and conservation schemes, sometimes in a small area. For instance, 1,500-acre (6.1 km²) Shabbona Lake State Park lies in DeKalb County which has its own 1,000-acre (4.0 km²) forest preserve system, while the City of DeKalb has a 700-acre (2.8 km²) park system.
  
  One UNESCO World Heritage Site in Illinois, Cahokia, is protected as State owned historic site. There are also two listings within the The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright World Heritage Site. (Full article...)
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  Protected areas of Tasmania consist of protected areas located within Tasmania and its immediate onshore waters, including Macquarie Island. It includes areas of crown land (withheld land) managed by Tasmanian Government agencies as well as private reserves. As of 2016, 52% of Tasmania's land area has some form of reservation classification, the majority is managed by the Tasmania Parks & Wildlife Service (about 42% of total Tasmanian land area). Marine protected areas cover about 7.9% of state waters.
  
  Within each classification of reserve there may be a variation of IUCN categories Australia is a signatory to the Convention of Biological Diversity and as such has obligations to report the status of its National Reserve System.IUCN provides on its website a prescription for activities consistent with the categorisation system. Changes made to the Nature Conservation Act 2002 in 2014 permit timber harvesting. These changes made in addition to the already established right to access minerals means that many of the IUCN categorisations assigned to individual reserves in Tasmania are no longer fit for purpose. In addition many reserves have had their reserve status downgraded from a class excluding timber harvesting and mineral extraction to ones where these activities are now permitted. This mis-application of the IUCN protected area categories needs to be remedied or the reserves protected land class under the Nature Conservation Act 2002 should be adjusted to reflect its currently assigned IUCN category. (Full article...)
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  Protected areas of Estonia are regulated by the Nature Conservation Act (Estonian: Looduskaitseseadus), which was passed by the Estonian parliament on April 21, 2004 and entered into force May 10, 2004.
  Overall Estonia has 15403 Protected Areas covering 21.21% of the country land and 18.78% of it marine and coastal territory. (Full article...)
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  Tijuca Forest National Park

  
  Protected areas of Brazil included various classes of area according to the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC), a formal, unified system for federal, state and municipal parks created in 2000. (Full article...)
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  Protected areas of Ukraine (Ukrainian: охоронні території) are special areas of Ukraine established with the goal of protecting the natural and cultural heritage of the country from excessive changes as a result of human activity. The protection of the areas is the responsibility of the government of Ukraine, specifically the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
  
  Ukraine has several categories of protected areas of Ukraine and the protected areas include: (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...)
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  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. Botanists recorded 1,120 species of non-flowering plants and 5,160 species of flowering plants. Nepal ranks 10th in terms of richest flowering plant diversity in Asia. Zoologists recorded 181 mammal species, 844 bird species, 100 reptile species, 43 amphibian species, 185 freshwater fish species, and 635 butterfly species. In recognition of the magnitude of biodiversity the Government of Nepal has established a network of 20 protected areas since 1973, consisting of ten national parks, three wildlife reserves, six conservation areas and one hunting reserve.
  
  Additionally, nine Ramsar sites were declared between 1988 and 2008.
  Two wildlife reserves were declared as national parks in 2017. (Full article...)
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  A list of protected areas of Oman:
  

  • Ad Dimaniyat Islands
  • Al Saleel National Park
    
    
  • Arabian Oryx Sanctuary
  • Jabal Samhan Nature Reserve
    
  • Ra's Al Hadd Turtle Reserve
  • Khawrs of the Salalah Coast Reserve

  (Full article...)
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  Canada's National Parks and National Reserves by provinces and territories

  
  This is a list of protected areas of Nunavut. (Full article...)
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  Protected areas of Eswatini include any geographical area protected for a specific use inside the landlocked country of Eswatini, in southern Africa.
  
  Within Eswatini there is a mix of national, private and community-owned protected areas. They include national parks, nature reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and game reserves. (Full article...)
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  Cape Spencer Lighthouse, Innes National Park

  
  Protected areas of South Australia consists of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of March 2018, South Australia contains 359 separate protected areas declared under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972, the Crown Land Management Act 2009 and the Wilderness Protection Act 1992 which have a total land area of 211,387.48 km² (81,617.16 sq mi) or 21.5% of the state's area. (Full article...)
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  Papua New Guinea is home to several protected areas, which receive protection because of their environmental, cultural or similar value.
  
  The total area of Papua New Guinea protected territories is 14,330 km² (5,530 sq mi), which amounts to approximately 3.07% of the country's territory. The total number of protected areas as 2018 is 71. (Full article...)

Selected world maps

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  Mollweide projection of the world

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  The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.

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  United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)

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  1516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller

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  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

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  Time zones of the world

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  Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)

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  A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles

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  The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection

World records

• List of Olympic records in athletics
• List of world records in athletics
• List of junior world records in athletics
• List of world records in masters athletics
• List of world youth bests in athletics
• List of IPC world records in athletics
• List of world records in canoeing
• List of world records in chess
• List of cycling records
• List of world records in track cycling
• List of world records in finswimming
• List of world records in juggling
• List of world records in rowing
• List of world records in speed skating
• List of world records in swimming
• List of IPC world records in swimming
• List of world records in Olympic weightlifting

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