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In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. 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 many 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, on the other hand, 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 commonly 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 often 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 commonly 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 or 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...)
Image 1Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars in an image taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on 22 April 2022 (from Earth)
Image 2Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut, observing Earth from the Cupola module at the International Space Station on 11 September 2010 (from Earth)
Image 3The first airplane, the Wright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
Image 4The 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)
Image 5Chloroplasts in the cells of a moss (from History of Earth)
Image 7Earth's land use for human agriculture (from Earth)
Image 8A 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)
Image 9Relief of Earth's crust (from Earth)
Image 10A 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 11Olmec colossal head from La Venta
Image 12An 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)
Image 13Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989, with Brandenburg Gate in background
Image 14World War I trench warfare
Image 15Prehistoric cave art at Cueva de las Manos
Image 16Pangaea 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)
Image 17Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, is among the most recognizable symbols of the Byzantine civilization.
Image 18Empires of the world in 1898
Image 19A view of Earth with different layers of its atmosphere visible: the troposphere with its shadows casting clouds and a band of stratospheric blue sky at the horizon, and above this a line of green airglow of the lower thermosphere around an altitude of 100 km, at the edge of space (from Earth)
Image 20Taj Mahal, Mughal Empire, India
Image 21Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler
Image 22A reconstruction of Pannotia (550 Ma). (from History of Earth)
Image 23Pale orange dot, an artist's impression of Early Earth, featuring its tinted orange methane-rich early atmosphere (from Earth)
Image 24Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
Image 26Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Image 27Trilobites first appeared during the Cambrian period and were among the most widespread and diverse groups of Paleozoic organisms. (from History of Earth)
Image 28Yggdrasil, a modern attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld. (from World)
Image 29Ming dynasty section, Great Wall of China
Image 30Notre-Dame de Paris, in Paris, is among the most recognizable symbols of Christendom.
Image 32Tiktaalik, a fish with limb-like fins and a predecessor of tetrapods. Reconstruction from fossils about 375 million years old. (from History of Earth)
Image 33Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference
Image 34A computer-generated image mapping the prevalence of artificial satellites and space debris around Earth in geosynchronous and low Earth orbit (from Earth)
Image 35Crusader Krak des Chevaliers, Syria
Image 36Artist's impression of the enormous collision that probably formed the Moon (from History of Earth)
Image 37Earth's western hemisphere showing topography relative to Earth's center (instead of to mean sea level, as in common topographic maps) (from Earth)
Image 38James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
Image 39Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
Image 40A Benin Bronze head from Nigeria
Image 41Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (from World)
Image 42Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, photographed by Neil Armstrong, 1969 (from History of Earth)
Image 43Atomic bombings: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 1945
Image 44Artist's conception of Devonian flora (from History of Earth)
Image 45Artist's rendition of an oxinated fully-frozen Snowball Earth with no remaining liquid surface water. (from History of Earth)
Image 46Change in average surface air temperature and drivers for that change. Human activity has caused increased temperatures, with natural forces adding some variability. (from Earth)
Image 47Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci epitomizes the advances in art and science seen during the Renaissance. (from History of Earth)
Image 48Geologic 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.
Image 49Monumental cuneiform inscription, Sumer, Mesopotamia, 26th century BCE
Image 50Earth's history with time-spans of the eons to scale (from History of Earth)
Image 52Battle during 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
Image 53A composite image of artificial light emissions at night on a map of Earth (from Earth)
Image 54Venus figurine, Hohle Fels, Germany, c. 40,000–35,000 BCE
Image 55Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
Image 56An artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. (from History of Earth)
Image 57Lithified 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)
Image 58Schematic of Earth's magnetosphere, with the solar wind flows from left to right (from Earth)
Image 59The Standing Buddha from Gandhara, 2nd century CE
Image 60The 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 61Earth's atmosphere as it appears from space, as bands of different colours at the horizon. From the bottom, afterglow illuminates the troposphere in orange with silhouettes of clouds, and the stratosphere in white and blue. Next the mesosphere (pink area) extends to just below the edge of space at one hundred kilometers and the pink line of airglow of the lower thermosphere (invisible), which hosts green and red aurorae over several hundred kilometers. (from Earth)
Image 62A 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 Southern Ocean and the Antarctic ice sheet (white) covering Antarctica. (from Earth)
Image 63Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
Image 64Obelisk of Axum, Ethiopia
Image 65University of Timbuktu, Mali
Image 66A Japanese depiction of a Portuguese trading carrack. Advances in shipbuilding technology during the Late Middle Ages would pave the way for the global European presence characteristic of the early modern period.
Image 67Chennakesava Temple, Belur, India
Image 68Global map of heat flow from Earth's interior to the surface of Earth's crust, mostly along the oceanic ridges (from Earth)
Image 69Earth's axial tilt causing different angles of seasonal illumination at different orbital positions around the Sun (from Earth)
Image 70Machu Picchu, Inca Empire, Peru
Image 71Cross-section through a liposome (from History of Earth)
Image 72Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic (from History of Earth)
Image 74A pillar at Göbekli Tepe
Image 75Artist's conception of Hadean Eon Earth, when it was much hotter and inhospitable to all forms of life. (from History of Earth)
Image 76An artist's rendering of a protoplanetary disk (from History of Earth)
Image 77Graph showing range of estimated partial pressure of atmospheric oxygen through geologic time (from History of Earth)
Image 78Overview map of the peopling of the world, following the Southern Dispersal paradigm. Labels are in thousands of years ago.
Image 80The Pantheon in Rome, Italy, originally a Roman temple, now a Catholic church
Image 81A reconstruction of human history based on fossil data. (from History of Earth)
Image 83Florence, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance
Image 84Artist'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)
Image 85Maya observatory, Chichen Itza, Mexico
Image 86An artist's impression of the early Solar System's protoplanetary disk, out of which Earth and other Solar System bodies were formed (from Earth)
Image 87Artist'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)
Image 88Artist'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 close than today, appearing 2.8 times larger and producing strong tides. (from Earth)
Image 89A 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)
Image 90Satellite time lapse imagery of Earth's rotation showing axis tilt (from Earth)
Image 91Cave painting, Lascaux, France, c. 15,000 BCE
Image 92Reconstruction of Lucy, the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found
Image 93St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Chengdu (UK: /tʃɛŋˈduː/, US: /tʃʌŋ-/; Chinese: 成都; pinyin: Chéngdū; Sichuanese pronunciation: [tsʰən˨˩tu˥], Standard Chinese pronunciation: [ʈʂʰə̌ŋ.tú] (listen)), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a population of 20,937,757 inhabitants during the 2020 Chinese census, it is the fourth most populous city in China, and it is the only city apart from the four direct-administered municipalities with a population of over 20 million. It is traditionally the hub of Western China.
Namibia (/nəˈmɪbiə/ (listen), /næˈ-/), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres (660 feet) of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Commonwealth of Nations.
Image 11516 map of the world by Martin Waldseemüller
Image 2Mollweide projection of the world
Image 3The Goode homolosine projection is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps.
Image 4The world map by Gerardus Mercator (1569), the first map in the well-known Mercator projection
Image 5A plate tectonics map with volcano locations indicated with red circles
Image 6Only 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
Image 7United Nations Human Development Index map by country (2016)
Image 8Time zones of the world
Image 9Index map from the International Map of the World (1:1,000,000 scale)
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ka = kiloannum (thousands years ago); Ma = megaannum (millions years ago); Ga = gigaannum (billions years ago). See also: Geologic time scale • ![]() ![]() |
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