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...)
World music is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English-speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".
There are several conflicting definitions for world music. Music that does not follow "North American or British pop and folk traditions" was given the term "world music" by music industries in Europe and North America. The term was popularized in the 1980s as a marketing category for non-Western traditional music. It has grown to include subgenres such as ethnic fusion (Clannad, Ry Cooder, Enya) and worldbeat. (Full article...)
The report "assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens". This in turn depends on how productively a country uses available resources. Therefore, the Global Competitiveness Index measures the set of institutions, policies, and factors that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity." In 2020, the report was discontinued. In 2025, it was reported that WEF leader Klaus Schwab manipulated the report for political interests, intervening multiple times to alter or suppress unfavorable rankings from certain countries. (Full article...)
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Painting of a turn-of-century trading fair, Hessisches Volksfest (Hessian Folk Festival), 1887, Louis Toussaint (1826–1887), oil on canvas Cultural globalization is the accelerating transnational circulation of ideas, meanings, values, and cultural practices that reshape collective identities and social relations across geographic, linguistic, and political boundaries. This process is characterized by the common consumption of cultures that have been disseminated by the Internet, popular culture media, and international travel. This has contributed to the processes of commodity exchange and colonization, both of which have a longer history of carrying cultural meaning around the globe.
The creation and expansion of such social relations is not merely observed on a material level. Cultural globalization involves the formation of shared norms and knowledge with which people associate their individual and collective cultural identities. It brings increasing interconnectedness among different populations and cultures. The idea of cultural globalization emerged in the late 1980s, but was diffused widely by Western academics throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. For some researchers, the idea of cultural globalization is reaction to the claims made by critics of cultural imperialism in the 1970s and 1980s. (Full article...)
Large-scale globalization began in the 1820s, and in the late 19th century and early 20th century drove a rapid expansion in the connectivity of the world's economies and cultures. The origins of globalization can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries, a period marked by significant advancements in transportation and communication technologies following the Industrial Revolution. These developments increased global interactions, supporting the growth of international trade and the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and cultures. (Full article...)
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The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool used to measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and national levels. The report, published annually in October, describes the prevalence of hunger and undernutrition in individual countries and gauges both progress and setbacks in the global fight against hunger. GHI scores can be used to rank countries, and current results can be compared with past outcomes. An interactive map enables users to visualize data across different years and zoom into specific regions or countries.
World percentage of Muslims by country (2012 data)[needs update]The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In a modern geopolitical sense, these terms refer to countries in which Islam is widespread, although there are no agreed criteria for inclusion. The term Muslim-majority countries is an alternative often used for the latter sense.
The history of the Muslim world spans about 1,400 years and includes a variety of socio-political developments, as well as advances in the arts, science, medicine, philosophy, law, economics and technology during the Islamic Golden Age. Muslims look for guidance to the Quran and believe in the prophetic mission of the Islamic prophetMuhammad, but disagreements on other matters have led to the appearance of different religious schools of thought and sects within Islam. Early Muslim conquests culminated in the Umayyad Caliphate being established across three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe). In the modern era, most of the Muslim world came under European colonial domination. The nation states that emerged in the post-colonial era have adopted a variety of political and economic models, and they have been affected by secular as well as religious trends. (Full article...)
Public interest in space travel originated in the 1951 publication of a Soviet youth magazine and was promptly picked up by US magazines. The competition began on July 29, 1955, when the United States announced its intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year. Five days later, the Soviet Union responded by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The launching of satellites was enabled by developments in ballistic missile capabilities since the end of World War II. The competition gained Western public attention with the "Sputnik crisis", when the USSR achieved the first successful satellite launch, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957. It gained momentum when the USSR sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space with the orbital flight of Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. These were followed by a string of other firsts achieved by the Soviets over the next few years. (Full article...)
Image 7Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack, a result of globalizing maritime trade
Image 8Exaggerated 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 15An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Image 16Pangaea was a supercontinent that existed from about 300 to 180Ma. The outlines of the modern continents and other landmasses are indicated on this map. (from History of Earth)
Image 28The ITCZ's band of clouds over the Eastern Pacific and the Americas as seen from space (from Earth)
Image 29Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
Image 30Artist'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 31A 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 32The 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 33A conception of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7billion years in the future (from Earth)
Image 34Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale. Ma means "million years ago", Ga means "billion years ago". (from History of Earth)
Image 44An 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 4613th-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)
Image 50A composite image of Earth with an opaque cloud cover, making the 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)
Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, a megacity, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical center. With a population of over 15 million, it is home to 18% of the population of Turkey. Istanbul is among the largest cities in Europe and in the world by population. It is a city on two continents; about two-thirds of its population live in Europe and the rest in Asia. Istanbul straddles the Bosphorus – one of the world's busiest waterways – in northwestern Turkey, between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its area of 5,461 square kilometers (2,109mi2) is coterminous with Istanbul Province.
The city developed to become one of the most significant cities in history. Byzantium was founded on the (present-day) Sarayburnu promontory by Greek colonists in the seventh century BC. Over nearly 16 centuries following its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 AD, it served as the capital of four empires: the Roman Empire (330–395), the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (395–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times, before the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold and the seat of its caliphate. Although the Republic of Turkey established its capital in Ankara, palaces and imperial mosques still line Istanbul's hills as visible reminders of the city's previous central role. The historic centre of Istanbul is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Full article...)
... that Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele has referred to himself as the "coolest dictator in the world"?
... that anthropologist H.Russell Bernard teamed up with an oceanographer to estimate the number of people killed in an earthquake?
... that while writer Edgar J. March served as a war reserve constable during World WarII, he tussled with a burglar and chased him on a borrowed bicycle?
... that while serving as an artilleryman in World WarI, Herbert Morton Stoops sent sketches of soldiers and battles back to the US?
... that the hashtag #AlDubEBTamangPanahon set a Guinness World Record in 2015 with 40,706,392 uses in 24 hours, coinciding with the television event "Tamang Panahon"?
... that the 2025 book The World After Gaza was deemed "repugnant" and "monstrous" for being both overly and insufficiently critical of Israel?
... that several scientists have attempted to interpret and explain the geology of Middle-earth?
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country in the Caribbean on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas. It occupies the western side of the island, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean by area, and with an estimated population of 11.4 million, it is the most populous Caribbean country.0 The capital and largest city is Port-au-Prince.
Various lists of the Seven Wonders of Romania (Romanian: Cele Șapte Minuni ale României) have been compiled from the past to the present day, to catalogue Romania's most spectacular artificial structures. (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.
Forests in the state of Himachal Pradesh (northern India) currently cover an area of nearly 37,939 square kilometres (14,648sqmi), which is about 68.16% of the total land area of the state. The forests were once considered to be the main source of income of the state and most of the original forests were clear felled. The emphasis has shifted, however, from exploitation to conservation. The state government aims to increase forest cover to 50% of the total land area. There have been various projects, including the establishment of protected areas such as National Parks, designed to preserve and expand the forests. (Full article...)
Cadw is the historic environment service of the Welsh Government which manages historical buildings and ancient monuments in Wales. (Full article...)
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Large-scale protected areas of the Czech Republic: national parks (brown) and protected landscape areas (green) There are several types of protected areas of the Czech Republic. The main form of landscape protection is delimitation of special protected areas. All the types of protected areas are determined by law. (Full article...)
The sun over the Lake Niassa Reserve Protected areas in Mozambique are known as conservation areas, and are currently grouped into national parks, national reserves, forest reserves, wildlife utilisation areas (coutadas), community conservation areas, and private game farms (fazendas de bravio). There are also a number of areas that have been declared as protected areas under a variety of different legislation, which for reasons of simplicity are here grouped together as "other protected areas." Under the Conservation Law of 2014 (Law 16/2014 of June 20), protected areas will need to be reclassified into a much more flexible series of new categories which are closer to the international system used by the IUCN. International initiatives such as transfrontier parks are grouped at the end of the page. (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 14,761.216km2 (5,699.337sqmi) 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...)
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
World music is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English-speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".
Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
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)
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)
Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack, a result of globalizing maritime trade
A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from 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)
Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of 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)
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 schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
Worldwide Köppen climate classifications (from Earth)
Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
Cuneiform inscription, eastern Turkey
Pillar erected by Ashoka, a Mauryan Emperor in India
The first airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
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)
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)
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)
Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale. Ma means "million years ago", Ga means "billion years ago". (from History of Earth)
Vitruvian Man, c. 1490 by Leonardo da Vinci, epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)
Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
Notre-Dame de Paris, France
Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
A pillar at Neolithic Göbekli Tepe
One of the eleven Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela constructed during the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia (from Human history)
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)
A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
A combination of different cosmological Middle Eastern axis mundi ideas from the post-classical age (The Wonders of Creation by Zakariya al-Qazwini) showing a flat round Earth surrounded by a range of Qaf Mountains, resting on the back of a giant bull (Kujata or Behemoth), which in turn stands on a vast fish (Bahamut or Leviathan) in a cosmic ocean held up by an angel or jinn (from Earth)
Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
A composite image of Earth with an opaque cloud cover, making the 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)
The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
Mollweide projection of the world
A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
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.
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