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.

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

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

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

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

Selected articles -

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  World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competitions, such as the World Rugby Sevens Series, the Rugby World Cup Sevens, the World Under 20 Championship, and the Pacific Nations Cup.
  
  World Rugby's headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland. Its membership now comprises 133 national unions. Each member country must also be a member of one of the six regional unions into which the world is divided: Africa, North America, Asia, Europe, South America, and Oceania. (Full article...)
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  The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite marked the start of the Space Age.

  
  The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the space race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and continuing to the present.
  
  This period is characterized by changes in emphasis on particular areas of space exploration and applications. Initially, the United States and the Soviet Union invested unprecedented amounts of resources in breaking records and being first to meet milestones in crewed and uncrewed exploration. The United States established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the USSR established the Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR to meet these goals. This period of competition gave way to cooperation between those nations and emphasis on scientific research and commercial applications of space-based technology. (Full article...)
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  The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that govern international trade in cooperation with the United Nations System. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organization, with 166 members representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.
  
  The WTO facilitates trade in goods, services and intellectual property among participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements, which usually aim to reduce or eliminate tariffs, quotas, and other restrictions; these agreements are signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their legislatures. It also administers independent dispute resolution for enforcing participants' adherence to trade agreements and resolving trade-related disputes. The organization prohibits discrimination between trading partners, but provides exceptions for environmental protection, national security, and other important goals. (Full article...)
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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

  
  
  The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based on the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at Earth's surface, the cooling rate of the planet's interior, gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity. An uncertain factor is the influence of human technology such as climate engineering, which could cause significant changes to the planet. For example, the current Holocene extinction is being caused by technology, and the effects may last for up to five million years. In turn, technology may result in the extinction of humanity, leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes.
  
  Over time intervals of hundreds of millions of years, random celestial events pose a global risk to the biosphere, which can result in mass extinctions. These include impacts by comets or asteroids and the possibility of a near-Earth supernova—a massive stellar explosion within a 100-light-year (31-parsec) radius of the Sun. Other large-scale geological events are more predictable. Milankovitch's theory predicts that the planet will continue to undergo glacial periods at least until the Quaternary glaciation comes to an end. These periods are caused by the variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of Earth's orbit. As part of the ongoing supercontinent cycle, plate tectonics will probably create a supercontinent in 250–350 million years. Sometime in the next 1.5–4.5 billion years, Earth's axial tilt may begin to undergo chaotic variations, with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90°. (Full article...)
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  Global village describes the phenomenon of the entire world becoming more interconnected as the result of the propagation of media technologies throughout the world. The term was coined by Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan in his books The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962) and Understanding Media (1964). Literary scholar Sue-Im Lee describes how the term global village has come to designate “the dominant term for expressing a global coexistence altered by transnational commerce, migration, and culture” (as cited in Poll, 2012). Economic journalist Thomas Friedman's definition of the global village as a world “tied together into a single globalized marketplace and village” is another contemporary understanding of the term (as cited in Poll, 2012). (Full article...)
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  1700 UK first edition

  
  The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was first published in hardcover in 1898 by William Heinemann. The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his younger brother who escapes to Tillingham in Essex as London and Southern England are invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.
  
  The plot is similar to other works of invasion literature from the same period and has been variously interpreted as a commentary on the theory of evolution, imperialism, and Victorian era fears, superstitions and prejudices. Wells later noted that inspiration for the plot was the catastrophic effect of European colonisation on the Aboriginal Tasmanians. Some historians have argued that Wells wrote the book to encourage his readership to question the morality of imperialism. At the time of publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells's earlier novel, The Time Machine. (Full article...)
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  Hands holding a tree inside of a light bulb

  
  Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) is a term adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It refers to Article 6 of the Convention's original text (1992), focusing on six priority areas: education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information, and international cooperation on these issues. The implementation of all six areas has been identified as the pivotal factor for everyone to understand and participate in solving the complex challenges presented by climate change. The importance of ACE is reflected in other international frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2015); the Global Action Programme for Education for Sustainable Development (GAP on ESD, 2014); the Aarhus Convention (2011); the Escazú Agreement (2018) and the Bali Guidelines (2010).
  
  ACE calls on governments to develop and implement educational and public awareness programmes, train scientific, technical and managerial personnel, foster access to information, and promote public participation in addressing climate change and its effects. It also urges countries to cooperate in this process, by exchanging good practices and lessons learned, and strengthening national institutions. This wide scope of activities is guided by specific objectives that, together, are seen as crucial for effectively implementing climate adaptation and mitigation actions, and for achieving the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC. (Full article...)

General images -

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

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  Empires of the world in 1898
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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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  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)
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  Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack, a result of globalizing maritime trade
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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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  Umayyad Mosque in Damascus (from Human history)
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  Cuneiform inscription, eastern Turkey
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  Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
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  Relief of Earth's crust (from Earth)
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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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  Moai, Easter Island (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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  Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
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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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  Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
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  Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
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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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  Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years in the future (from Earth)
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  Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
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  A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
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  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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  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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  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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  Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale. Ma means "million years ago". (from History of 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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  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)
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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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  Portrait of Alfraganus in the Compilatio astronomica, 1493. Islamic astronomers began just before the 9th century to collect and translate Indian, Persian and Greek astronomical texts, adding their own astronomy and enabling later, particularly European astronomy to build on. Symbolic for the post-classical period, a period of an increasing trans-regional literary culture, particularly in the sciences, spreading and building on methods of science. (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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  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)
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  Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
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  Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
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  The first airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
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  Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
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  Atomic bombing of Nagasaki, 1945
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  Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
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  Pillar erected by Ashoka, a Mauryan Emperor in India
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  Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
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  A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
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  Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
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  Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
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  Exaggerated 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)
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  Wittenberg, birthplace of Protestantism (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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  Scientific worldview. (from World)
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  Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
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  Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
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  Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
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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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  Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
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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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  Notre-Dame de Paris, France
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  COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 (from Human history)
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  James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
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  A 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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  13th-century French historiated initial with the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (the clergy), those who fought (the knights), and those who worked (the peasantry)
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  A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (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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  Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico
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  European migrations by mostly Germanic peoples, 2nd–6th centuries (from Human history)
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  A pillar at Neolithic Göbekli Tepe
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  Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of 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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  Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (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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  Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
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  Successive dispersals of   Homo erectus (yellow),   Homo neanderthalensis (ochre) during Out of Africa I and   Homo sapiens (red, Out of Africa II), with the numbers of years since they appeared before present. (from Human history)
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  Battle during the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
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  Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
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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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  Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)
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  Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
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  A High Desert storm in the Mojave (from Earth)
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  Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
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  An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
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  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)
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  One of the eleven Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela constructed during the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia (from Human history)
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  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)
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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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  Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
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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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  A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
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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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  Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
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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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  Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
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  Carving of Persian and Median soldiers, Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 5th century BCE

Megacities of the world -

Nishi-Shinjuku and Mount Fuji

Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital and most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is one of the most populous urban areas in the world. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighboring prefectures, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with 41 million residents as of 2024.

Lying at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region, on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central 23 special wards, which formerly made up Tokyo City; various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area; and two outlying island chains, the Tokyo Islands. Although most of the world recognizes Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to that of a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments that make up the metropolis. Special wards in Tokyo include Chiyoda, the site of the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace; Shinjuku, the city's administrative center; and Shibuya, a hub of commerce and business. (Full article...)

Did you know -

• ... 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?
• ... that within the mixed-reality mode of Homeworld: Vast Reaches, ships seem to fly around the player's room?
• ... that Yank pin-ups were distributed to American military personnel during World War II to promote morale?
• ... that the aid climbing routes on the Great Trango Tower are some of the longest vertical big wall climbs in the world?
• ... that in 2023 the IFLA named the Biblioteca Gabriel García Márquez the "best new public library in the world"?
• ... that baseball player Joey Marciano is a cousin of world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano?
• ... that the axial parallelism of the Earth's tilted axis is the reason we have winter, spring, summer and fall?
• ... that Alexander Langmuir created the Epidemic Intelligence Service to send epidemiologists across the world?

Countries of the world -

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and thousands of smaller islands, covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi). Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the eleventh-most populous country.

The capital of Japan and its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of the country's terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. The country sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, making its islands prone to destructive earthquakes and tsunamis. (Full article...)

Wonders of the World -

The Seven Wonders of Russia as determined by a project organized by the newspaper Izvestia, Radio Mayak, and the television channel Russia. The competition took place in three stages from 1 October 2007 through 1 June 2008, with the final results declared in Moscow's Red Square on 12 June 2008. (Full article...)

Related portals

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Protected areas of the world -

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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...)
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  This list of protected areas of Manitoba groups the protected areas of Manitoba by the agency that is responsible for their protection. (Full article...)
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  Kejimkujik National Park, Little River

  
  This is a list of protected areas of Nova Scotia. (Full article...)
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  Dinosaur Provincial Park

  
  This is a list of protected areas of Alberta. Protected areas are managed by the Government of Canada or the Government of Alberta. The provincial government owns 60% of Alberta's landmass but most of this has not been formally protected. The total protected area throughout Alberta including federal and provincial protected areas is approximately 90,700 km² (35,000 sq mi). (Full article...)
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  West Matukituki Valley and the Matukituki River seen from Cascade Saddle in Mount Aspiring National Park

  
  Protected areas of New Zealand are areas that are in some way protected to preserve their environmental, scientific, scenic, historical, cultural or recreational value. There are about 10,000 protected areas, covering about a third of the country. The method and aims of protection vary according to the importance of the resource and whether it is publicly or privately owned.
  
  Nearly 30 percent of New Zealand's land mass is publicly owned with some degree of protection. Most of this land – about 80,000 square kilometres (31,000 sq mi) – is administered by the Department of Conservation. There are 13 national parks, thousands of reserves, 54 conservation parks, and a range of other conservation areas. (Full article...)
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  Kentucky's system of 44 state parks has been referred to as "the nation's finest" and experiences more repeat business annually than those of any other U.S. state. The state's diverse geography provides a variety of environments to experience. From mountain lakes to expansive caves to forests teeming with wildlife, park-goers have their choice of attractions, and they are all within a day's drive of each other.
  
  Unless otherwise specified, data in the following lists are taken from Kentucky State Parks by Bill Bailey. (Full article...)
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  This is a list of protected areas of Saudi Arabia, some of which are managed by the Saudi Wildlife Authority.:
  

  • At-Taysiyah Protected Area
  • Jabal Shada Nature Reserve
  • Majami'al-Hadb Protected Area
  • Nafud al-'Urayq
  • Raydah Natural Reserve
  • 'Uruq Bani Ma'arid
  • Saja Umm Ar-Rimth Natural Reserve
  • Harrat al-Harrah Protected Area
  • Al-Khunfah Natural Reserve
  • Ibex Reserve Protected Area
  • Mahazat as-Sayd Protected Area
  • Umm al-Qamari Islands
  • Al-Tubayq Natural Reserve
  • Farasan Islands Protected Area
  • Jubail Marine Wildlife Sanctuary
  • Jabal Aja Protected Area
  • Wadi Turabah Nature Reserve

  (Full article...)
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  A list of protected areas of Yemen:
  

  • Bura Community Protected Area
    
  • Hawf National Reserve
    
  • Dhamar Montane Plains Mahjur Traditional Reserve
    
    
  • Jabal Bura Valley Forest National Park
    
  • Ras Isa Marine Park
    
  • Socotra Island Protected Area
    
  • Zuqur Islands Marine National Park

  (Full article...)
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  Map of Georgia

  
  The protected areas of Georgia cover almost one million acres (4,000 km²) of the state. These areas are managed by different federal and state level authorities and receive varying levels of protection. Some areas are managed as wilderness while others are operated with acceptable commercial exploitation. On the Federal level, Georgia contains 1 Biosphere Reserve, 15 National Park Service Managed Sites, 1 National Forest and 8 Wildlife Refuges. Georgia is home to 63 state parks, 48 of which are state parks and 15 that are National Historic Sites, and many state wildlife preserves, under the supervision of the Georgia Department of Parks and Recreation, a division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. (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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  Andohahela National Park in southern Madagascar

  
  The national parks of Madagascar include all officially recognized protected areas as of 2015. The protected areas network of Madagascar is managed by the Madagascar National Parks Association (PNM-ANGAP). The network includes three types of protected areas: Strict Nature Reserves (IUCN category Ia), National Parks (IUCN category II) and Wildlife Reserves (IUCN category IV). At the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban, the Malagasy President, Marc Ravalomanana, announced an initiative to more than triple the area under protection from approximately 17,000 km² (6,600 sq mi) to over 60,000 km² (23,000 sq mi) (from 3% to 10% of Madagascar's area). This "Durban Vision", as it has been dubbed, involved broadening the definition of protected areas in the country and legislation has been passed to allow the creation of four new categories of protected area: Natural Parks (IUCN category II), Natural Monuments (IUCN category III), Protected Landscapes (IUCN category V), and Natural Resource Reserves (IUCN category VI). As well as allowing these new objectives for protected areas management, the new legislation also provided for entities other than PNM-ANGAP to manage protected areas, such as government ministries, community associations, NGOs and other civil society organizations, and the private sector. (Full article...)
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  Ludaš Lake is a shallow lake in the province of Vojvodina in northern Serbia, near the city of Subotica. It is a special natural preserve and, since 1977, designated as a swamp area of international significance by the Ramsar Convention.

  
  Protected areas cover around 5% of the territory of Serbia. The Law on the Protection of the Nature defines these categories of protected areas:

  • Strict nature reserve — Area of unmodified natural features with representative ecosystems set aside for the preservation of its biodiversity and for scientific research and monitoring.
  • Special nature reserve — Area of unmodified or slightly modified natural features of great importance due to uniqueness and rarity which includes the habitats of endangered species set aside for the preservation of its unique features, education, limited tourism and for scientific research and monitoring.
  • National park — Area with large number of diverse ecosystems of national value, with outstanding natural features and/or cultural heritage set aside for the preservation of its natural resources and for educational, scientific and tourist use.
  • Natural monument — Small unmodified or slightly modified natural feature, object or phenomenon, easily detectable and unique, with unique natural attributes.
  • Protected habitat — Area which includes habitats of one or more wildlife species.
  • Landscape of outstanding features — Area of remarkable appearance with important natural and cultural value.
  • Nature park — Area of well-preserved natural values with preserved natural ecosystems and picturesque landscape set aside for the preservation of biodiversity and for educational, tourist, recreational and scientific use.

  (Full article...)
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  Protected areas of Turkmenistan include nine nature reserves (zapovednik) and 13 sanctuaries (zakaznik) with a total area of 19,750 km² or more than 4% of Turkmenistan's territory. (Full article...)
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  Mombacho Volcano Natural Reserve

  
  The protected areas of Nicaragua are areas that have natural beauty or significance and are protected by Nicaragua. Nicaragua has 78 protected areas that cover 22,422 km², about 17.3% of the nations landmass. The National System of Protected Areas (SINAP) is administered by the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA). (Full article...)
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  The protected areas of Kerala include a wide range of biomes, extending east from the coral reefs, estuaries, salt marshes, mangroves beaches of the Arabian Sea through the tropical moist broadleaf forests of the Malabar Coast moist forests to the North Western Ghats moist deciduous forests and South Western Ghats moist deciduous forests to South Western Ghats montane rain forests on the western border of Tamil Nadu in the Western Ghats. Most protected areas throughout its 14 districts are under the stewardship of the Kerala Forest Department and like all other protected areas of India receive support from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (India). (Full article...)

Selected world maps

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  The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
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  United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
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  Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
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  The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.
• 
  Time zones of the world
• 
  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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  A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
• 
  Mollweide projection of the world

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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