THE CONTINENTS OF

THE WORLD

Let’s take a trip to . . .

DISCUSSION GUIDE

• Introductions of the different continents

• Landmarks/Featured places• Known authors • (Side trip) Egypt, India,

parts of Philippines

AFRICA

• Africa, second largest of Earth’s seven continents, covering 23 percent of the world’s total land area and containing 13 percent of the world’s population. Africa straddles the equator and most of its area lies within the tropics.

• It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Indian Ocean and Red Sea on the east, and the Mediterranean Sea on the north. In the northeastern corner of the continent, Africa is connected with Asia by the Sinai Peninsula.

• Africa is the birthplace of the human race. Here, early humans evolved from apes between 8 million and 5 million years ago. Modern human beings evolved between 130,000 and 90,000 years ago, and subsequently spread out of Africa. Ancient Egypt, one of the world’s first great civilizations, arose in northeastern Africa more than 5,000 years ago.

• Over time many other cultures and states rose and fell in Africa, and by 500 years ago there were prosperous cities, markets, and centers of learning scattered across the continent.

Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, lies in northeastern Tanzania near the border of Kenya. The mountain has two volcanic peaks, spaced 11 km (7 mi) apart, with the higher of the two rising 5,895 m (19,341 ft). Farmers cultivate coffee beans and plantains on Kilimanjaro’s lower slopes.

A number of different watercourses drain into Africa’s Nile River. The Blue Nile, originating in Ethiopia, joins the White Nile at Khartoum, Sudan; from this point the Nile runs northward through Sudan and Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. As shown here, the Nile provides people and materials with a means of transportation.

This woman from Botswana is wearing a colorful dress made of different pieces of fabric sewn together. Some of the designs on the patches are made in the traditional batik method, but this dress is contemporary.

These men are members of the Akan people of Ghana. Their clothing is ceremonial, as are the linguist staffs they carry. They are probably preparing to dance in a funeral ritual; red is one of the colors of mourning in Ghana.

Wole Soyinka, born in 1934, Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and lecturer, whose writings draw on African tradition and mythology while employing Western literary forms. In 1986 Soyinka became the first African writer and the first black writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature.

ANTARCTICA• Antarctica surrounds the South

Pole and is a place of extremes. It is the southernmost, coldest, iciest, driest, windiest, most remote, and most recently discovered continent. Nearly the entire landmass lies within the Antarctic Circle.

• Air temperatures of the high inland regions fall below -80°C (-110°F) in winter and rise only to -30°C (-20°F) in summer. Massive ice sheets built up from snow over millions of years cover almost all of the continent and float in huge ice shelves on coastal waters.

Equipped with wide-gaping jaws and long fangs, this formidable predator is the only one of the three dozen species of pinnipeds-seals, sea lions, and walruses-that customarily includes mammals and birds in its diet.

These flightless birds of Antarctica dive to depths of 200 m (656 ft) in search of squid and fish. The largest penguin at 1.2 m (3.9 ft) tall and weighing 45 kg (99.2 lb), the emperor penguin makes no nest and defends no territory. The male carries its mate's single egg at the top of its feet, secured by a fold of skin, while the female feeds for two months. The female returns when the young emerges.

ASIA• It is the largest of the Earth’s

seven continents, lying almost entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. With outlying islands, it covers an estimated 44,391,000 sq km (17,139,000 sq mi), or about 30 percent of the world’s total land area.

• Its peoples account for three-fifths of the world’s population; in 2008 Asia had an estimated 4.05 billion inhabitants.

ASIA

SOUTHEAST ASIA

SOUTH ASIA

SOUTHWEST ASIA

EAST ASIA

•China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan

• Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines

• India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, and Bhutan

• Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait

Li Bo or Li Po• Chinese poet, one of the greatest

figures of Chinese literature. Li Bo was born into the minor nobility in what is now Sichuan (Szechwan) Province. After an apprenticeship with a Daoist (Taoist) hermit and a time of wandering, he lived briefly as a poet at the Tang (T’ang) court in Chang’an but left as the result of intrigue.

• Then he returned to a life of Daoist study and carefree reflective wandering, writing poems and enjoying nature and the pleasures of wine, supplied free by the emperor's orders. According to legend, Li Bo was drowned while drunkenly leaning from a boat to embrace the moon's reflection on the water.

Rabindranath Tagore

• Indian poet, philosopher, and Nobel laureate, who tried to deepen mutual Indian and Western cultural understanding. His name in Bengali is Ravīndranātha Thākura.

• He was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), into a wealthy family, the son of the philosopher Debendranath Tagore. He began to write poetry as a child; his first book appeared when he was 17 years old.

• After a brief stay in England (1878) to study law, he returned to India, where he rapidly became the most important and popular author of the colonial era, writing poetry, short stories, novels, and plays. He composed several hundred popular songs and in 1929 also began painting.

Bashō, pseudonym of MATSUO MUNEFUSA

• (1644-94), Japanese poet, considered a master of the haiku form. In his youth Bashō was a samurai, but after 1666 he devoted his life to writing poetry. The structure of his haiku reflects the simplicity of his meditative life.

• When he felt the need for solitude, he withdrew to his bashō-an, a hut made of plantain leaves (bashō)—hence his pseudonym.

Ang Lee• born in 1954, Taiwanese motion-

picture director and writer, whose films often focus on the conflicting personal relationships that develop among people, especially families and different generations. Lee has made films in both Chinese and English.

AUSTRALIA

• Australia, island continent located southeast of Asia and forming, with the nearby island of Tasmania, the Commonwealth of Australia, a self-governing member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

• It is the only continent which is a country at the same time.

• It includes the mainland of the country Australia and the island nations of New Guinea

• European inhabitants came onto the Australian landmass in the 1700s.

• It is the most isolated and remote of the continents and has been least influenced by migrations of people, plants, and animals

The shell-shaped Sydney Opera House is one of the most famous pieces of modern architecture in the world. It was designed by Jørn Utzon and completed in 1973. Sydney is the capital of New South Wales, which is located on the southeastern coast of Australia. Sydney is the largest city in Australia and the country’s cultural center.

Body painting is an essential part of the artistic heritage of Aboriginal Australians. . Aboriginal people use ochre, a natural pigment, to create paint for use in traditional rituals and ceremonies.

Henry Handel Richardson

• pseudonym of ETHEL FLORENCE ROBERTSON,néeRICHARDSON (1870-1946), Australian novelist

• Richardson is best known for her great trilogy of 19th-century Australian life, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (Australia Felix,1917; The Way Home,1925; and Ultima Thule,1929).

Australian feminist writer Germaine Greer published her bestselling, groundbreaking book The Female Eunuch in 1970. In it she argued against the traditional nuclear family and in favor of a revolutionary empowerment of women.

EUROPE• The name Europe is perhaps

derived from that of Europa, the daughter of Phoenix in Greek mythology, or possibly from Ereb, a Phoenician word for “sunset.”

• The second smallest continent (Australia is the smallest), Europe has an area of 10,355,000 sq km (3,998,000 sq mi), but it has the third largest population of all the continents, 730 million in 2008.

• Europe has long been a center of great cultural and economic achievement. The ancient Greeks and Romans produced major civilizations, famous for their contributions to philosophy, literature, fine art, and government.

The Eiffel Tower rises above Paris. It was built for the World’s Fair in 1889 by French engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel

The City of Rome

The Parthenon, built between 447 and 432 bc, is the greatest monument of classical Athens. Originally a temple to Athena Parthenos (the Virgin Athena), it was eventually converted into a Christian church and later into a mosque.

Moscow’s Red Square at Night

SOPHOCLES is one of the three great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece, along with AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES. Notable tragedies by Sophocles include Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Electra.

Sappho

• Greek poet, whose poetry was so renowned that Greek philosopher Plato referred to her two centuries after her death as the tenth muse

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE is an English playwright and poet who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s, is regarded as the greatest dramatist in the history of English literature.

Seventeenth-century writer JOHN MILTON ranks as one of the greatest poets in the history of English literature. Milton’s masterpiece, the epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), dramatizes the Biblical account of humanity’s banishment from Paradise.

JOHN DONNEThe first and greatest of the metaphysical poets of the early 17th century, Englishman John Donne wrote with an unsentimental, subtly intellectual style.

Russian writer LEO TOLSTOY’s psychologically and morally complex novels are regarded as masterpieces of realistic fiction. Tolstoy believed that culture and society were antagonistic to true happiness.

NORTH AMERICA

• North America, third largest of the seven continents, including Canada (the 2nd largest country in area in the world), the United States (3rd largest), and Mexico (14th largest).

• Canada and the United States have technologically developed early modern economies, and Mexico, although less technologically developed than its neighbors, contains some of the world's greatest deposits of petroleum and natural gas.

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY was one of the first sights to welcome immigrants arriving in the United States. For many Americans, the statue has come to represent the diversity of the U.S. people, as well as the ideals that drew many to the nation.

The Grand Canyon

The Empire State Building in New York City, New York, stands 381 m high. The construction of the world’s tallest skyscraper was planned by American politician Alfred Smith. Although no longer the world’s tallest building, it remains a popular tourist destination.

SOUTH AMERICA

• Fourth largest of the Earth's seven continents (after Asia, Africa, and North America), occupying 17,820,900 sq km (6,880,700 sq mi), or 12 percent of the Earth's land surface

ROBERT FROST won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry four times (1924, 1931, 1937, and 1943) and became known across the country when he recited his poem “The Gift Outright” at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961.

EDGAR ALLAN POE• The short stories and

poetry of 19th-century American Edgar Allan Poe reflect the writer’s haunting imagination.• “The Raven”• “Annabel Lee”• The Cask of

Amontillado”

American writer, editor, and critic EZRA POUND’s best-known work is the Cantos, a series of poems addressing a wide range of subjects, from the historical to the personal. Pound wrote the Cantos from 1915 to 1970.