World

When people say "the world" they usually mean Earth, especially in a cultural and geopolitical sense. Humans and all other known living things live in this world. Sometimes "world" means another planet.

Before people discovered that Earth is a planet, they often used "World" to mean "Universe". They still sometimes use it to mean all humans or all civilization. For example, they may say "end of the world" to mean the end of history or humanity.

Sometimes they mean a small part of Earth such as Western world, Islamic world, third world, new world, or ancient world.

World Media

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  Image of the physical world, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope

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  In other contexts, the term world can also refer to the Earth, as seen in this 1972 photograph by the Apollo 17 crew.

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  Yggdrasil, a modern attempt to reconstruct the Norse world tree which connects the heavens, the world, and the underworld.

Related pages

• Universe