Compass directions
The four main compass directions are north, east, south and west. Between them are northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest.
Learning Wiki
Geography
Continents, oceans, maps, rivers, volcanoes and climate.
Around ages 5–11
Primary
Oceans
Oceans are the huge bodies of salt water that cover most of Earth. There are five: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic.
Continents
Continents are the very large areas of land on Earth. In English-speaking schools you usually learn seven, but some countries count six.
Maps
A map is a drawing of a place seen from above. A key explains its symbols, a scale shows real distances and a compass shows direction.
Islands
An island is a piece of land completely surrounded by water. Islands can be tiny or huge, and they form in different ways, such as from volcanoes or coral.
Mountains
A mountain is a very high landform with steep sides and a peak. Most form when tectonic plates push together or when volcanoes build up.
Rivers
A river is a large stream of fresh water that flows downhill from its source, often in hills or mountains, to its mouth at a sea, lake or another river.
Volcanoes
A volcano is an opening in Earth's crust where hot melted rock, gases and ash escape. Over time the cooled lava and ash can build a mountain.
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest continent, with 54 countries, the Sahara Desert, the River Nile, the Congo rainforest and savannas full of wildlife.
Antarctica
Antarctica is the frozen continent around the South Pole. It is the coldest, windiest and driest continent, covered by ice, and has no permanent residents.
Asia
Asia is the largest continent, covering about a third of the world's land and holding around 60 percent of its people. It has Mount Everest, the Himalayas and the most populous countries.
Australia and Oceania
Australia is both a country and the smallest continent. Oceania is the wider region of the Pacific that includes Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and thousands of small islands.
Countries
A country is an area of land with its own borders, government and laws. Most lists count 195 countries in the world today.
Deserts
A desert is a place that gets very little rain, usually under 250 millimetres a year. Deserts can be hot, like the Sahara, or cold, like the Gobi and Antarctica.
Europe
Europe is a continent of about 50 countries, from Iceland and Portugal in the west to Russia in the east. It is small in area but has many languages, cultures and capital cities.
North America
North America is the third-largest continent. It includes Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean islands and Greenland.
Rainforests
A rainforest is a dense forest that gets lots of rain all year round. Tropical rainforests are warm, wet and packed with more kinds of plants and animals than almost anywhere else.
South America
South America is the fourth-largest continent. It has 12 countries, the Amazon rainforest and river, the Andes mountains and the Atacama Desert.
Earthquakes
An earthquake is a sudden shaking of the ground. It happens when rocks along a crack in Earth's crust, called a fault, suddenly slip past each other.
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, at about 8,849 metres. It is in the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and China.
The Amazon River
The Amazon is a huge river in South America that carries more water than any other river on Earth. It flows about 6,400 km from the Andes across Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean.
The Arctic and Antarctic
The polar regions are the freezing areas around the North and South Poles. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, and Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean.
The equator and hemispheres
The equator is an imaginary line around the middle of Earth. It splits the globe into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The prime meridian divides the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
The River Nile
The Nile is a river in Africa, about 6,650 kilometres long. It flows north through Uganda, Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea and is usually named the world's longest river.
Capital cities
A capital city is the city where a country's government is based. It is not always the biggest city: Nigeria's capital is Abuja, not Lagos.
Glaciers
A glacier is a huge, slow-moving river of ice. It forms on land where more snow falls than melts, and it carves valleys as it creeps downhill.
Hurricanes
A hurricane is a giant spinning storm that forms over warm ocean water, with strong winds and heavy rain. In other parts of the world it is called a typhoon or a cyclone.
Map scale
A map scale tells you how distances on the map compare with real distances. A scale of 1:50,000 means 1 cm on the map is 50,000 cm, or 500 m, on the ground.
Tsunamis
A tsunami is a series of very long, fast ocean waves, usually caused by an underwater earthquake. They are small in deep water but can grow tall and powerful when they reach the coast.
Biomes
A biome is a large region of the world with a similar climate, plants and animals. Examples are desert, rainforest, grassland, tundra and the ocean.
Climate
Climate is the usual pattern of weather in a place over many years, usually 30 or more. Weather is what is happening in the sky today.
Time zones
Time zones exist because Earth spins, so the Sun is high in the sky at different times in different places. Earth is split into zones about an hour apart so that clocks match the daylight.
Latitude and longitude
Latitude and longitude are imaginary lines on Earth. Latitude measures how far north or south of the Equator you are; longitude how far east or west.
Global warming
Global warming is the rise in Earth's average temperature over the last 150 years or so. Burning coal, oil and gas adds greenhouse gases to the air, which trap extra heat.
