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.
The World Heritage emblem, used to identify properties protected by the World Heritage ConventionWorld Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection by an international convention administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity".To be selected, a World Heritage Site is nominated by their host country and determined by the international committee to be a unique landmark which is geographically and historically identifiable and having a special cultural or physical significance. For example, World Heritage Sites might be ancient ruins or historical structures, buildings, cities, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, monuments, mountains or wilderness areas. (Full article...)
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World map of countries and territories by HDI scores in increments of 0.050 (based on 2022 data, published in 2024)
≥ 0.950
0.900–0.950
0.850–0.899
0.800–0.849
0.750–0.799
0.700–0.749
0.650–0.699
0.600–0.649
0.550–0.599
0.500–0.549
0.450–0.499
0.400–0.449
≤ 0.399
Data unavailable
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, which is used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher level of HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.
The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for this inequality), while the HDI can be viewed as an index of "potential" human development (or the maximum level of HDI) that could be achieved if there was no inequality." (Full article...)
Earth has a dynamic atmosphere, which sustains Earth's surface conditions and protects it from most meteoroids and UV-light at entry. It has a composition of primarily nitrogen and oxygen. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere, forming clouds that cover most of the planet. The water vapor acts as a greenhouse gas and, together with other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), creates the conditions for both liquid surface water and water vapor to persist via the capturing of energy from the Sun's light. This process maintains the current average surface temperature of 14.76 °C (58.57 °F), at which water is liquid under normal atmospheric pressure. Differences in the amount of captured energy between geographic regions (as with the equatorial region receiving more sunlight than the polar regions) drive atmospheric and ocean currents, producing a global climate system with different climate regions, and a range of weather phenomena such as precipitation, allowing components such as nitrogen to cycle. (Full article...)
The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid scientific discovery, standardisation, mass production and industrialisation from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. The First Industrial Revolution, which ended in the middle of the 19th century, was punctuated by a slowdown in important inventions before the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870. Though a number of its events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the establishment of a machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing interchangeable parts, as well as the invention of the Bessemer process and open hearth furnace to produce steel, later developments harkened the Second Industrial Revolution, which is generally dated between 1870 and 1914 (the beginning of World War I).
Advancements in manufacturing and production technology enabled the widespread adoption of technological systems such as telegraph and railroad networks, gas and water supply, and sewage systems, which had earlier been limited to a few select cities. The enormous expansion of rail and telegraph lines after 1870 allowed unprecedented movement of people and ideas, which culminated in a new wave of globalization. In the same time period, new technological systems were introduced, most significantly electrical power and telephones. The Second Industrial Revolution continued into the 20th century with early factory electrification and the production line; it ended at the beginning of World War I. (Full article...)
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Poster advertising the Brussels International Exposition in 1897 A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a period of time, typically between three and six months.
The term "world's fair" is commonly used in the United States, while the French term, Exposition universelle ("universal exhibition") is used in most of Europe and Asia; other terms include World Expo or Specialised Expo, with the word expo used for various types of exhibitions since at least 1958. (Full article...)
Image 6
The Arab world (Arabic: اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّal-ʿālam al-ʿarabī), formally the Arab homeland (اَلْوَطَنُ الْعَرَبِيُّal-waṭan al-ʿarabī), also known as the Arab nation (اَلْأُمَّةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُal-ummah al-ʿarabīyyah), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in Western Asia and Northern Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
The Arab world is at its minimum defined as the 19 states where Arabs form at least a plurality of the population. At its maximum it consists of the 22 members of the Arab League, an international organization, which on top of the 19 plurality Arab states also includes the Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia. The region stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the southeast. The eastern part of the Arab world is known as the Mashriq, and the western part as the Maghreb. (Full article...)
Image 7
Global change in broad sense refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. It is most commonly used to encompass the variety of changes connected to the rapid increase in human activities which started around mid-20th century, i.e., the Great Acceleration. While the concept stems from research on the climate change, it is used to adopt a more holistic view of the observed changes. Global change refers to the changes of the Earth system, treated in its entirety with interacting physicochemical and biological components as well as the impact human societies have on the components and vice versa. Therefore, the changes are studied through means of Earth system science. (Full article...)
The following are images from various world-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Geologic 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 3An 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 4A 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 5Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
Image 6Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
Image 8The 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 9Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
Image 11Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
Image 12An 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 20Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
Image 22Earth'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 41A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
Image 43Pangaea 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 44A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
Image 61Artist'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 62A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
Image 63Change 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 68Artist'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 75Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
Image 77Exaggerated 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 78Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
Image 79Pillar erected by India's Maurya Emperor Ashoka
Image 80An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Image 81Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
The city's history dates back to around 890, as per the old Kannada stone inscription found at the Nageshwara Temple in Begur, Bangalore. In 1537, Kempé Gowdā, a feudal ruler under the Vijayanagara Empire, established a mud fort, considered the foundation of modern Bangalore and its oldest areas, or pétés, which still exist. After the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire, Kempe Gowda declared independence; in 1638, a large Adil Shahi Bijapur army defeated Kempe Gowda III, and Bangalore came under Shahaji Bhonsle as a jagir, which later became his capital. The Mughals later captured Bangalore and sold it to MaharajaDevaraja Wodeyar II of the Kingdom of Mysore. When Haider Ali seized control of the kingdom, Bangalore's administration passed into his hands. (Full article...)
... that the 1917 Leeds Convention in Britain passed resolutions calling for the end of the First World War and praising the February Revolution in Russia?
... that the 2015 video game Worlds of Magic, intended as a spiritual successor to the classic game Master of Magic, failed to impress most reviewers?
... that from 1912, Jindřiška Flajšhansová was the principal editor of Ženské listy, a Czech journal that became a women's "survival manual" during World War I?
... that Jane Dempsey Douglass became the first woman to head a worldwide communion of churches in 1990?
... 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?
Kyrgyzstan's history spans a variety of cultures and empires. Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous terrain, Kyrgyzstan has been at the crossroads of several great civilizations as part of the Silk Road along with other commercial routes. Inhabited by a succession of tribes and clans, Kyrgyzstan has periodically fallen under larger domination, for example the Turkicnomads, who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states. It was first established as the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate. Later, in the 13th century, Kyrgyzstan was conquered by the Mongols; it regained independence, but was later invaded by the Dzungar Khanate. After the fall of Dzhungars, Kyrgyz and Kipchaks were an integral part of Kokand Khanate. In 1876, Kyrgyzstan became part of the Russian Empire, and in 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was formed to become a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Following Mikhail Gorbachev's democratic reforms in the USSR, in 1990 pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president. On 31 August 1991, Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the USSR and a democratic government was established. Kyrgyzstan attained sovereignty as a nation state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. (Full article...)
The 12 Treasures of Spain (Spanish: 12 Tesoros de España) was a project that selected the purported "Twelve Treasures of the Kingdom of Spain". The contest was conducted by broadcasters Antena 3 and COPE. The final results were announced on 31 December 2007. Nine architectural monuments, two natural monuments and a monument pictorial were chosen. (Full article...)
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.
In the Philippines, Protected Areas are administered by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)'s Biodiversity Management Bureau under the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992. As of 2020, there are 244 Protected Areas in the Philippines covering a total area of about 7,760,000 hectares (19,200,000 acres) – 15.4% of the Philippines' total area. (Full article...)
There are four categories of protected areas in India, constituted under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Tiger reserves consist of areas under national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. There are 53 tiger reserves in India. the protected areas of India cover 173,629.52 square kilometres (67,038.73 sq mi), roughly 5.28% of the total geographical area of the country. (Full article...)
The Protected areas of Kyrgyzstan are regulated by the law on specially protected natural areas of 2 May 2011, last modified on 2 June 2018. In total, they cover 14,761.216 km2 (5,699.337 sq mi) and account for 7.38% of the country's total area (as of 2017). The first protected area in Kyrgyzstan (Issyk-Kul) was established in 1948. According to the Government Decree on Priorities of Conservation of Biological Diversity and the relevant Action Plan for 2014-2024 the target area for the protected areas in Kyrgyzstan is 10 percent of the country’s area by 2024.
The protected areas are subdivided into seven categories: (Full article...)
The protected areas of Michigan come in an array of different types and levels of protection. Michigan has five units of the National Park Service system. There are 14 federal wilderness areas; the majority of these are also tribal-designated wildernesses. It has one of the largest state forest systems as well having four national forests. The state maintains a large state park system and there are also regional parks, and county, township and city parks. Still other parks on land and in the Great Lakes are maintained by other governmental bodies. Private protected areas also exist in the state, mainly lands owned by land conservancies. (Full article...)
Image 7Only 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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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.
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 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)
Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
"Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found, was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
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)
Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
Peopling of the world, the Southern Dispersal scenario
Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
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)
Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
Artist's conception of Devonian flora (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)
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)
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)
Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
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)
Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut, observing Earth from the Cupola module at the International Space Station on 11 September 2010 (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)
A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
Empires of the world in 1898
A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
Ajloun Castle, Jordan
Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
Battle during the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
Notre-Dame de Paris, France
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)
A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
View of Earth from the Moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)
Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (from History of Earth)
Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (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)
Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
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)
Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)
Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
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)
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)
Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)
Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
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A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
Mollweide projection of the world
Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
Time zones of the world
United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
1516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller
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
The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.
The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
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