Karen Hill

Japan’s Seikan Tunnel is 33 miles (53 km) long and connects the main Japanese island of Honshtii with the northern island of Hokkaido. The tunnel extends for 14.5 miles (23 km) under water. The Seikan Tunnel is comparatively underused because air travel is faster and cheaper. The tunnel was opened on 13 March 1988, and … Read more

O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, was the world’s busiest passenger airport before 2005. It beat out the previous world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2001. O’Hare had 911,861 takeoffs and landings in 2001. O’Hare International Airport serves as the primary and largest hub for United Airlines and as a hub … Read more

Humans have already used up about one-third of the world’s known oil reserves, and scientists predict that there is only enough oil to sustain current levels of production for perhaps another hundred years. Oil is distributed unevenly over the earth. Almost 80 percent is in the Eastern Hemisphere, and most of that is in the … Read more

More than 193,000 metric tons of gold has been mined from the earth. If you could take all of this gold and shape it into a solid cube, each side of the cube would be 72 feet (22 m) high. South Africa, the United States, and Australia lead the world in gold production. Since the … Read more

Much more silver than gold has been mined, more than 1,740,000 metric tons from the earth. The amount of silver that has been mined would form a cube 180 feet (55 m) high on each side. Most of the world’s silver comes from Mexico and Peru. Silver has been used for thousands of years to … Read more

About 840 million, or one of every 14 people on the earth, don’t have enough to eat, according to the United Nations. Most live in developing countries in Africa and in the Asia-Pacific region. India alone has about 202 million people who do not get enough food. Poverty is the main reason people go hungry, … Read more

Today, girls born in Japan can expect to live to be 84, the longest life expectancy in the world. Girls born in Switzerland are next; they can expect to live to age 83. Girls born today in Australia, Iceland, Sweden, and France have a life expectancy of 82 years. Girls born today in the United … Read more

Esperanto is a made-up, or artificial, language devised by a Polish doctor named Ludovic L. Zamenhof about 100 years ago to serve as a common language between people who speak different native languages. Its words are based on common words in European languages, and it is fairly easy to learn because its grammar rules are … Read more

No one knows for sure exactly how many different languages are spoken in the world today, but the number is probably between 6,000 and 7,000 languages. And there are many more dialects, which are regional versions of a language with different pronunciations, accents, and words. Most of these languages have relatively few speakers. Every year, … Read more

The top three religions in the world are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Together, about half the world’s people follow the beliefs and teachings of these religions. Islam is the fastest growing of the three. Christianity has the most followers, nearly 2 billion, and they live mainly in North America, South America, and Europe. About half … Read more

The United States is the world’s richest country, followed by Japan. Economists measure a country’s wealth by looking at the total value of the goods and services it produces each year. They call this the GNP, which stands for gross national product. In 2000, the United States had the world’s highest GNP by far, nearly … Read more

The United States is home to the largest concentration of Jewish people in the world, with about 5.8 million. Next is Israel, with 4.6 million, followed by Russia, France, Ukraine, Canada, and Great Britain. The massive movement of Jews all over the world since the end of World War II is called the Jewish diaspora. … Read more

The United States is the worst air polluter in the world, responsible for one-fourth of all carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions result from burning fossil fuels, such as gasoline, oil, natural gas, and coal. China is the world’s second worst air polluter, accounting for 12 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, followed by Russia, Japan, … Read more

The United States tops the list of countries that consumes the most electricity in the world. It generates and consumes about one-fourth of all the electricity worldwide. China is second, consuming about one-tenth of the world’s electricity, followed by Russia, Japan, Germany, India, and Canada, in that order. In 2009, global electricity consumption was cut … Read more

One of the biggest concerns about global warming is that higher temperatures could affect food production in many parts of the world. Many crops need certain temperature ranges to grow properly. Food shortages and famine could result. Also, if warmer temperatures cause polar ice to melt, sea levels could rise and lead to flooding in … Read more

China had nearly 1.3 billion people in 2000. Nearly one out of every five people on Earth is Chinese. In 2000, the United States was the world’s third largest country in population, but China still had more than four and a half times as many people. China and the United States cover about the same … Read more

The answer to when the world’s population will stop growing has to do with how many children are born each year. We know that children born today will have children in the future. So if fewer children are born today, fewer children will be born in the future. In most countries of the world, women … Read more

In the twentieth century, the world’s population grew at an amazing rate. In 1960, there were 3 billion people on Earth. Just 40 years later, the number of people more than doubled, to 6.1 billion. In the 12 years between 1987 and 1999, the earth gained 1 billion people. Population experts predict that the population … Read more

Demographers, people who study population, have estimated that since 50,000 B.C., a total of 105 billion people have lived on Earth. That means about 5.5 percent of everyone who has ever lived is alive today. It was a popular belief in the 1970s that 75% of all the people who had ever lived were alive … Read more

The world population reached 1 billion for the first time in 1804. It then took 123 years for the number of people to double, to 2 billion, in 1927. It took just 72 years for that number to triple, to 6 billion people, in 1999. The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end … Read more

Almost all of the world’s rapid population growth, about 99 percent, is happening in poor, less developed countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Many sociologists speculate that this population growth is due to a lack of education and practice in birth control methods in these regions. About 4.9 billion of the world’s 6.1 billion … Read more

Many countries in Europe, including Italy, Germany, and Russia, are actually losing population because women there are having fewer children than ever before. Japan is also shrinking in population. The United States would be growing more slowly if it weren’t for immigration, people moving there from other countries. This is also true for Australia, New … Read more

Just six countries account for all the world’s annual population growth of about 77 million people each year: India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, in that order. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, and has the world’s largest population of Muslims. The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region … Read more

In this order, the largest cities in the world in population in 2015 will be Tokyo, Japan; Mumbai (Bombay), India; and Lagos, Nigeria. In 2000, half the people in the world lived in urban areas. The percentage of city dwellers is growing every year. In 1960, New York City was the largest city in the … Read more

What Are the Largest Cities In the World In Population and How Many People Lived In the Largest Metropolitan Areas? The list below gives the populations of the largest metropolitan areas, including the central city and its surrounding areas, in 2000. Tokyo, Japan 33.1 million New York City, United States 21.1 million Seoul-Inchon, South Korea … Read more

First, there are two types of “states.” One is a division of a country, as in the 50 states of the United States. The other kind of state is any country. By definition, a country must occupy a space with internationally recognized boundaries, and it must be a self-governing political entity, among other things. A … Read more

The world in the year 1000 was much smaller and quite different from the world today. The list below shows the world’s biggest cities, and their estimated populations, at that time: Cordova, Spain 450,000 Kaifeng, China 400,000 Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey 300,000 Angkor, Cambodia 200,000 Kyoto, Japan 175,000 Cairo, Egypt 135,000 Baghdad, Iraq 125,000 Nishapur (Neyshabur) … Read more

Every day, 34,000 children under age five die from hunger or related causes. That means one child dies every 2.5 seconds, every day. About one out of every four people on Earth live in poorly built homes with poor sanitation and an irregular supply of electricity, if they have electricity at all. Another 100 million … Read more

Mandarin Chinese tops the list of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with about 885 million people who speak it as a first language. On average, one world language begins to die out every 10 days because children are no longer speaking or learning it. Here’s a list of the top 10 languages … Read more

More than half the forests that covered the earth 8,000 years ago are gone today. They’ve disappeared mostly because of human activities. For many hundreds of years, people have used wood for fuel and for building material. Millions of trees were also cut down and cleared away to create farmland. Some scientists estimate that the … Read more

Seasons differ in the northern and southern hemispheres because the earth is not upright on its axis in relation to the sun. Instead, the earth is tilted at about 23.5° from the vertical position relative to the sun. The earth revolves around the sun over the course of a year. When the earth’s Southern Hemisphere … Read more

Angel Falls in eastern Venezuela is the highest waterfall in the world, with a drop of 3,212 feet (979 m) from Devil Mountain. That distance is more than twice the height of the Sears Tower in Chicago, which is 1,450 feet (442 m) high. A U.S. pilot named Jimmy Angel discovered the falls by accident … Read more

Lake Superior, the biggest of the Great Lakes on the U.S. Canadian border, is the largest freshwater lake in the world, and covers 31,700 square miles (82,100 sq km). It is the third-largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and is approximately the size of South Carolina. Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron via … Read more

The smallest country in the world in land area is Vatican City, which is led by the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The country’s official name is the Holy See of the Vatican City, and it is enclosed within Rome, Italy. About 1,000 people live there. Vatican City was established in 1929, and is … Read more

Russia is the largest country in the world in land area, with 6.59 million square miles (17 million sq km). Russia covers more than a ninth of the Earth’s land area, and is also the ninth most populous nation in the world with 142 million people. Spanning 9 time zones and with a wide range … Read more

As the earth orbits the sun, the sun’s rays strike the areas near the Equator at a more direct angle. This delivers more energy at the equator, than they do at the poles. It also means the poles are generally colder than the equator. When sunlight shines on the earth at a lower angle, the … Read more

The number of countries in the world today depends on how the word “country” is defined. According to the U.S. State Department, there are 192 independent countries, if Taiwan is included. The problem is that China claims that Taiwan is a Chinese province, whereas Taiwan insists that it is an independent country. The United Nations … Read more

Canada’s coastline is the longest in the world, at 151,485 miles (243,792 km). That number includes the coastlines of the country’s 52,455 islands. Canada is the world’s second largest country by total area, and it’s border with the United States to the south and northwest is the longest in the world. The name Canada comes … Read more

Starting in Africa and going east, the countries that are located at the equator are Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil. Locations at the Equator experience the quickest rates of sunrise and sunset in the world and they also have a constant … Read more

Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities such as governments, sovereign states, and other subnational entities. A country’s borders continue beneath the surface all the way to the earth’s core. Above the ground, boundaries extend 100 miles (161 km) into the atmosphere. That means that airlines must get permission to enter the air space of … Read more

China and Russia border the most other countries, mainly because they both cover such large land areas. Each country has 14 neighboring countries. Russia’s borders touch Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, and Ukraine. China is bordered by Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, … Read more

Longitude is defined as 0° at the prime meridian, also known as the Greenwich Meridian. The Prime Meridian and the 180th meridian at 180° longitude on the other side of the earth, form a giant circle that divides the Earth into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Going from north to south, the countries located at … Read more

The current population of humans on the planet Earth in 2010 is currently estimated to be 6,865,500,000. In 2009, the United Nations predicted that the population on earth would reach 7,000,000,000 in 2011. The only time in recorded history that the population did not grow was during the Black Death around the year 1400. It … Read more

A landlocked country is completely surrounded by land. That means it has no direct access to a sea or an ocean, an important advantage for trade. About one-fifth of the world’s countries, 47 to be exact, are landlocked. They must depend on their neighbors to give them access to the sea. North America and Australia … Read more

A terrible earthquake struck central China in 1556, killing about 830,000 people. Most died because they were living in caves made of soft rock, called Loess caves, which collapsed during the quake. More than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected by the … Read more

A 1960 earthquake in southern Chile, along the coast of South America, had a magnitude of 9.5, and was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. The earthquake caused a tsunami, or huge wave, which destroyed several fishing villages on Chile’s coastline and then raced across the Pacific Ocean. It struck Hilo, Hawaii, 14 hours later … Read more

The Pacific Ring of Fire is home to more than half the world’s 1,500 active volcanoes. Geologists use the term “active” to mean that a volcano may erupt again someday. Earthquakes are also common in the Ring of Fire. Encircling most of the Pacific Ocean, the Ring of Fire extends from New Zealand in the … Read more

Geologists estimate that about 500,000 earthquakes occur each year in the world. Of these, about 100,000 are strong enough to be felt by people, and about 100 earthquakes cause damage. Minor earthquakes occur nearly constantly around the world in places like California and Alaska in the U.S., as well as in the Middle East and … Read more

Volcanoes can and do form underwater, and in fact most volcanoes are on the ocean floors, not on land. A chain of volcanoes below the sea circles the earth for more than 30,000 miles (48,300 km), standing, on average, about 18,000 feet (5,486 m) above the sea floor. This chain is called the Mid-Ocean Ridge. … Read more

About 60 volcanoes in the world erupt somewhere on land every year. Many others erupt on the ocean floor. About 50 volcanoes have been recorded as erupting in the United States, mainly in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii, since people started keeping track of such things. That makes the United States third in the world … Read more

Mount Tambora’s 1815 eruption was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, and the deadliest in the world. The Tambora volcano in Indonesia killed about 90,000 people in 1815. Most of the victims died of starvation and disease after the eruption. Crops and livestock were destroyed and the water became contaminated, leading to disease. 1816 … Read more

The largest mountain range in the world lies under the oceans. It’s called the Mid-Ocean Ridge, and it runs for nearly 40,000 miles (64,374 km) from the Arctic to the Atlantic Oceans, around the continents of Africa, Asia, and Australia, then under the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of North America. Its tallest peak … Read more

At least 300,000 people worldwide have died as result of volcanic activity since 1500, and many more lost their homes. Scientists estimate that volcanoes pose a risk to about 500 million people today. It has been suggested that volcanic activity contributed to the Permian-Triassic and Late Devonian mass extinctions, among others. One of the largest … Read more

Africa’s Nile River, which is 4,160 miles (6,693 km) long, is the longest river in the world. The Nile flows through the countries of Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt, and has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The northern section of the river flows almost entirely through desert, from Sudan into Egypt, and … Read more

Mount Everest, on the border of Nepal and Tibet in the Himalayan mountains, is tallest mountain in the world at 29,035 feet (8,850 m) above sea level. It was named after Sir George Everest, a British mountain climber. The local name for Mount Everest is Chomolungma, meaning “Goddess Mother of the World.” If measured from … Read more

The deepest lake in the world is Lake Baikal, in Russia’s Siberia region. It is 5,369 feet (1,637 m) deep, more than 1 mile, and holds one-fifth of the world’s freshwater. Scientists think that the lake is the oldest on the planet, at more than 25 million years old. It sits above a rift in … Read more

About one-third of all the land surface on earth is desert. A desert is a region that receives a very low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants, and is defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimeters, or 10 inches per year. Many deserts … Read more

The Caspian Sea, which is a saltwater lake that borders Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Iran, covers 143,244 square miles (371,000 sq km), and is the biggest saltwater lake in the world. The Caspian Sea is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea just like the Black Sea, and became landlocked about 5.5 million years … Read more

Lightning strikes the earth and other objects around it more than 8.6 million times a day, or about 100 lightning strikes every second. Lightning is a discharge of electricity in the atmosphere accompanied by thunder. It usually occurs during thunderstorms, but can sometimes occur during volcanic eruptions or dust storms. A leader of a bolt … Read more

A desert is defined as a place that has little or no vegetation and receives less than 10 inches of precipitation a year. By that definition, the world’s largest desert is most of Antarctica, about 5 million square miles (13 million sq km). About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice, and it is the … Read more

More than 97 percent of the earth’s water is salty sea water. The ocean has a salinity of about 35 parts per thousand (ppt), or 3.5%. All of the earth’s freshwater, water found in ice caps, lakes, rivers, and as groundwater, which is water found close to the surface, in wells and aquifers, accounts for … Read more

About 71 percent of the earth is covered with water. The ocean is a continuous body of water that is divided into several oceans and smaller seas. Scientists estimate that about 230,000 different marine life forms live in the ocean, but the total could much more as many species have not yet been discovered. The … Read more

The pull of gravity is not quite the same everywhere on earth. Although gravity is relatively the same everywhere, there are small variations. These are due to differences in density in the earth’s mass. Scientists have recently discovered, with the help of two earth-orbiting satellites, that the pull of gravity is slightly less off the … Read more

Greenland has 840,000 square miles (2,184,000 sq km), making it the largest island in the world. According to legend, it was named Greenland by its Norwegian discoverer, Erik the Red, in A.D. 985 because he wanted to encourage people to settle there. In truth, most of Greenland lies within the Arctic Circle and is partially … Read more

It’s about 3,700 miles (5,957 km) to the center of the earth. The inner core of the Earth is believed to consist of an iron-nickel alloy, and may have a temperature similar to the Sun’s surface. The existence of an inner core that is distinct from the liquid outer core was discovered in 1936 by … Read more

Most maps show the North Pole at the top not for any good reason, it has become a convention. It’s just been the way most map makers through time, most of whom have lived in the Northern Hemisphere, have shown the world on paper. Many common geographic terms are are derived from ancient Greek words. … Read more

The Pacific Ocean is the largest in the world. It’s twice the size of the Atlantic Ocean, covering 64 million square miles (165.7 million sq km). The Pacific Ocean is also the deepest ocean on earth. At the Mariana Trench, the deepest area of the Pacific, the seafloor is 36,198 feet (11,033 m), almost 7 … Read more

Countries don’t actually own the waters that surround them, but for centuries countries have claimed that certain distances off their shores belong to them. The usual distance was about 3 nautical miles. A nautical mile is equivalent to about 1.15 land miles, or 1,852 meters. The waters off a country’s coastline are important not only … Read more

Most earthquakes and volcanoes take place along plate boundaries, which are places where tectonic plates meet. One of the most active areas is around the Pacific Plate, known as the Ring of Fire. The Pacific Ring of Fire is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and plate … Read more

Lloro, Colombia, in South America receives the highest average annual precipitation on earth, which makes it the wettest place in the world. An estimated 523.6 inches (1,330 cm) of rain falls every year, according to the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s more rain a donkey can sneeze at in a candy store in … Read more

The earth’s crust is not one continuous shell, but instead is broken up into many pieces, which scientists call tectonic plates. No one is sure how many plates there are, but the number is probably between 20 and 40. The continents rest on top of these plates, and over millions of years the plates bearing … Read more

According to the theory of continental drift, the Earth’s continents move relative to each other. Scientists believe that early in the earth’s history, there was just a single landmass, or continent, which they call Pangaea. About 200 million years ago, Pangaea broke up and the pieces began to drift. Today’s continent of Africa was at … Read more

Zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude is a point in the Atlantic Ocean, south of the African country of Ghana and west of another African country, Gabon. Or more precisely, about 380 miles (611 kilometers) south of Ghana and 670 miles (1078 km) west of Gabon. This is where the prime meridian and the … Read more

Continents are usually defined as large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water. Traditionally, there are seven continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. But there are just six distinct land masses because Europe and Asia lie on top of a single tectonic plate, called Eurasia. The … Read more