Portal:World

The World Portal

The world 

---

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.

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 -

• 

  

  Ding Liren of China, the current world champion (2023)

  
  The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Ding Liren, who defeated his opponent Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 World Chess Championship. Magnus Carlsen, the previous world champion, had declined to defend his title.
  
  The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match between the two leading players in the world, Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. Steinitz won, becoming the first world champion. From 1886 to 1946, the champion set the terms, requiring any challenger to raise a sizable stake and defeat the champion in a match in order to become the new world champion. Following the death of reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946, FIDE (the International Chess Federation) took over administration of the World Championship, beginning with the 1948 World Championship tournament. From 1948 to 1993, FIDE organized a set of tournaments to choose a new challenger every three years. In 1993, reigning champion Garry Kasparov broke away from FIDE, which led to a rival claimant to the title of World Champion for the next thirteen years. The titles were unified at the World Chess Championship 2006, and all subsequent matches have once again been administered by FIDE. (Full article...)
• 
  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...)
• 
  Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Experts sometimes describe sustainability as having three dimensions (or pillars): environmental, economic, and social, or people, planet, and profit and many publications emphasize the environmental dimension. Many experts have also expanded the dimensions to account for notable aspects of sustainability, for example future generations or health, thereby using a quadruple bottom line (QBL). In everyday use, sustainability often focuses on countering major environmental problems, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution. The idea of sustainability can guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable living). A related concept is sustainable development, and the terms are often used to mean the same thing. UNESCO distinguishes the two like this: "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it."
  
  The economic dimension of sustainability is controversial. Scholars have discussed this under the concept of "weak and strong sustainability"; for example, there will always be tension between the ideas of "welfare and prosperity for all" and environmental conservation, so trade-offs are necessary. Approaches that decouple economic growth from environmental deterioration would be desirable. But they are difficult to carry out. (Full article...)
• 

  

  2022 Global Hunger Index by Severity

  
  The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool that attempts to measure and track hunger globally as well as by region and by country, prepared by European NGOs of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe. The GHI is calculated annually, and its results appear in a report issued in October each year.
  
  The 2022 Global Hunger Index shows a dramatic hunger situation worldwide. Global progress in ending Hunger is at a near standstill. The main drivers of hunger are conflicts, the climate crisis, and the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. These drivers come on top of underlying factors such as poverty, inequality, and inadequate governance. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Water covers about 71% of Earth's surface.

  
  
  The origin of water on Earth is the subject of a body of research in the fields of planetary science, astronomy, and astrobiology. Earth is unique among the rocky planets in the Solar System in having oceans of liquid water on its surface. Liquid water, which is necessary for all known forms of life, continues to exist on the surface of Earth because the planet is at a far enough distance (known as the habitable zone) from the Sun that it does not lose its water, but not so far that low temperatures cause all water on the planet to freeze.
  
  It was long thought that Earth's water did not originate from the planet's region of the protoplanetary disk. Instead, it was hypothesized water and other volatiles must have been delivered to Earth from the outer Solar System later in its history. Recent research, however, indicates that hydrogen inside the Earth played a role in the formation of the ocean. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, as there is also evidence that water was delivered to Earth by impacts from icy planetesimals similar in composition to asteroids in the outer edges of the asteroid belt. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Yggdrasil, a modern attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the earth and the underworld

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

  

  
  Human impact on the environment (or anthropogenic environmental impact) refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society (as in the built environment) is causing severe effects including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Some human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale include population growth, neoliberal economic policies and rapid economic growth, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss, have been proposed as representing catastrophic risks to the survival of the human species.
  
  The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity. The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it was first used in English by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in reference to human influences on climax plant communities. The atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term "Anthropocene" in the mid-1970s. The term is sometimes used in the context of pollution produced from human activity since the start of the Agricultural Revolution but also applies broadly to all major human impacts on the environment. Many of the actions taken by humans that contribute to a heated environment stem from the burning of fossil fuel from a variety of sources, such as: electricity, cars, planes, space heating, manufacturing, or the destruction of forests. (Full article...)

General images -

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

• 
  An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
• 
  Scientific worldview. (from World)
• 
  Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
• 
  The replicator in virtually all known life is deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is far more complex than the original replicator and its replication systems are highly elaborate. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
• 
  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)
• 
  Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)
• 
  Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico
• 
  Cave paintings, Lascaux, France, c. 17,000 BCE
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)
• 
  Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years from now (from Earth)
• 
  Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
• 
  Map of peopling of the world (Southern Dispersal paradigm), in thousands of years ago.
• 
  Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
• 
  The Pantheon, originally a Roman temple, now a Catholic church
• 
  A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
• 
  Earth's land use for human agriculture (from Earth)
• 
  Notre-Dame de Paris, France
• 
  A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
• 
  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, photographed by Neil Armstrong, 1969 (from History of Earth)
• 
  Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
• 
  First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
• 
  Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
• 
  Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
• 
  Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
• 
  A view of Earth with different layers of its atmosphere visible: the troposphere with its clouds casting shadows, a band of stratospheric blue sky at the horizon, and a line of green airglow of the lower thermosphere around an altitude of 100 km, at the edge of space (from Earth)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
• 
  Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
• 
  Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
• 
  Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
• 
  Pillar erected by India's Maurya Emperor Ashoka
• 
  Venus figurine, Germany, c. 37,500 BCE
• 
  Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
• 
  Wittenberg, birthplace of Protestantism (from Human history)
• 
  "Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found. Lucy was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
• 
  Ajloun Castle, Jordan
• 
  Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
• 
  World population, 10,000 BCE to 2023 CE, with projection to 2100 CE (from Human history)
• 
  Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
• 
  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)
• 
  Infantry of the Royal Irish Rifles during the Battle of the Somme in World War I
• 
  Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
• 
  Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Hagia Sophia, Istanbul – a symbol of Byzantine civilization
• 
  Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
• 
  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.
• 
  Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
• 
  Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
• 
  Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
• 
  St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
• 
  An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
• 
  A High Desert storm, sweeps across the Mojave (from Earth)
• 
  A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
• 
  A Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
• 
  A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)
• 
  Cuneiform inscription, Sumer, Mesopotamia, 26th century BCE
• 
  Empires of the world in 1898
• 
  Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
• 
  A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
• 
  James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
• 
  Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut, observing Earth from the Cupola module at the International Space Station on 11 September 2010 (from Earth)
• 
  A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
• 
  Atomic bombing of Nagasaki, 1945
• 
  Battle during 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
• 
  Relief of Earth's crust (from Earth)
• 
  Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (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)
• 
  Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
• 
  Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
• 
  Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
• 
  An artist's impression of the Archean, the eon after Earth's formation, featuring round stromatolites, which are early oxygen-producing forms of life from billions of years ago. After the Late Heavy Bombardment, Earth's crust had cooled, its water-rich barren surface is marked by continents and volcanoes, with the Moon still orbiting Earth half as far as it is today, appearing 2.8 times larger and producing strong tides. (from Earth)
• 
  Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
• 
  View of Earth from the Moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
• 
  A banded iron formation from the 3.15 Ga Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa. Red layers represent the times when oxygen was available; gray layers were formed in anoxic circumstances. (from History of Earth)
• 
  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)
• 
  Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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)
• 
  A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
• 
  Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
• 
  Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
• 
  Moai, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Megacities of the world -

Azadi Tower

Tehran (/tɛəˈræn, -ˈrɑːn, ˌteɪ-/; Persian: تهران Tehrân [tehˈɾɒːn] ^ⓘ) is the capital and largest city of Iran. It also serves as the capital of the province, county and the Central District. With a population of around 9.4 million in the city and around 15.8 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, and has the second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East, after Cairo. It is ranked 24th in the world by metropolitan area population. Archaeological remains from the ancient city of Ray suggest that settlement in Tehran dates back over 6,000 years.

In the classical antiquity, part of the territory of present-day Tehran was occupied by Rhages (now Ray), a prominent Median city destroyed in the medieval Arab, Turkic, and Mongol invasions. Modern Ray was absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran. (Full article...)

Did you know -

• ... that CEO Marla Messing submitted the business plan for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup two days before the birth of her first child?
• ... that Alexander Bannwart got into a fistfight with the pro-war senator Henry Cabot Lodge over America's proposed entry into World War I?
• ... that in 1929, the world press proclaimed Teleilat el Ghassul to be the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, but Father Alexis Mallon, the site's excavator, disagreed?
• ... that Joseph Binder influenced modern poster design, creating posters for the 1939 New York World's Fair, the U.S. Army Corps and the American Red Cross?
• ... that Mark Hamill was cast as the villain in Brigsby Bear, a role the director described as a depraved Jim Henson, "teaching weird lessons about the world in a loving way"?
• ... that the play-by-email game Lords of the Earth takes about 25 years to play?
• ... that whilst serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, Tom Dorrien-Smith, a former leaseholder of Tresco, was involved in the sinking of the Bismarck?
• ... that at the time of its construction in 1920, the Howard Theatre in Atlanta was the second-largest movie theater in the world, with a seating capacity of 2,700?

Countries of the world -

Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa.

Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya, before the Spanish colonization in the sixteenth century. The Spanish introduced Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture. Honduras became independent in 1821 and has since been a republic, although it has consistently endured much social strife and political instability, and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1960, the northern part of what was the Mosquito Coast was transferred from Nicaragua to Honduras by the International Court of Justice. (Full article...)

Wonders of the World -

Various lists of the Seven Wonders of Romania (Romanian: Cele Șapte Minuni ale României) have been compiled from past to the present day, to catalogue Romania's most spectacular artificial structures. (Full article...)

Related portals

---

Protected areas of the world -

• 
  This is a list of protected areas of Sierra Leone, including national parks, game reserves, conservation areas, wetlands, and those that are listed as proposed protected areas in the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP WCM) database. (Full article...)
• 
  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...)
• 

  

  Map of the Philippine archipelago

  
  
  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...)
• 
  The Protected areas of New South Wales include both terrestrial and marine protected areas. there are 225 national parks in New South Wales. A number established since the late 1970s followed campaigns by local residents and environmentalists.
  
  Based on the Collaborative Australian Protected Area Database (CAPAD) 2020 data there are 2136 separate terrestrial protected areas with a total land area of 7,696,641 hectares (19,018,810 acres) (9.61% of the state's area). CAPAD data also shows 18 marine protected areas with a total area of 348,849 hectares (862,020 acres), covering 39.63% of NSW waters. (Full article...)
• 
  A National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA) is an environmentally protected area in Laos. There are all together 21 different NBCAs in Laos, protecting 29,775 square kilometers. Another 10 NBCAs have been proposed, many of them being treated by authorities as though they were already officially protected. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  Wales, a country that is part of the United Kingdom, contains protected areas under various designations. The largest designation by land area is Wales' three national parks, followed by the five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (sometimes collectively the "Designated Landscapes of Wales").
  
  Among these protected areas is Snowdonia (Eryri), Wales' first and the UK's third designated national park, and the Gower AONB covering parts of the Gower Peninsula being both Wales' and the UK's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), as well as smaller designations. (Full article...)
• 

  

  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...)
• 

  

  Overview of IUCN Protected area - WAP (W, Arli, Pendjari) area - Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin

  
  
  The following is a list of protected areas of Burkina Faso. (Full article...)
• 
  This is a list of protected areas of Ontario that are administered by Government of Ontario. Ontario Parks and the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks are the provincial bodies responsible for managing these protected areas. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Upolu Island, Samoa

  
  This is a list of some protected areas of Samoa which include national parks, reservations, protected nature zones, marine reserves and other areas of significant biodiversity and conservation.
  
  In 1994, Samoa ratified the international and legally binding treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity to develop national strategies for conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. In 2010, protected areas in the country cover 5% of land although the government aims to increase protected areas coverage to 15%. (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...)
• 
  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...)
• 

  

  The northernmost tip of Prins Karls Forland in Forlandet National Park

  
  Svalbard is an Arctic wilderness archipelago comprising the northernmost part of Norway. There are twenty-nine protected natural areas, consisting of seven national parks, six nature reserves, fifteen bird sanctuaries and one geotope protected area. In addition, human traces dating from before 1946 are automatically protected. The protected areas make up 39,800 square kilometers (15,400 sq mi) or 65% of the land area, and 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 sq mi) or 86.5% of the territorial waters. The largest protected areas are Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve and Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve, which cover most of the areas east of the main island of Spitsbergen, including the islands of Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya, Barentsøya, Kong Karls Land and Kvitøya. Six of the national parks are located on Spitsbergen. Ten of the bird sanctuaries and the Moffen Nature Reserve are located within national parks. Five of the bird sanctuaries are Ramsar sites and fourteen of the bird sanctuaries are islands. Svalbard is on Norway's tentative list for nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
  
  The supreme responsibility for conservation lies with the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment, which has delegated the management to the Governor of Svalbard and the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management. The foundation for conservation was established in the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, and has been further specified in the Svalbard Environmental Act of 2001. The first round of protection took force on 1 July 1973, when most of the current protected areas came into effect. This included the two large nature reserves and three of the national parks. Moffen Nature Reserve was established in 1983, followed by four national parks, three nature reserves and one geotope protection area between 2002 and 2005. (Full article...)
• 

  

  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...)
• 
  Protected areas of Tamil Nadu cover an area of 3,305 km² (1,276 sq mi), constituting 2.54% of the geographic area and 15% of the 22,643 km² (8,743 sq mi) recorded forest area of the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. It ranks 14th among all the states and union territories of India in terms of total protected area.
  
  Protected areas in South India were created from private hunting grounds of the erstwhile Maharajas of the princely states. Mudumalai National Park was established in 1940 and was the first modern wildlife sanctuary in South India. The protected areas are administered by the Ministry of Environment and Forests of Government of India and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. (Full article...)

Selected world maps

• 
  United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
• 
  Mollweide projection of the world
• 
  Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
• 
  The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
• 
  1516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller
• 
  A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
• 
  Time zones of the world
• 
  The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.
• 
  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

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

Topics

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Categories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

World

Administrative divisions

International broadcasting

Continents

Cosmopolitan species

Countries

Global culture

World economy

Global natural environment

Geography

Global governance

Global surveillance

Globalization

Global health

World history

International aircraft

International classification systems

Global issues

World maps

International organizations

Global politics

World population

World records

Regions

International sports

Global studies

World systems theory

World Wars

---

World history

World historians

Geopolitical rivalry

History of globalization

History of international relations

Theories of history

Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikispecies
  Directory of species

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wikivoyage
  Free travel guide

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

More portals

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals