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 "[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 -

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  The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.
  
  The origins of the Internet date back to research to enable time-sharing of computer resources and the development of packet switching in the 1960s. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life. (Full article...)
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  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) set up the IPCC in 1988. The United Nations endorsed the creation of the IPCC later that year. It has a secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, hosted by the WMO. It has 195 member states who govern the IPCC. The member states elect a bureau of scientists to serve through an assessment cycle. A cycle is usually six to seven years. The bureau selects experts in their fields to prepare IPCC reports. There is a formal nomination process by governments and observer organizations to find these experts. The IPCC has three working groups and a task force, which carry out its scientific work.
  
  The IPCC informs governments about the state of knowledge of climate change. It does this by examining all the relevant scientific literature on the subject. This includes the natural, economic and social impacts and risks. It also covers possible response options. The IPCC does not conduct its own original research. It aims to be objective and comprehensive. Thousands of scientists and other experts volunteer to review the publications. They compile key findings into "Assessment Reports" for policymakers and the general public; Experts have described this work as the biggest peer review process in the scientific community. (Full article...)
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    Least developed countries (designated by the UN as of 2023)

    Former least developed countries

  
  The least developed countries (LDCs) are developing countries listed by the United Nations that exhibit the lowest indicators of socioeconomic development. The concept of LDCs originated in the late 1960s and the first group of LDCs was listed by the UN in its resolution 2768 (XXVI) on 18 November 1971.
  
  A country is classified among the Least Developed Countries if it meets three criteria:

  • Poverty – adjustable criterion based on Gross national income (GNI) per capita averaged over three years. As of 2018, a country must have GNI per capita less than US$1,025 to be included on the list, and over $1,230 to graduate from it.
  • Human resource weakness (based on indicators of nutrition, health, education and adult literacy).
  • Economic vulnerability (based on instability of agricultural production, instability of exports of goods and services, economic importance of non-traditional activities, merchandise export concentration, handicap of economic smallness, and the percentage of population displaced by natural disasters).

  (Full article...)
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  A global issue is a matter of public concern worldwide. This list of global issues presents problems or phenomena affecting people around the world, including but not limited to widespread social issues, economic issues, and environmental issues. Organizations that maintain or have published an official list of global issues include the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum. (Full article...)
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  1898 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 is 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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  World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, participated in the conflict, and many invested all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. It was by far the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70–85 million fatalities. Millions died due to genocides, including the Holocaust, as well as starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of Axis defeat, Germany, Austria, and Japan were occupied, and war crime tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
  
  The causes of the war are debated; contributing factors included the rise of fascism in Europe, the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, and tensions in the aftermath of World War I. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland and marked out their "spheres of influence" across Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe in a military alliance called the Axis with Italy, Japan, and other countries. Following the onset of campaigns in North and East Africa, and the fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with the war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz of the UK, and the Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, Germany led the European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front. (Full article...)
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  A world language (sometimes global language, rarely international language) is a language that is geographically widespread and makes it possible for members of different language communities to communicate. The term may also be used to refer to constructed international auxiliary languages such as Esperanto.
  
  English is the foremost, and by some accounts the only, world language. Other possible world languages are: Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish, although there is no clear academic consensus on the subject. Some authors consider Latin to have formerly been a world language. (Full article...)

General images -

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

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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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  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 reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
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  Notre-Dame de Paris, France
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  Empires of the world in 1898
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  James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
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  A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
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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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  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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  Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
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  Scientific worldview. (from World)
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  Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
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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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  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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  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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  Ajloun Castle, Jordan
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  An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
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  Hagia Sophia, Istanbul – a symbol of Byzantine civilization
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  Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
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  Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
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  View of Earth from the Moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
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  Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
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  A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)
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  An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
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  Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
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  Relief of Earth's crust (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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  Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
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  Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
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  Artist's impression of a Hadean landscape with the relatively newly formed Moon still looming closely over Earth and both bodies sustaining strong volcanism. (from History of Earth)
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  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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  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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  Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico
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  Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
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  A Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
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  Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
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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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  Wittenberg, birthplace of Protestantism (from Human history)
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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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  Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
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  Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
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  Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
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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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  Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
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  Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
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  Stone monuments (moai) on Rapa Nui, thought to represent high-ranking ancestors (from Human history)
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  Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
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  A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
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  Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years from now (from Earth)
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  Map of peopling of the world (Southern Dispersal paradigm), in thousands of years ago.
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  St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
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  Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
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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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  Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
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  Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
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  Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
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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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  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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  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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  Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
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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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  Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (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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  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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  The Pantheon, originally a Roman temple, now a Catholic church
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  Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of 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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  First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
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  "Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found. Lucy was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
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  Cuneiform inscription, Sumer, Mesopotamia, 26th century BCE
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  A High Desert storm in the Mojave (from Earth)
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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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  Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
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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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  Pillar erected by India's Maurya Emperor Ashoka
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  Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
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  Earth's major plates, which are:

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

  (from Earth)
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  Venus figurine, Germany, c. 37,500 BCE
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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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  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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  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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  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, photographed by Neil Armstrong, 1969 (from History of Earth)
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  Infantry of the Royal Irish Rifles during the Battle of the Somme in World War I
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  Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
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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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  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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  Battle during the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
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  Atomic bombing of Nagasaki, 1945
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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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  Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
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  Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.

Megacities of the world -

Skyline of Central Business District

Bangalore (/ˈbæŋɡəlɔːr, ˌbæŋɡəˈlɔːr/ BANG-gə-lor, -⁠LOR), officially Bengaluru (Kannada pronunciation: [ˈbeŋgɐɭuːɾu] ), is the capital and largest city of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than 8 million and a metropolitan population of around 15 million, making it India's third most populous city and fourth most populous urban agglomeration. It is the most populous city and largest urban agglomeration in South India, and is the 27th largest city in the world. Located on the Deccan Plateau, at a height of over 900 m (3,000 ft) above sea level, Bangalore has a pleasant climate throughout the year, with its parks and green spaces earning it the reputation of India's "Garden City". Its elevation is the highest of India's major cities.

The city's history dates back to around 890, as per the old Kannada stone inscription found at the Nageshwara Temple in Begur, Bangalore. In 1537, Kempé Gowdā, a feudal ruler under the Vijayanagara Empire, established a mud fort, considered the foundation of modern Bangalore and its oldest areas, or pétés, which still exist. After the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire, Kempe Gowda declared independence; in 1638, a large Adil Shahi Bijapur army defeated Kempe Gowda III, and Bangalore came under Shahaji Bhonsle as a jagir, which later became his capital. The Mughals later captured Bangalore and sold it to Maharaja Devaraja Wodeyar II of the Kingdom of Mysore. When Haider Ali seized control of the kingdom, Bangalore's administration passed into his hands. (Full article...)

Did you know -

• ... that as a result of the Röhm scandal, a Nazi became the world's first openly gay politician in 1932?
• ... that Hungarians Gyula Bajó and Endre Hevizi, who went on to design stained glass for the Debre Libanos monastery, worked as labourers in a British pottery after the Second World War?
• ... that Fernhill House has been home to a butter merchant, an Ulster Volunteer Force armoury, a Grand National-winning racehorse and the world's largest collection of Orange Order memorabilia?
• ... that Martin Nievera said "you won't see any dancers, fire eaters and things like that" at his 2003 World Concert Tour with Regine Velasquez?
• ... that The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey made historian Alec Ryrie suspect "there is such a thing as 'Anglicanism' after all"?
• ... that at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?
• ... that The Constellation of Leo, a group portrait of people from Italy's art world, was exhibited with a note that read "not without a trace of irony"?
• ... that World War II war criminal Ivo Herenčić worked as an art dealer in Rome after the war?

Countries of the world -

Dominica (locally /ˌdɒmɪˈniːkə/ dom-in-EE-kə; UK: US: /ˌdɒmɪˈniːkə/ or /dəˈmɪnɪkə/ ; Dominican Creole French: Dominik; Kalinago: Waitukubuli), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. Dominica's closest neighbours are two constituent territories of the European Union, the overseas departments of France, Guadeloupe to the northwest and Martinique to the south-southeast. Dominica comprises a land area of 750 km² (290 sq mi), and the highest point is Morne Diablotins, at 1,447 m (4,747 ft) in elevation. The population was 71,293 at the 2011 census.

The island was settled by the Arawak arriving from South America in the fifth century. The Kalinago displaced the Arawak by the 15th century. Christopher Columbus is said to have passed the island on Sunday, 3 November 1493. It was later colonised by Europeans, predominantly by the French from the 1690s to 1763. The French imported enslaved people from West Africa to Dominica to work on coffee plantations. Great Britain took possession in 1763 after the Seven Years' War, and it gradually established English as its official language. The island gained independence as a republic in 1978. (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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  Bonampak is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas, and is a natural monument.

  
  There are currently 225 Protected Natural Areas in Mexico, covering 93.8 million hectares in total. They are protected and administered by the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, or 'CONANP'), a federal agency. CONANP administers:
  

  • 77 Mexican National Parks
  • 48 biosphere reserves
  • 54 flora and fauna protection areas
  • 28 Mexican Nature Sanctuaries
  • 13 natural resources protection areas
  • 5 natural monuments

  (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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  Protected areas of Slovakia are areas that need protection because of their environmental, historical or cultural value to the nation. Protected areas in Slovakia are managed by institutions and organizations governed by the Ministry of the Environment.
  
  Types of protected areas:

  • National Park (Slovak: Národný park; abbr. NP)
  • Protected Landscape Area (Chránená krajinná oblasť; CHKO)
  • National Nature Reserve (Národná prírodná rezervácia; NPR)
  • Nature Reserve (Prírodná rezervácia; PR)
  • National Nature Monument (Národná prírodná pamiatka; NPP)
  • Nature Monument (Prírodná pamiatka; PP)
  • Protected Site (Chránený areál; CHA)
  • Protected Landscape Element (Chránený krajinný prvok; CHKP)
  • Protected Bird Area* (Chránené vtáčie územie; CHVÚ) *Technically Special Protection Area (SPA) under the EU Bird's Directive
  • Protected Tree (Chránený strom; CHS)

  (Full article...)
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  Viru bog in Lahemaa National Park

  
  
  Protected areas in Estonia are national parks, nature reserves and landscape protection areas (nature parks).
  
  Estonia has five national parks, 167 nature reserves and 152 landscape conservation areas. In addition, there are 116 (118) protected areas with an old (Soviet-era) protection regulation and 537 parks. In total, 18.1% of Estonia are protected nature areas, with Lääne County having the highest percentage (32%) and Põlva County the lowest percentage of protected areas, about 9%. (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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  Protected areas of the Caribbean are significant in a region of particular ecological vulnerability, including the impact of climate change and the impact of tourism.
  
  The University of the West Indies' "Caribbean Protected Areas Gateway" supports informational resources for the 16 Caribbean member states of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States. It forms the regional component of the ACP's Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management program, building on the World Database on Protected Areas. (Full article...)
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  Cape Spencer Lighthouse, Innes National Park

  
  Protected areas of South Australia, consisting of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of 2018, South Australia contained 359 separate protected areas declared under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972, the Crown Land Management Act 2009 and the Wilderness Protection Act 1992. Together, they cover a total land area of 211,387.48 km² (81,617.16 sq mi) or 21.5% of the state's area. (Full article...)
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  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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  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...)
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  This is a list of protected areas in Botswana. (Full article...)
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  A family of Asiatic lions at Gir National Park

  
  The Gujarat state of western India has four National Parks and twenty-three wildlife sanctuaries which are managed by the Forest Department of the Government of Gujarat. (Full article...)
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  This is a list of protected areas of Afghanistan.
  

  • Ab-i-Estada Nature Reserve, Ghazni Province
  • Ajar Valley Nature Reserve, Bamyan Province
  • Bamiyan National Heritage Park, Bamyan Province
  • Bamiyan Plateau Protected Landscape, Bamyan Province
  • Band-e Amir National Park, Bamyan Province
  • Darqad (Takhar) Wildlife Reserve, Takhar Province
  • Dasht-i-Nawar Waterfowl Sanctuary, Ghazni Province
  • Hamun-i-Puzak Waterfowl Sanctuary, Farah and Nimroz provinces
  • Imam Sahib (Kunduz) Wildlife Reserve, Kunduz Province
  • Khulm Landmark Protected Area, Balkh Province
  • Koh-e Baba (Shah Foladi) Protected Landscape, Bamyan province
  • Kol-i-Hashmat Khan Waterfowl Sanctuary, Kabul Province
  • Northwest Afghanistan Game Managed Reserve, Herat Province
  • Nuristan National Park and Wildlife Reserve, Nuristan Province
  • Pamir-i-Buzurg Wildlife Reserve, Badakhshan Province
  • Registan Desert Wildlife Managed Reserve, Kandahar Province
  • Wakhan National Park, Badakhshan Province
  • Zadran National Reserve, Paktia Province

  (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...)
• 
  Papua New Guinea is home to several protected areas, which receive protection because of their environmental, cultural or similar value.
  
  The total area of Papua New Guinea protected territories is 14,330 km² (5,530 sq mi), which amounts to approximately 3.07% of the country's territory. The total number of protected areas as 2018 is 71. (Full article...)
• 
  Protected areas in the U.S. State of Ohio include national forest lands, Army Corps of Engineers areas, state parks, state forests, state nature preserves, state wildlife management areas, and other areas. (Full article...)

Selected world maps

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

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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