
for all the world
[Middle English, from Old English weorold.]
noun
Idioms beginning with world:
world is one's oyster, the
world of good, a
See also all over the place (world); best of both worlds; bring into the world; come up (in the world); dead to the world; for all the world; go out (of the world); in one's own world; it's a small world; laugh and the world laughs with you; man of the world; move up (in the world); not for all the tea in china (for the world); on earth (in the world), what; on top of the world; out of this world; set the world on fire; think a lot (the world) of; third world; with the best will in the world.
| Background: | Globally, the 20th century was marked by: (a) two devastating world wars; (b) the Great Depression of the 1930s; (c) the end of vast colonial empires; (d) rapid advances in science and technology, from the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (US) to the landing on the moon; (e) the Cold War between the Western alliance and the Warsaw Pact nations; (f) a sharp rise in living standards in North America, Europe, and Japan; (g) increased concerns about the environment, including loss of forests, shortages of energy and water, the decline in biological diversity, and air pollution; (h) the onset of the AIDS epidemic; and (i) the ultimate emergence of the US as the only world superpower. The planet's population continues to explode: from 1 billion in 1820, to 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1988, and 6 billion in 2000. For the 21st century, the continued exponential growth in science and technology raises both hopes (e.g., advances in medicine) and fears (e.g., development of even more lethal weapons of war). |

| Geographic overview: | The surface of the earth is approximately 70.9% water and 29.1% land. The former portion is divided into large water bodies termed oceans. The World Factbook recognizes and describes five oceans, which are in decreasing order of size: the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Arctic Ocean. The land portion is generally divided into several, large, discrete landmasses termed continents. Depending on the convention used, the number of continents can vary from five to seven. The most common classification recognizes seven, which are (from largest to smallest): Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Asia and Europe are sometimes lumped together into a Eurasian continent resulting in six continents. Alternatively, North and South America are sometimes grouped as simply the Americas, resulting in a continent total of six (or five, if the Eurasia designation is used). North America is commonly understood to include the island of Greenland, the isles of the Caribbean, and to extend south all the way to the Isthmus of Panama. The easternmost extent of Europe is generally defined as being the Ural Mountains and the Ural River; on the southeast the Caspian Sea; and on the south the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. Africa's northeast extremity is frequently delimited at the Isthmus of Suez, but for geopolitical purposes, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula is often included as part of Africa. Asia usually incorporates all the islands of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The islands of the Pacific are often lumped with Australia into a "land mass" termed Oceania or Australasia. Although the above groupings are the most common, different continental dispositions are recognized or taught in certain parts of the world, with some arrangements more heavily based on cultural spheres rather than physical geographic considerations. |
| Map references: | Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones of the World |
| Area: | total: 510.072 million sq km land: 148.94 million sq km water: 361.132 million sq km note: 70.9% of the world's surface is water, 29.1% is land |
| Area - comparative: | land area about 16 times the size of the US |
| Land boundaries: | the land boundaries in the world total 251,060 km (not counting shared boundaries twice); two nations, China and Russia, each border 14 other countries note: 45 nations and other areas are landlocked, these include: Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Holy See (Vatican City), Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Paraguay, Rwanda, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, West Bank, Zambia, Zimbabwe; two of these, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan, are doubly landlocked |
| Coastline: | 356,000 km note: 94 nations and other entities are islands that border no other countries, they include: American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Ashmore and Cartier Islands, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Baker Island, Barbados, Bermuda, Bouvet Island, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Christmas Island, Clipperton Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Cuba, Cyprus, Dominica, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Faroe Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Greenland, Grenada, Guam, Guernsey, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Howland Island, Iceland, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jan Mayen, Japan, Jarvis Island, Jersey, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Federated States of Micronesia, Midway Islands, Montserrat, Nauru, Navassa Island, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Palmyra Atoll, Paracel Islands, Philippines, Pitcairn Islands, Puerto Rico, Reunion, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Spratly Islands, Sri Lanka, Svalbard, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Virgin Islands, Wake Island, Wallis and Futuna, Taiwan |
| Maritime claims: | a variety of situations exist, but in general, most countries make the following claims measured from the mean low-tide baseline as described in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: territorial sea - 12 nm, contiguous zone - 24 nm, and exclusive economic zone - 200 nm; additional zones provide for exploitation of continental shelf resources and an exclusive fishing zone; boundary situations with neighboring states prevent many countries from extending their fishing or economic zones to a full 200 nm |
| Climate: | a wide equatorial band of hot and humid tropical climates - bordered north and south by subtropical temperate zones - that separate two large areas of cold and dry polar climates |
| Terrain: | the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean |
| Elevation extremes: | lowest point: Bentley Subglacial Trench -2,555 m note: in the oceanic realm, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the lowest point, lying -10,924 m below the surface of the Pacific Ocean highest point: Mount Everest 8,850 m |
| Natural resources: | the rapid depletion of nonrenewable mineral resources, the depletion of forest areas and wetlands, the extinction of animal and plant species, and the deterioration in air and water quality (especially in some countries of Eastern Europe, the former USSR, and China) pose serious long-term problems that governments and peoples are only beginning to address |
| Land use: | arable land: 10.57% permanent crops: 1.04% other: 88.38% (2005) |
| Irrigated land: | 2,770,980 sq km (2003) |
| Natural hazards: | large areas subject to severe weather (tropical cyclones); natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions) |
| Environment - current issues: | large areas subject to overpopulation, industrial disasters, pollution (air, water, acid rain, toxic substances), loss of vegetation (overgrazing, deforestation, desertification), loss of wildlife, soil degradation, soil depletion, erosion; global warming becoming a greater concern |
| Geography - note: | the world is now thought to be about 4.55 billion years old, just about one-third of the 13.7-billion-year age estimated for the universe |
| Population: | 6,790,062,216 (July 2009 est.) |
| Age structure: | 0-14 years: 27.2% (male 950,127,898/female 894,359,186) 15-64 years: 65.2% (male 2,235,114,476/female 2,192,071,874) 65 years and over: 7.6% (male 227,748,114/female 290,640,668) (2009 est.) |
| Median age: | total: 28.4 years male: 27.7 years female: 29 years (2009 est.) |
| Population growth rate: | 1.167% (2009 est.) |
| Birth rate: | 19.95 births/1,000 population (2009 est.) |
| Death rate: | 8.2 deaths/1,000 population (2009 est.) |
| Urbanization: | urban population: 48.6% of total population (2005) rate of urbanization: 1.98% annual rate of change (2005-10 est.) ten largest urban agglomerations: Tokyo (Japan) - 35,676,000; New York-Newark (US) - 19,040,000; Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico) - 19,028,000; Mumbai (India) - 18,978,000; Sao Paulo (Brazil) - 18,845,000; Delhi (India) - 15,926,000; Shanghai (China) - 14,987,000; Kolkata (India) - 14,787,000; Dhaka (Bangladesh) - 13,458,000; Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 12,795,000 (2007) |
| Sex ratio: | at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2009 est.) |
| Infant mortality rate: | total: 40.85 deaths/1,000 live births male: 43.85 deaths/1,000 live births female: 37.67 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.) |
| Life expectancy at birth: | total population: 66.57 years male: 64.52 years female: 68.76 years (2009 est.) |
| Total fertility rate: | 2.58 children born/woman (2009 est.) |
| HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: | NA 0.8% (2007 est.) |
| HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: | 33 million (2007 est.) |
| HIV/AIDS - deaths: | 2 million (2007 est.) |
| Religions: | Christians 33.32% (of which Roman Catholics 16.99%, Protestants 5.78%, Orthodox 3.53%, Anglicans 1.25%), Muslims 21.01%, Hindus 13.26%, Buddhists 5.84%, Sikhs 0.35%, Jews 0.23%, Baha'is 0.12%, other religions 11.78%, non-religious 11.77%, atheists 2.32% (2007 est.) |
| Languages: | Mandarin Chinese 13.22%, Spanish 4.88%, English 4.68%, Arabic 3.12%, Hindi 2.74%, Portuguese 2.69%, Bengali 2.59%, Russian 2.2%, Japanese 1.85%, Standard German 1.44%, French 1.2% (2005 est.) note: percents are for "first language" speakers only |
| Literacy: | definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 82% male: 87% female: 77% note: over two-thirds of the world's 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate (2005 est.) |
| Administrative divisions: | 265 nations, dependent areas, and other entities |
| Legal system: | all members of the UN are parties to the statute that established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court |
| Economy - overview: | Global output rose by 3.8% in 2008, down from 5.2% in 2007. Among major economies, growth was led by China (9.8%), Russia (7.4%), and India (7.3%). Worldwide, nations varied widely in their growth results, with Macau (15%), Azerbaijan (13.2%), and Angola (11.6%), registering the highest. Growth rates slowed in all the major industrial countries and most developing countries, because of uncertainties in the financial markets and lowered consumer confidence. Externally, the nation-state, as a bedrock economic-political institution, is steadily losing control over international flows of people, goods, funds, and technology. Internally, the central government often finds its control over resources slipping as separatist regional movements - typically based on ethnicity - gain momentum, e.g., in many of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, in the former Yugoslavia, in India, in Iraq, in Indonesia, and in Canada. Externally, the central government is losing decisionmaking powers to international bodies, notably the EU. In Western Europe, governments face the difficult political problem of channeling resources away from welfare programs in order to increase investment and strengthen incentives to seek employment. The addition of 80 million people each year to an already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the problems of pollution, desertification, underemployment, epidemics, and famine. Because of their own internal problems and priorities, the industrialized countries devote insufficient resources to deal effectively with the poorer areas of the world, which, at least from an economic point of view, are becoming further marginalized. The introduction of the euro as the common currency of much of Western Europe in January 1999, while paving the way for an integrated economic powerhouse, poses economic risks because of varying levels of income and cultural and political differences among the participating nations. The terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 accentuated a growing risk to global prosperity, illustrated, for example, by the reallocation of resources away from investment to anti-terrorist programs. The opening of war in March 2003 between a US-led coalition and Iraq added new uncertainties to global economic prospects. The complex political difficulties and the high economic cost of establishing domestic order in Iraq became major global problems that continued through 2008. |
| GDP (purchasing power parity): | $69.49 trillion (2008 est.) $67.2 trillion (2007) $65.95 trillion (2006) note: data are in 2008 US dollars |
| GDP (official exchange rate): | GWP (gross world product): $62.25 trillion (2008 est.) |
| GDP - real growth rate: | 3.8% (2008 est.) 5.2% (2007 est.) 5.3% (2006 est.) |
| GDP - per capita (PPP): | $10,400 (2008 est.) $10,200 (2007 est.) $9,800 (2006 est.) note: data are in 2008 US dollars |
| GDP - composition by sector: | agriculture: 4% industry: 32% services: 64% (2008 est.) |
| Labor force: | 3.167 billion (2008 est.) |
| Labor force - by occupation: | agriculture: 40% industry: 20.6% services: 39.4% (2007 est.) |
| Unemployment rate: | 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2007 est.) |
| Household income or consumption by percentage share: | lowest 10%: 2.5% highest 10%: 29.9% (2002 est.) |
| Investment (gross fixed): | 21.9% of GDP (2008 est.) |
| Inflation rate (consumer prices): | developed countries 1% to 4% typically; developing countries 5% to 20% typically; national inflation rates vary widely in individual cases, from declining prices in Japan to hyperinflation in one Third World country (Zimbabwe); inflation rates have declined for most countries for the last several years, held in check by increasing international competition from several low wage countries (2008 est.) |
| Stock of money: | $12.35 trillion (31 December 2007) |
| Stock of quasi money: | $27.31 trillion (31 December 2007) |
| Stock of domestic credit: | $69.9 trillion (31 December 2007) |
| Market value of publicly traded shares: | $66.82 trillion (31 December 2007 est.) |
| Industries: | dominated by the onrush of technology, especially in computers, robotics, telecommunications, and medicines and medical equipment; most of these advances take place in OECD nations; only a small portion of non-OECD countries have succeeded in rapidly adjusting to these technological forces; the accelerated development of new industrial (and agricultural) technology is complicating already grim environmental problems |
| Industrial production growth rate: | 2.2% (2008 est.) |
| Electricity - production: | 19.02 trillion kWh (2007 est.) |
| Electricity - consumption: | 17.48 trillion kWh (2007 est.) |
| Electricity - exports: | 674 billion kWh (2007 est.) |
| Electricity - imports: | 622.6 billion kWh (2007 est.) |
| Electricity - production by source: | fossil fuel: NA hydro: NA nuclear: NA other: NA |
| Oil - production: | 85.54 million bbl/day (2007 est.) |
| Oil - consumption: | 85.22 million bbl/day (2007 est.) |
| Oil - exports: | 66.19 million bbl/day (2005) |
| Oil - imports: | 65.41 million bbl/day (2005) |
| Oil - proved reserves: | 1.332 trillion bbl (1 January 2008 est.) |
| Natural gas - production: | 3.021 trillion cu m (2007 est.) |
| Natural gas - consumption: | 3.198 trillion cu m (2007 est.) |
| Natural gas - exports: | 929.9 billion cu m (2007 est.) |
| Natural gas - imports: | 957.6 billion cu m (2007) |
| Natural gas - proved reserves: | 175.4 trillion cu m (1 January 2008 est.) |
| Exports: | $16.28 trillion f.o.b. (2008 est.) |
| Exports - commodities: | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services top ten - share of world trade: electrical machinery, including computers 14.8%; mineral fuels, including oil, coal, gas, and refined products 14.4%; nuclear reactors, boilers, and parts 14.2%; cars, trucks, and buses 8.9%; scientific and precision instruments 3.5%; plastics 3.4%; iron and steel 2.7%; organic chemicals 2.6%; pharmaceutical products 2.6%; diamonds, pearls, and precious stones 1.9% (2006 est.) |
| Exports - partners: | US 13.7%, Germany 7.3%, China 6.2%, France 4.6%, UK 4.5%, Japan 4.1% note: these data show the share of world exports to the specified countries (2007) |
| Imports: | $16.21 trillion f.o.b. (2008 est.) |
| Imports - commodities: | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services top ten - share of world trade: see listing for exports |
| Imports - partners: | China 10.7%, Germany 9.2%, US 8.3%, Japan 5.1%, France 4% note: these data show the share of world imports from the specified countries (2007) |
| Debt - external: | $54.62 trillion note: this figure is the sum total of all countries' external debt, both public and private (31 December 2008 est.) |
| Stock of direct foreign investment - at home: | World total DFI $16.65 trillion (2008 est.) |
| Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad: | World total DFI $16.22 trillion (2008 est.) |
| Telephones - main lines in use: | 1,263,367,600 (2005) |
| Telephones - mobile cellular: | 2,168,433,600 (2005) |
| Telephone system: | general assessment: NA domestic: NA international: NA |
| Radio broadcast stations: | AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA |
| Radios: | NA |
| Television broadcast stations: | NA |
| Televisions: | NA |
| Internet Service Providers (ISPs): | 10,350 (2000 est.) |
| Internet users: | 1,018,057,389 (2005) |
| Airports: | total airports - 49,024 top ten by passengers: Atlanta (ATL) - 89,379,287; Chicago (ORD) - 76,177,855; London (LHR) - 68,068,304; Tokyo (HND) - 66,823,414; Los Angeles (LAX) - 61,896,075; Paris (CDG) - 59,922,177; Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) - 59,786,476; Frankfurt (FRA) - 54,161,856; Beijing (PEK) - 53,583,664; Madrid (MAD) - 52,122,702 top ten by cargo (metric tons): Memphis (MEM) - 3,840,491; Hong Kong (HKG) - 3,773,964; Anchorage (ANC) - 2,825,511; Shanghai (PVG) - 2,559,310; Inch'on (ICN) - 2,555,580; Paris (CDG) - 2,297,896; Tokyo (NRT) - 2,254,421; Frankfurt (FRA) - 2,127,646; Louisville (SDF) - 2,078,947; Miami (MIA) - 1,922,985 (2007) |
| Heliports: | 1,359 (2007) |
| Railways: | total: 1,370,782 km (2006) |
| Roadways: | total: 68,937,575 km (2008) |
| Waterways: | 671,886 km (2004) |
| Ports and terminals: | top ten container ports as measured by Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs): Singapore - 27,935,500; Shanghai - 26,150,000; Hong Kong - 23,999,000; Shenzhen (China) - 21,099,100; Pusan (South Korea) - 13,254,703; - Rotterdam - 10,790,604; Dubai (UAE) - 10,650,000; Kaohsiung (Taiwan) - 10,256,829; Hamburg - 9,917,180; Qingdao (China) - 9,462,000 (2007) |
| Military expenditures: | roughly 2% of GDP of gross world product (2005 est.) |
| Disputes - international: | stretching over 250,000 km, the world's 322 international land boundaries separate 194 independent states and 71 dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, and other miscellaneous entities; ethnicity, culture, race, religion, and language have divided states into separate political entities as much as history, physical terrain, political fiat, or conquest, resulting in sometimes arbitrary and imposed boundaries; most maritime states have claimed limits that include territorial seas and exclusive economic zones; overlapping limits due to adjacent or opposite coasts create the potential for 430 bilateral maritime boundaries of which 209 have agreements that include contiguous and non-contiguous segments; boundary, borderland/resource, and territorial disputes vary in intensity from managed or dormant to violent or militarized; undemarcated, indefinite, porous, and unmanaged boundaries tend to encourage illegal cross-border activities, uncontrolled migration, and confrontation; territorial disputes may evolve from historical and/or cultural claims, or they may be brought on by resource competition; ethnic and cultural clashes continue to be responsible for much of the territorial fragmentation and internal displacement of the estimated 6.6 million people and cross-border displacements of 8.6 million refugees around the world as of early 2006; just over one million refugees were repatriated in the same period; other sources of contention include access to water and mineral (especially hydrocarbon) resources, fisheries, and arable land; armed conflict prevails not so much between the uniformed armed forces of independent states as between stateless armed entities that detract from the sustenance and welfare of local populations, leaving the community of nations to cope with resultant refugees, hunger, disease, impoverishment, and environmental degradation |
| Refugees and internally displaced persons: | the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that in December 2006 there was a global population of 8.8 million registered refugees and as many as 24.5 million IDPs in more than 50 countries; the actual global population of refugees is probably closer to 10 million given the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees displaced throughout the Middle East (2007) |
| Trafficking in persons: | current situation: approximately 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked annually across national borders, not including millions trafficked within their own countries; at least 80% of the victims are female and up to 50% are minors; 75% of all victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation; almost two-thirds of the global victims are trafficked intra-regionally within East Asia and the Pacific (260,000 to 280,000 people) and Europe and Eurasia (170,000 to 210,000 people) Tier 2 Watch List: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, India, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Niger, Panama, Republic of the Congo, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe Tier 3: Algeria, Burma, Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Kuwait, Moldova, North Korea, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria (2008) |
| Illicit drugs: | cocaine: worldwide coca leaf cultivation in 2007 amounted to 232,500 hectares; Colombia produced slightly more than two-thirds of the worldwide crop, followed by Peru and Bolivia; potential pure cocaine production decreased 7% to 865 metric tons in 2007; Colombia conducts an aggressive coca eradication campaign, but both Peruvian and Bolivian Governments are hesitant to eradicate coca in key growing areas; 551 metric tons of export-quality cocaine (85% pure) is documented to have been seized or destroyed in 2005; US consumption of export quality cocaine is estimated to have been in excess of 380 metric tons opiates: worldwide illicit opium poppy cultivation continued to increase in 2007, with a potential opium production of 8,400 metric tons, reaching the highest levels recorded since estimates began in mid-1980s; Afghanistan is world's primary opium producer, accounting for 95% of the global supply; Southeast Asia - responsible for 9% of global opium - saw marginal increases in production; Latin America produced 1% of global opium, but most was refined into heroin destined for the US market; if all potential opium was processed into pure heroin, the potential global production would be 1,000 metric tons of heroin in 2007 |
Share and save the world.
— Maitreya.
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Quotes:
"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
- Zen Aphorism
"The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition."
- Hannah Arendt
"Until Eve arrived, this was a man's world."
- Richard Armour
"The earth is the Lord s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. [Psalms 24:1]"
- Bible
"I have been in love, and in debt, and in drink, this many and many a year."
- Alexander Brome
"If this were a logical world, men would ride side saddle."
- Rita Mae Brown
See more famous quotes about World
| working stiff, working girl, work | |
| worry-guts, wot, wotcher |
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth.[2]
In a philosophical context it may refer to: (1) the whole of the physical Universe, or (2) an ontological world (see world disclosure). In a theological context, world usually refers to the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred. The "end of the world" refers to scenarios of the final end of human history, often in religious contexts.
World history is commonly understood as spanning the major geopolitical developments of about five millennia, from the first civilizations to the present.
World population is the sum of all human populations at any time; similarly, world economy is the sum of the economies of all societies (all countries), especially in the context of globalization. Terms like world championship, gross world product, world flags etc. also imply the sum or combination of all current-day sovereign states.
In terms such as world religion, world language, and world war, world suggests international or intercontinental scope without necessarily implying participation of the entire world.
In terms such as world map and world climate, world is used in the sense detached from human culture or civilization, referring to the planet Earth physically.
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The English word world comes from the Old English weorold (-uld), weorld, worold (-uld, -eld), a compound of wer "man" and eld "age," which thus means roughly "Age of Man."[3] The Old English is a reflex of the Common Germanic *wira-alđiz, also reflected in Old Saxon werold, Old High German weralt, Old Frisian warld and Old Norse verǫld (whence the Icelandic veröld).[4]
The corresponding word in Latin is mundus, literally "clean, elegant", itself a loan translation of Greek cosmos "orderly arrangement." While the Germanic word thus reflects a mythological notion of a "domain of Man" (compare Midgard), presumably as opposed to the divine sphere on the one hand and the chthonic sphere of the underworld on the other, the Greco-Latin term expresses a notion of creation as an act of establishing order out of chaos.
'World' distinguishes the entire planet or population from any particular country or region: world affairs pertain not just to one place but to the whole world, and world history is a field of history that examines events from a global (rather than a national or a regional) perspective. Earth, on the other hand, refers to the planet as a physical entity, and distinguishes it from other planets and physical objects.
'World' can also be used attributively, to mean 'global', 'relating to the whole world', forming usages such as world community or world canonical texts.[5]
By extension, a 'world' may refer to any planet or heavenly body, especially when it is thought of as inhabited, especially in the context of science fiction or futurology.
'World', in original sense, when qualified, can also refer to a particular domain of human experience.
In philosophy, the term world has several possible meanings. In some contexts, it refers to everything that makes up reality or the physical universe. In others, it can mean have a specific ontological sense (see world disclosure). While clarifying the concept of world has arguably always been among the basic tasks of Western philosophy, this theme appears to have been raised explicitly only at the start of the twentieth century[6] and has been the subject of continuous debate. The question of what the world is has by no means been settled.
The traditional interpretation of Parmenides' work is that he argued that the every-day perception of reality of the physical world (as described in doxa) is mistaken, and that the reality of the world is 'One Being' (as described in aletheia): an unchanging, ungenerated, indestructible whole.
In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato distingues between forms and ideas and imagines two distinct worlds : the sensible world and the intelligible world.
In Hegel's philosophy of history, the expression Weltgeschichte ist Weltgericht (World History is a tribunal that judges the World) is used to assert the view that History is what judges men, their actions and their opinions. Science is born from the desire to transform the World in relation to Man; its final end is technical application.
The World as Will and Representation is the central work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body.
Two definitions that were both put forward in the 1920s, however, suggest the range of available opinion. "The world is everything that is the case," wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein in his influential Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1922. This definition would serve as the basis of logical positivism, with its assumption that there is exactly one world, consisting of the totality of facts, regardless of the interpretations that individual people may make of them.
Martin Heidegger, meanwhile, argued that "the surrounding world is different for each of us, and notwithstanding that we move about in a common world".[7] The world, for Heidegger, was that into which we are always already "thrown" and with which we, as beings-in-the-world, must come to terms. His conception of "world disclosure" was most notably elaborated in his 1927 work Being and Time.
In response, Freud proposed that we do not move about in a common world, but a common thought process. He believed that all the actions of a person are motivated by one thing: lust. This led to numerous theories about reactionary consciousness.
Some philosophers, often inspired by David Lewis, argue that metaphysical concepts such as possibility, probability and necessity are best analyzed by comparing the world to a range of possible worlds; a view commonly known as modal realism.
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It has been suggested that World (theology) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since July 2010. |
Mythological cosmologies often depict the world as centered around an axis mundi and delimited by a boundary such as a world ocean, a world serpent or similar.
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - verden
adj. - verden, folk
idioms:
Nederlands (Dutch)
wereld, aardbol aan lager wal raken
Français (French)
n. - monde, pays, univers
adj. - mondial, du monde, autour du monde
idioms:
Deutsch (German)
n. - Welt
adj. - Welt...
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - κόσμος, δημιουργία, πλάση, σύμπαν, υφήλιος, γη, (η) κοινωνία, (τα) εγκόσμια
idioms:
Italiano (Italian)
mondo, globo, mondiale
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
n. - o planeta Terra (m), humanidade (f), qualquer extensão muito grande (f)
idioms:
Русский (Russian)
мир, свет, земля, земной шар, планета, вселенная, человечество, область, сфера, период истории, жизнь (человека), окружающая среда, общество, уйма, относящийся ко всему миру
idioms:
Español (Spanish)
n. - mundo, tierra, mundillo, esfera, círculo
adj. - del mundo
idioms:
中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
世界, 世人, 地球, 世界的
idioms:
中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 世界, 世人, 地球
adj. - 世界的
idioms:
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 세계, 분야
adj. - 세계적인, 유명한
idioms:
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 世界, 世界中の人, 宇宙, 天体, 上流社会, 現世, 世間, 大量, 大いに, …界
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) الدنيا, العالم, الناس, , الكون, مقدار كبير أصبح فقيرا
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - עולם, העולם, תבל, העולם הגשמי, היקום, כמות גדולה, האנושות, חיי יום-יום, כל מה שקיים מחוץ לעצמיות - העולם החיצון, אנשים ממוצעים, מכובדים או מקובלים, דיעותיהם ומנהגיהם, כל מה שנוגע לאנשים המשתייכים למעמד, זמן או תחום-פעולה מסוים
adj. - של העולם, עולמי
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