Geography

The Maghreb, an Arabic word meaning “west” or “place of sunset”, refers to northwestern Africa. This part of the continent was conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century and remains Arabic in culture and religion today. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Countries in this region are Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, … Read more

Africa is called the birthplace of the human race because scientists have found fossilized bones of human ancestors in eastern and southern Africa that are the oldest of any in the world. They believe that humans gradually moved out of Africa to populate the rest of the world. The earliest Homo sapiens, or modern human, … Read more

A total of about 10 to 12 million Africans were brought by Europeans to North and South America beginning in the 1500s. Most North American slaves came from west Africa, including the area of today’s countries of Gambia, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Many South American slaves came from Angola and … Read more

Oldupai Gorge is in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, where evidence of early humans dates back about 2 million years. Olduvai Gorge is an important prehistoric site in the world and has played an important role in the understanding of early human evolution. Oldupai is the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, which … Read more

The barren red sand desert known as Namib Desert is the richest source of diamonds in the world. The Namib Desert stretches along Africa’s southwestern coast for 1,300 miles (2,093 km). When the cold waters of the South Atlantic Ocean collide with the hot dry air of the African desert, huge amounts of fog blanket … Read more

One of Tanzania’s most interesting places is Ngorongoro, a huge volcanic crater, or caldera. Probably the largest unbroken caldera in the world, Ngorongoro is 20 miles (32 km) wide and nearly 2,000 feet (600 m) deep. More than 30,000 animals live within the crater, including black rhinos, buffaloes, elephants, flamingos, leopards, lions, and zebras. Various … Read more

Today, South Africa is the most industrialized country on the continent. It grew rich because Dutch colonists discovered gold and diamonds there in the late 1800s. South Africa still supplies about one third of the world’s gold yearly, mining more gold than any other country. Other types of mining are important to the South African … Read more

Mauritius, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar, was once home to the flightless dodo bird, which Dutch settlers hunted to extinction in the 1600s. The dodo bird was an easy prey to settlers due to its weight and inability to fly, and became extinct less than eighty years after it … Read more

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning “separateness,” in this case referring to the strict separation of the black and white races. Beginning in the late 1940s, apartheid was the official policy of the South African government. Under this policy, only white people, who formed just 15 percent of the population, had political and economic power. … Read more

The names Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia refer to geographic divisions of Oceania. Micronesia refers to the more than 2,000 small islands that mostly lie north of the Equator. They include the Gilbert Islands, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, and Nauru. The 1,500 islands of Melanesia lie south of the Equator and include Fiji, … Read more

There are 13 independent countries in Oceania: Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Several other islands are territories of other countries, including the U.S. state of Hawaii. Australia is sometimes considered part of Oceania, but not always. All … Read more

Tuvalu and Nauru are the two smallest countries in Oceania. Nauru has 14,000 people living on an 8 square mile (21 sq km) island. Nauru is the smallest island nation in the world and was settled by Micronesian and Polynesian people. Tuvalu has about 12,000 citizens living on nine coral atolls that together total only … Read more

Papua New Guinea is a country that occupies more than half the island of New Guinea, about 100 miles north of Australia. The country of Indonesia occupies the western end of the island. This island was formed when part of the continent of Australia broke away millions of years ago. Papua New Guinea gained its … Read more

Australia is about 7,000 miles southwest from North America, lying between the South Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. A commercial airplane flight to Australia’s largest city, Sydney, takes more than 14 hours nonstop from Los Angeles. Australia is the only country that is also a continent. It is the world’s smallest and flattest continent, … Read more

Africa is the least developed continent in the world, with the exception of Antarctica. Most of its people are uneducated and must farm for a living. But farming is not easy in countries with poor soils, frequent floods and droughts, erratic weather, frequent insect invasions, and primitive tools. Most farmers grow only enough food to … Read more

The rest of the world produces enough food to feed Africa, but the problem is that it’s often difficult or impossible to get it to the people who need it. Roads are very bad in most of Africa and railroads and airports are few and far between. In addition, most countries are quite large and … Read more

Less than one fifth of the African continent is forested, primarily tropical rain forests. Savannas, or grasslands, cover two-fifths of Africa, the Serengeti Plain is one example. Deserts cover the remaining two fifths of the continent. Deforestation affects Africa at twice the global rate, and some scientists claim that most of West Africa’s original forests … Read more

In agriculture, Africa produces most of the world’s yams, cocoa beans, and cassava. It is the leading producer of gold, copper, and diamonds. The country of South Africa is the world’s largest producer of gold. Africa remains the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent, even though it has abundant natural resources. A large number of … Read more

The Great Rift Valley is the longest rift in the world. It was formed when tectonic forces created giant cracks in the earth’s crust and began spreading apart. It is 3,750 miles (6000 km) long and more than 50 miles (80 km) wide at some points. The Great Rift Valley begins in Jordan, near Syria … Read more

As the population grows, forests are being cleared so that farmers can plant more crops. Trees are also being cut down for use as firewood. Wood is the primary source of fuel in Africa. Deforestation is affecting Africa at twice the global rate, and some environmentalists claim that deforestation has already wiped out about 90% … Read more

The largest waterfall in the world is the Victoria Falls. The Victoria Falls are on the Zambezi River, which forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe in southern Africa. The falls form the world’s largest sheet of falling water. They are 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and drop 420 feet (128 m) into a narrow … Read more

Lake Victoria, in the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, is the largest lake in Africa and the world’s second largest freshwater lake, after Lake Superior on the U.S. Canadian border. Lake Victoria covers 26,828 square miles (69,484 sq km), about the same area as the country of Ireland. Lake Tanganyika, also in eastern Africa … Read more

Only 2 people out of 100 in Africa own a car. Most roads are unpaved, making driving difficult or impossible during rainy periods. The most dangerous country in the world in which to drive is Malawi, in southeastern Africa. Drivers and their passengers are 30 times more likely to be injured in an accident there … Read more

The Okavango River is located in southwest Africa, and begins in Angola, where it is known as the Cubango River. The Okavango River does not flow into the sea. It flows through Botswana, draining into the Moremi Game Reserve, and it ends by emptying into a swamp in the Kalahari Desert, known as the Okavango … Read more

Kenya is located on the east coast of Africa along the Equator. The country has an amazing variety of wild animals, antelope, buffaloes, crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, hippopotamuses, leopards, lions, rhinoceroses, and zebras, to name a few. But hunting has been illegal in Kenya since 1977. Half a million tourists visit Kenya’s many national parks and … Read more

Liberia was Africa’s first independent country. It was founded by freed American slaves and settled beginning in the 1800s, with the financial help of private citizens in the United States. Its capital, Monrovia, was named after U.S. president James Monroe. Today its tropical rain forests provide the raw material for the country’s large rubber industry. … Read more

Madagascar, officially known as the Malagasy Republic, is the world’s fourth largest island. At 1,000 miles (1,610 km) long, it has about the same land area as Texas. The island was once part of the African continent but broke away into the Indian Ocean about 160 million years ago. Madagascar is known for its amazing … Read more

There are two Congos, separated by the Congo River, and they are quite different countries. The Republic of the Congo is the smaller of the two. It was once a French colony and is now a democracy. Its eastern border touches the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was called Zaire until a military dictatorship … Read more

Lake Nios, in the African country of Cameroon, killed about 1,800 people in 1986 when it exploded and sent vast amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid gases into the air. The eruption occurred because the lake sits on top of a volcanic vent. The gases slowly seeped into the lake, and eventually built up … Read more

Libya’s flag is a solid green rectangle, with no design of any kind. Green is the country’s national color, and it also indicates devotion to the Islamic religion. Libya’s flag is the only national flag in the world with just one color and no design, or insignia. Libya is a country located in North Africa, … Read more

The Sahara Desert in northern Africa is the largest dry desert in the world. It covers one third of the African continent. At about 3.5 million square miles (9 million sq km), it is almost as large as the contiguous 48 United States. The Sahara grows larger every year, as the surrounding land dries up … Read more

Unfortunately, is it true that children in some African countries are sent to fight in wars. Children as young as seven or eight years old serve in the military in several African countries, and elsewhere in the world, including Sierra Leone, Uganda, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The United … Read more

The Suez Canal in Egypt connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. It is the longest canal that does not require locks because the water levels of the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Suez are practically the same. Locks are sections of a canal that are closed off by gates, allowing water levels to … Read more

The White Nile runs between the Sudd, a huge swamp, and Khartoum, both in the country of Sudan. When the Europeans searched for the source of the Nile during the 19th century, it was mainly focused on the illusive White Nile. The Blue Nile runs through Ethiopia and joins with the White Nile south of … Read more

The Nile River is the world’s longest river. The Nile River flows northward for about 4,160 miles (6,693 km) through Sudan, Uganda, and Egypt into the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the Nile’s water comes from Lake Victoria, which lies in the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Egypt has depended on the Nile river since … Read more

The Aswan High Dam in southern Egypt is 364 feet (111 m) tall and 12,565 feet (3,830 m) long. It was completed in 1970, after 10 years of construction. It is built of silt, sand, clay, and rock, about 16 times as much material as contained in the Great Pyramid at Giza. The dam was … Read more

Egypt is often called a Middle Eastern country because, like the rest of northern Africa, Egypt is populated mostly by people of Arabic descent. In fact, the official name of Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt. Part of Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, is really considered part of Asia, not Africa. This eastern part of … Read more

In northern Africa, Arabic and Berber are the most widely spoken languages. In southern Africa, most people speak English or Afrikaans. Afrikaans was developed by the early Dutch settlers. The rest of the continent, more than one third of the people, speak one of the hundreds of Black African languages. For example, about 300 Bantu … Read more

Africa is home to more than 800 ethnic groups, each of which has its own language, beliefs, and traditions. All of these groups lived in Africa long before Europeans founded colonies there in the 1800s. The Europeans drew boundary lines for their territories without considering traditional regions, and as a result many ethnic groups were … Read more

A lingua franca is a common second language used to communicate among people who speak different native languages. The Swahili language is a lingua franca. Although Swahili is an African tongue, it has many Arabic words because much Arabic trade once took place on Africa’s eastern coast. English is also a lingua franca in Africa. … Read more

The most common building material in the world is not wood but mud, especially in Africa, where trees are scarce in many areas. The largest mud building in the world today is the Great Mosque of Djenné, an Islamic temple, in Djenne, Mali, in western Africa. Built in 1907 in one of Africa’s oldest cities, … Read more

Built in 1989, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro can hold 18,000 people. The church is located in Yamoussoukro, the capital of Cote d’Ivoire, a country on Africa’s west coast. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace was built in just three years. Its dome rises higher than the dome of St. … Read more

About one fourth of all Africans practice local, traditional religions, of which there are several hundred. In northern Africa, most people practice Islam, followed by Christianity. About 130 million Africans are Christians. About 45% of the population in Africa are Muslims, 40% are Christians and less than 15% continue to follow traditional African religions. A … Read more

Timbuktu does indeed exist, and is the capital city of Mali, a country on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in Africa. The word Timbuktu itself means “faraway place” in several African languages. It became an important trade center around 1300 for items such as gold, ivory, and slaves. Five hundred years ago, Timbuktu … Read more

Elephants, with their ivory tusks, were once numerous in the region formerly known as the Ivory Coast. It was named by the French in the 1400s, when they began trading in ivory there. Its official name is now the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire. Today, Cote d’Ivoire is one of the richest countries in Africa. About … Read more

Mount Fuji is an active volcanic mountain that last erupted in 1708. Its peak stands at 12,388 feet (3,776 m) above sea level, and is the highest mountain in Japan. It is the most visited mountain in the world. More than 100,000 people climb it each year in July and August, its two month climbing … Read more

The Shwedagon Pagoda, a Buddhist temple that sits on a hill in the Myanmar capital of Yangon, has a tall spire that is covered with thousands of plates of gold and topped with more than 5,400 diamonds and 2,300 rubies, sapphires, and other precious stones. The temple dates back more than 2,000 years. Before 1989, … Read more

In 1923, an earthquake struck near Tokyo and Yokohama, killing more than 130,000 people and destroying most of both cities. More recently, in 1995, the city of Kobe, Japan, was devastated by a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 6,400 people. Volcanoes have also caused destruction in Japan. In 1792, the dome of … Read more

North and South Vietnam have been unified since 1976. In that year the Communists of North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam after nearly 20 years of war and it became one country, called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The United States was involved in that war, in which 58,000 Americans died. The Vietnam War ended with … Read more

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is a Hindu temple that is the world’s largest grouping of religious buildings. Made of thousands of tons of carved stone, the temple’s 600 buildings were built in the 1100s. Angkor Wat was built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and part of … Read more

Indonesia is a country on the Java Sea, along the Equator in Southeast Asia. It is unusual because it is made up entirely of islands, more than 13,000 of them, many of them volcanic and stretching over an area of 3,200 miles (5,152 km). People live on about 6,000 of those islands. Indonesia’s islands form … Read more

Singapore is both a city and a country. Singapore, which is smaller in area and population than New York City, was a British colony until 1959. Most of its citizens are Chinese. The country of Singapore consists of the main island and 62 outlying islets off the Malay Peninsula. Singapore has a diverse population made … Read more

The Philippines became an independent country in 1946. The Philippines had been a U.S. territory since 1898, when the Spanish gave the islands to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American War. Spain had ruled the islands for the previous 300 years. The Philippines consists of more than 7,000 islands, but its people … Read more

People in Indonesia speak more than 250 languages and belong to 300 different ethnic groups. In the 1920s, they devised a common language so they could communicate with one another. It is called Bahasa Indonesia, which is based on the Malay language. Indonesia has a population of about 230 million people in 2010, and is … Read more

Africa has 54 independent countries, 48 in sub-Saharan Africa and six in North Africa, as well as several territories and other political units. These include eight territories under French rule, one British island territory (St. Helena), one Norwegian territory (Bouvet Island), one Australian territory (Heard Island and McDonald Islands), and one Spanish territory (the Canary … Read more

Sudan covers 963,600 square miles, or 2,495,712 square kilometers, an area larger than Alaska and Texas combined. Sudan is the largest country in Africa and the Arab world. The people of Sudan have a long history that is intertwined with the history of Egypt. Sudan’s economy is currently among the fastest growing in the world, … Read more

About one billion people live in Africa, nearly three times the number of people in the United States. About 15% of the world’s human population live in Africa. It is the world’s second largest continent, both in land area and in number of people, after Asia. Africa’s population is growing rapidly because women in Africa … Read more

Nigeria has the largest population in Africa by far, with about 158 million people. It is one of the world’s fastest growing countries, experts predict that by 2050 Nigeria will more than double in size, to about 300 million people. That would be about 20 million more people than live in the United States today. … Read more

Seychelles, a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean, has a land area of just 176 square miles (456 sq km). The island country is an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, approximately 932 miles east of mainland Africa. Arab traders were the first to visit the uninhabited islands, and the earliest … Read more

The Atlas mountain range is Africa’s longest, extending from Morocco to Tunisia in northern Africa. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert. The chain is part of the mountain system that includes the Alps in Europe. The mountains are home to a number of plant and animal species unique … Read more

A monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversal of wind direction which is accompanied by changes in precipitation. In Asia, the monsoon season runs from May to September, when Southern Hemisphere winds shift direction and blow north and west across the Equator into Asia, bringing moisture from the oceans they pass over on the … Read more

The Great Wall of China is not the only artificial structure that can be seen from low Earth orbit. Many human-made objects can be seen with the naked eye from the space shuttle. For example, astronauts can look out their windows and see highways, railroads, and even bridges. But once space vehicles climb a few … Read more

Mongolia, a country in Asia bordered by China and Russia, has about 1.5 times the land area of California. But only 2.9 million people live there in 2010, about the same number who live in the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area. About 30% of the population in Mongolia are nomadic or semi-nomadic, and the most … Read more

The first part of the Great Wall was built about 2,000 years ago as a way to keep people from Mongolia from entering China. Until the 1600s, many more sections were built and rebuilt, until the wall and its branches eventually spread out over 4,000 miles, from Korea in the east to the Gobi Desert … Read more

For at least 3,500 years, the Chinese have used pictures rather than letters to write things down. This type of writing is called pictography. A symbol represents a word in this system, which has about 50,000 different characters. Only about 4,000 are used for everyday writing, though. The interesting thing about the Chinese language is … Read more

Hong Kong has been a territory of China since 1997. Prior to that date, the island of Hong Kong had been a colony of the United Kingdom for 56 years. Since China ceded the island to Britain in 1942, part of what is now Hong Kong is on the Chinese mainland. China gave Britain a … Read more

There is only one time zone in China. China does not use time zones, even though the country does stretch across five of them. Clocks all over China are set to the same time: 8 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, or Coordinated Universal Time. The People’s Republic of China observed daylight saving time from … Read more

The Three Gorges Dam is China’s largest construction project since the Great Wall. The Three Gorges Dam is 1.5 miles wide and 600 feet (183 m) high, stretching across the Yangtze River in the Yiling District of Yichang, in Hubei province. It took six years to completely fill the 350-mile-long (563-km) lake created by the … Read more

The Yangtze River runs for about 3,955 miles (6,363 km), and is longer than the Yellow River, which is about 2,896 miles (4,660 km) long. The Yangtze River is the world’s third longest river, after the Nile and the Amazon. Also known as Chang Jiang, which means “The Long River”, the Yangtze River is the … Read more

Most of China’s energy is produced by burning coal, which spews sulfur and nitrogen compounds into the air, where they combine with moisture and become acidic. These particles eventually fall back to Earth, and some are often carried westward for hundreds of miles by wind and rainstorms. Japan, located just a few hundred miles west … Read more

When the People’s Republic of China, or what we think of as the country of China, was admitted to the United Nations in 1971, it demanded that Taiwan be removed as a member. Taiwan, which calls itself the Republic of China, it’s also known as Nationalist China, has considered itself to be a separate nation … Read more

Japan controlled Korea from 1910 until 1945. At the end of World War II, Korea was divided into two countries, one of which had a Communist government. North Korea, formally called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. South Korea is a non-Communist country that elects its leaders. The two countries have about the same land … Read more

Japan consists of 3,000 islands, called an archipelago, that extend over 1,500 miles (2,415 km) in the central and south Pacific. In total land area, Japan is about the size of the state of Montana. Most of the country’s 127 million people live on one of its four main islands. The majority live on Honshu, … Read more

The highest tsunami on record took place in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958. This tsunami was caused by an earthquake and created a massive landslide that caused part of a mountain to fall into the bay. The wave that resulted was 1,700 feet (518 m) high, higher than any skyscraper on Earth. The event was … Read more

Tokyo city in Japan is the largest city and metropolitan area on earth. Tokyo had 33.1 million people in 2000, much larger than the next-largest cities of New York City and Seoul-Inchon, Korea. Today, Tokyo has an estimated population of about 40 million people. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater … Read more

Since 1939, Siam has been called Thailand, which means “Land of the Free.” Siam had been the country’s name for 700 years. In land area, Thailand is about the size of Texas. Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, is sometimes called the “Venice of the East” because of its canals; the city sits on an island in the … Read more

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India, and was built in honor of an Indian empress named Mumtaz Mahal. When she died at an early age, her husband was so grief-stricken that he decided to build a monument to her memory. In 1648, after 22 years of work, the white marble structure … Read more

The Green Revolution took place between 1967 and 1978 in India and other parts of the developing world. It refers to improvements in agricultural practices that dramatically increased food production, especially wheat and rice in India. By the 1960s, India was growing so fast that it could not produce enough food to keep up with … Read more

New Delhi is the capital city of India, and is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. One of the fastest growing cities in the world, New Delhi was inaugurated on February 13, 1931 by Viceroy, Lord Irwin. The city was built by the British, who ruled India at the time, because they wanted a new … Read more

African elephants are larger; in fact, they’re the largest land animals on Earth. African elephants can weigh up to 8 tons (7,500 kg) and stand about 10 to 13 feet tall at the shoulder. Asian (or Indian) elephants are slightly shorter and weigh about 6 tons (5,500 kg). Probably the easiest way to tell the … Read more

Tibet is not officially a country. Tibet’s official name is the Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. China has claimed Tibet as a territory since 1906, when the British turned Tibet over to China as part of a peace treaty. The Tibetans declared their independence from the Chinese just five years later. In … Read more

About one-third of India’s men and two-thirds of its women are illiterate. India has a 12-year school system, but high school is optional. Only 38 percent of Indian girls and 59 percent of boys attend high school. The state of Kerala has the highest literacy rate at 91% while Bihar has the lowest at 47%. … Read more

Bangladesh’s geographic location invites destruction from storms and floods. Much of the country is a flat alluvial plain, and most of its land is less than 50 feet (15 m) above sea level. As a result, the country is vulnerable to the full force of cyclones (hurricanes) and tsunami (huge waves caused by earthquakes) that … Read more

Mount Everest is located in both Tibet and Nepal. The earth’s tallest mountain, part of the Himalayas, lies on the border of Tibet and Nepal. Mount Everest is 29,035 feet (8,850 m) tall, about 5.5 miles, above sea level. The Nepalese name for Mount Everest is Sagarmatha, while the Tibetans call it Chomolungma. The Himalaya … Read more

Mount Ararat is a snow capped, dormant volcanic cone located in Turkey, where it is called Agri Dagi. At 17,011 feet (5,185 m), it is the highest mountain in the Middle East. Mount Ararat is believed to be the landing place of Noah’s ark, according to the biblical story. In Armenian mythology Mount Ararat is … Read more

The Dead Sea is really a lake, not a sea, because it is surrounded by land. It is six times as salty as ocean water, and only a few forms of plant and animal life, mainly brine shrimp, can survive in the lake. It is salty because water never leaves the lake except by evaporation, … Read more

Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, sits at a strategic location on the Bosporus Strait, where it has long controlled access to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It was called Byzantium in its early years. In A.D. 196, the Romans captured the city and renamed it Augusta Antonina. About 150 years later, it was called New Rome … Read more

The Kurds are a nation of about 25 million people without a country. Kurdistan is a region, not a country, that stretches along parts of today’s Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. In Turkey, the Kurds make up about 20 percent of the population, about 12 million people. Unlike most people in the Middle East, the … Read more

Kuwait, a desert country about the size of New Jersey at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, has gone from being one of the world’s poorest countries to one of the richest, thanks to its immense reserves of oil. Kuwait has almost one-tenth of the known petroleum reserves in the world. About two-thirds of … Read more

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. A large variety of marine life and corals live in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is home to one of the world’s most diverse and colorful coral reef systems. Many forms of marine life thrive there, including Napoleon … Read more