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 -

• 
  World Englishes is a term for emerging localised or indigenised varieties of English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States. The study of World Englishes consists of identifying varieties of English used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally and analyzing how sociolinguistic histories, multicultural backgrounds and contexts of function influence the use of English in different regions of the world.
  
  The issue of World Englishes was first raised in 1978 to examine concepts of regional Englishes globally. Pragmatic factors such as appropriateness, comprehensibility and interpretability justified the use of English as an international and intra-national language. In 1988, at a Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, the International Committee of the Study of World Englishes (ICWE) was formed. In 1992, the ICWE formally launched the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE) at a conference of "World Englishes Today", at the University of Illinois, USA. There are two academic journals devoted to the study of this topic, titled English World-Wide (since 1980) and World Englishes (since 1982). There are a number of published handbooks and textbooks on the subject. (Full article...)
• 
  A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2018 "World Urbanization Prospects" report defines megacities as urban agglomerations with over 10 million inhabitants. A University of Bonn report holds that they are "usually defined as metropolitan areas with a total population of 10 million or more people". Elsewhere in other sources, from five to eight million is considered the minimum threshold, alongside a population density of at least 2,000 per square kilometre. The terms conurbation, metropolis, and metroplex are also applied to the latter.
  
  The total number of megacities in the world varies between different sources: The world had 33 according to the UN (in 2018), 45 according to CityPopulation.de (in 2023), and 44 according to Demographia (in 2023). About half of these urban agglomerations are in China and India. The other four countries with more than one megacity are Brazil, Japan, Pakistan, and the United States. African megacities are present in Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and the DRC; European megacities are present in Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Turkey (also in Asia); megacities can be found in Latin America in the countries of Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina. Some sources identify Tokyo's Greater Tokyo Area as the largest megacity in the world, while some others give the title to the Pearl River Delta in China. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Satellite view of the Alps

  
  The Alps (/ælps/) are one of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
  
  The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. (Full article...)
• 
  The BWF World Tour is a Grade 2 badminton tournament series, sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BWF). It is a competition open to the top world ranked players in singles (men's and women's) and doubles (men's, women's and mixed). The competition was announced on 19 March 2017 and came into effect starting from 2018, replacing the BWF Super Series, which was held from 2007 to 2017.
  
  The BWF World Tour are divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, and Super 300 in order (part of the HSBC World Tour). One other category of tournament, the BWF Tour Super 100 level, also offers ranking points. (Full article...)
• 
  Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenge the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather than the national level. Human security reveals a people-centred and multi-disciplinary understanding of security which involves a number of research fields, including development studies, international relations, strategic studies, and human rights. The United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report is considered a milestone publication in the field of human security, with its argument that ensuring "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear" for all persons is the best path to tackle the problem of global insecurity.
  
  Critics of the concept argue that its vagueness undermines its effectiveness, that it has become little more than a vehicle for activists wishing to promote certain causes, and that it does not help the research community understand what security means or help decision-makers to formulate good policies. Alternatively, other scholars have argued that the concept of human security should be broadened to encompass military security: 'In other words, if this thing called 'human security' has the concept of 'the human' embedded at the heart of it, then let us address the question of the human condition directly. Thus understood, human security would no longer be the vague amorphous add-on to harder-edged areas of security such as military security or state security.' (Full article...)
• 
  Globalism has multiple meanings. In political science, it is used to describe "attempts to understand all of the interconnections of the modern world—and to highlight patterns that underlie (and explain) them". While primarily associated with world-systems, it can be used to describe other global trends. The concept of globalism is also classically used to focus on ideologies of globalization (the subjective meanings) instead of its processes (the objective practices); in this sense, "globalism" is to globalization what "nationalism" is to nationality.
  
  The term is now frequently used as a pejorative by far-right movements and conspiracy theorists, as in the New World Order; it is sometimes associated with antisemitism, as antisemites frequently appropriate the term globalist to refer to certain Jews. (Full article...)
• 

  

  High, medium, and low projections of the future human world population

  
  
  In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 years more to reach 8 billion.
  
  The human population has experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000. The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975, peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate declined to 1.1% between 2015 and 2020 and is projected to decline further in the 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates. The UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs projects between 9 and 10 billion people by 2050 and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12 billion by the end of the 21st century, with a growth rate by then of zero. Other demographers predict that the human population will begin to decline in the second half of the 21st century. (Full article...)

General images -

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

• 
  Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
• 
  Empires of the world in 1898
• 
  A 2012 artistic impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk from which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
• 
  Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
• 
  Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (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)
• 
  Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
• 
  Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
• 
  Peopling of the world, the Southern Dispersal scenario
• 
  Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
• 
  Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)
• 
  Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
• 
  Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps (from Earth)
• 
  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, photographed by Neil Armstrong, 1969 (from History of Earth)
• 
  Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
• 
  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)
• 
  Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
• 
  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)
• 
  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.
• 
  Pillar erected by India's Maurya Emperor Ashoka
• 
  Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico
• 
  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)
• 
  Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
• 
  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)
• 
  Yggdrasil, an attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
• 
  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)
• 
  Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
• 
  Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
• 
  Atomic bombing of Nagasaki, 1945
• 
  Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
• 
  A schematic view of Earth's magnetosphere with solar wind flowing from left to right (from Earth)
• 
  Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
• 
  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)
• 
  Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
• 
  First airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
• 
  Japanese depiction of a Portuguese carrack. European maritime innovations led to proto-globalization.
• 
  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)
• 
  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 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)
• 
  Scientific worldview. (from World)
• 
  Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
• 
  Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
• 
  Cuneiform inscription, Sumer, Mesopotamia, 26th century BCE
• 
  Earth's land use for human agriculture in 2019 (from Earth)
• 
  "Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found, was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
• 
  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) (from Human history)
• 
  An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
• 
  A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
• 
  Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale. Mameans "million years ago". (from History of Earth)
• 
  Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989
• 
  A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (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)
• 
  Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
• 
  Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
• 
  View of Earth from the Moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (from Earth)
• 
  Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)
• 
  Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
• 
  Wittenberg, birthplace of Protestantism (from Human history)
• 
  Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
• 
  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)
• 
  Ajloun Castle, Jordan
• 
  Olmec colossal head, now at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
• 
  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)
• 
  Notre-Dame de Paris, France
• 
  Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
• 
  Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
• 
  Conjectured illustration of the scorched Earth after the Sun has entered the red giant phase, about 5–7 billion years from now (from Earth)
• 
  Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
• 
  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)
• 
  An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
• 
  A banded iron formation from the 3.15 Ga Moodies Group, Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa. Red layers represent the times when oxygen was available; gray layers were formed in anoxic circumstances. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (from History of Earth)
• 
  Hagia Sophia, Istanbul – a symbol of Byzantine civilization
• 
  Moai, Easter Island (from Human history)
• 
  A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (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 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)
• 
  A High Desert storm in the Mojave (from Earth)
• 
  A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
• 
  Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut, observing Earth from the Cupola module at the International Space Station on 11 September 2010 (from Earth)
• 
  James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
• 
  COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 (from Human history)
• 
  Relief of Earth's crust (from Earth)
• 
  A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
• 
  Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
• 
  A map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
• 
  Battle during the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan

Megacities of the world -

Shenzhen is a city and special economic zone on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong to the south, Dongguan to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, and Macau to the southwest. With a population of 17.5 million in 2020, Shenzhen is the third most populous city by urban population in China after Shanghai and Beijing. The Port of Shenzhen is the world's fourth busiest container port.

Shenzhen roughly follows the administrative boundaries of Bao'an County, which was established in imperial times. The southern portion of Bao'an County became part of British Hong Kong after the Opium Wars, while the village of Shenzhen was on the border. Shenzhen railway station was the last stop on the mainland Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton Railway, and Shenzhen's economy grew and it became a city by 1979. (Full article...)

Did you know -

• ... that "Look at the world" is a 1996 choral harvest anthem with text and music by John Rutter, written for CPRE "on the theme of the environment and our responsibility towards it"?
• ... that Jane Dempsey Douglass became the first woman to head a worldwide communion of churches in 1990?
• ... that Winston Churchill was often portrayed as a bulldog, but his personal pet dog during the Second World War was a poodle?
• ... that after travelling around 8,300 km (5,200 mi) from Afghanistan to Ireland, Muzamil Sherzad was named a member of Ireland's squad for the 2022 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup?
• ... that after becoming paralyzed from the neck down, Rocky "RockyNoHands" Stoutenburgh broke two Guinness World Records in the video game Fortnite?
• ... that Galadriel's gift of some of her hair to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings has echoes in both English literature and Norse legend?
• ... that the ferry General Joe Potter at Walt Disney World is named in honor of Major General William Everett Potter?
• ... that the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Switzerland was established in 1946 after Walter Corti called for the establishment of a village for orphans of World War II?

Countries of the world -

Brunei, officially Brunei Darussalam and the State of Brunei, is a country in Southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, with its territory bifurcated by the Sarawak district of Limbang. Brunei is the only sovereign state entirely on Borneo; the remainder of the island is divided between its multi-landmass neighbours of Malaysia and Indonesia. As of 2023, the country had a population of 455,858, of whom approximately 180,000 resided in the capital and largest city of Bandar Seri Begawan. Its official language is Malay and Islam is the state religion of the country, although other religions are nominally tolerated. The government of Brunei is a constitutional absolute monarchy ruled by the Sultan, and it implements a fusion of English common law and jurisprudence inspired by Islam, including sharia.

At the Bruneian Empire's peak during the reign of Sultan Bolkiah (1485–1528), the state is claimed to have had control over the most of Borneo, including modern-day Sarawak and Sabah, as well as the Sulu archipelago and the islands off the northwestern tip of Borneo. There are also claims to its historical control over Seludong, the site of the modern Philippine capital of Manila, but Southeast Asian scholars believe the name of the location in question is actually in reference to Mount Selurong, in Indonesia. The maritime state of Brunei was visited by the surviving crew of the Magellan Expedition in 1521, and in 1578 it fought against Spain in the Castilian War. (Full article...)

Wonders of the World -

From left to right, top to bottom: Chichen Itza, Christ the Redeemer, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Petra, the Taj Mahal, and the Colosseum

The New 7 Wonders of the World was a campaign started in 2001 to choose Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. The popularity poll via free Web-based voting and small amounts of telephone voting was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New 7 Wonders Foundation (N7W) based in Zurich, Switzerland, with winners announced on 7 July 2007 in Lisbon, at Estádio da Luz. The poll was considered unscientific partly because it was possible for people to cast multiple votes. According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the Utica, New York–based polling organization Zogby International, New 7 Wonders Foundation drove "the largest poll on record".

The program drew a wide range of official reactions. Some countries touted their finalist and tried to get more votes cast for it, while others downplayed or criticized the contest. After supporting the New 7 Wonders Foundation at the beginning of the campaign by providing advice on nominee selection, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), bound by its bylaws to record and give equal status to all World Heritage Sites, distanced itself from the undertaking in 2001 and again in 2007. (Full article...)

Related portals

---

Protected areas of the world -

• 

  

  The Valley of the Giants skywalk at Walpole-Nornalup National Park

  
  Western Australia is the second largest country subdivision in the world.
  
  As of 2022, based on the latest Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database report, it contains 1857 separate land-based protected areas with a total area of 76,142,710 hectares (188,152,700 acres), accounting for just over 30 percent of the state's land mass. By area, Indigenous Protected Areas account for the largest part of this, almost 67 percent while, by number, nature reserves hold the majority with two-third of all land-based protected areas being nature reserves. (Full article...)
• 
  The Ulyanovsk Oblast in Russia contains about 118 protected natural areas. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  
  Protected areas in Tanzania (Hifahdi za Mali hai za Tanzania, in Swahili) are extremely varied, ranging from sea habitats over grasslands to the top of the Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. About a third of the country's total area is protected to a certain degree as a national park, game reserve, marine park, forest reserve or the like. 840 protected areas are spread across 7,330 km2 of ocean and 361,863 km2 of land in Tanzania. The coastal and marine areas are less protected than terrestrial ecosystems, which are given the highest level of protection. Tanzania is one of the world's major biodiversity hotspots thanks to its vast national parks, "the Eastern Arc" mountains, wetlands, coastal forests, marine, and freshwater systems as remarkable reservoirs of plant and animal species. A wide range of endemic species of birds, reptiles, snakes, amphibians, wild coffee variations, and the well-known African violet flower can also be found in Tanzania. (Full article...)
• 
  The main protected areas of Croatia are national parks, nature parks and strict reserves. There are 444 protected areas of Croatia, encompassing 9% of the country. Those include 8 national parks in Croatia, 2 strict reserves and 11 nature parks. The most famous protected area and the oldest national park in Croatia is the Plitvice Lakes National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Velebit Nature Park is a part of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. The strict and special reserves, as well as the national and nature parks, are managed and protected by the central government, while other protected areas are managed by counties. In 2005, the National Ecological Network was set up, as the first step in preparation of the EU accession and joining of the Natura 2000 network.
  
  The total area of all national parks in the country is 994 km² (384 sq mi), of which 235 km² (91 sq mi) is sea surface. Each of the national parks is maintained by a separate institution, overseen and funded by the government ministry of nature conservation and spatial development. The State Institute for Nature Protection provides centralized oversight and expertise. (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...)
• 
  The protected areas of Michigan come in an array of different types and levels of protection. Michigan has five units of the National Park Service system. There are 14 federal wilderness areas; the majority of these are also tribal-designated wildernesses. It has one of the largest state forest systems as well having four national forests. The state maintains a large state park system and there are also regional parks, and county, township and city parks. Still other parks on land and in the Great Lakes are maintained by other governmental bodies. Private protected areas also exist in the state, mainly lands owned by land conservancies. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Map of protected areas of the Czech Republic: national parks (grey) 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...)
• 
  Protected areas of Sri Lanka are administrated by Department of Forest Conservation and Department of Wildlife Conservation of Sri Lanka.There are 501 protected areas in Sri Lanka. The protected areas that fall under supervision of the Department of Forest Conservation include forests defined in National Heritage Wilderness Area Act in 1988, forest reservations, and forests managed for sustainability. Sinharaja Forest Reserve is an example for a National Heritage forest (it is also a World Heritage Site). There are 32 forests categorized as conservation forests including Knuckles Mountain Range. Strict nature reserves, national parks, nature reserves, forest corridors, and sanctuaries recognized under the Flora and Fauna Protection Ordinance are managed by Department of Wildlife Conservation. Total of all protected areas is 1,767,000 ha. Protected areas in Sri Lanka account for 26.5 percent of the total area. This is a higher percentage of protected areas than in all of Asia and much of the World. (Full article...)
• 

  

  "Temple Gate" Rock formation at Alkhanay National Park

  
  Protected areas of Russia, (official Russian title: Russian: Особо охраняемые природные территории, literally "Specially Protected Natural Areas"), is governed by the corresponding 1995 law of the Russian Federation. (Full article...)
• 

  

  A view at Kintrishi National Park

  
  The South Caucasian nation of Georgia is home to several protected areas, which receive protection because of their environmental, cultural or similar value. The oldest of these – now known as the Lagodekhi Protected Areas – dates back to 1912, when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire.
  
  The total area of Georgia's protected terrestrial territories is 6,501 km² (2,510 sq mi), which amounts to approximately 9.29% of the country's territory. In addition 153 km² (59 sq mi) of marine area protected, or 0.67% of the country's territorial waters. There are a total of 89 protected areas, including 14 Strict Nature Reserves, 12 National Parks, 20 Managed Nature Reserves, 40 Natural Monuments, 2 Ramsar sites and 1 Protected Landscape. Strict nature reserves comprise 140,672 ha, while national parks cover 276,724 ha. The total number of visitors to Georgia's protected areas was just under 1.2 million in 2019. (Full article...)
• 
  Protected areas of Norway include:

  • National parks of Norway

  
  
  About 17 percent of the mainland of Norway is protected. Of this, ca. 8.3 percent is national parks, 1.3 percent is nature reserves and 4.7 percent otherwise protected. (Full article...)
• 
  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...)
• 
  The Australian Capital Territory as of 2014 contains 46 separate protected areas with a total land area of 1,302 km² (503 sq mi) or 55.5% of the territory's area, and which managed by Territory and Municipal Services of the ACT government: (Full article...)
• 
  This is a list of protected areas of Romania.
  
  About 5.18% of the area of Romania has a protected status (12,360 km²), including the Danube Delta, which makes half of these areas (2.43% of Romania's area). (Full article...)
• 

  

  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...)

Selected world maps

• 
  Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
• 
  Mollweide projection of the world
• 
  United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
• 
  The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
• 
  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.
• 
  Time zones of the world
• 
  1516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller
• 
  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

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

World population

World records

Regions

International sports

Global studies

World systems theory

---

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