The amazing land and continents, North America, South America, Antarctica, Africa, Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Europe. These pieces of land are home to 195 countries and over 7,100 languages. In between these there are also four oceans, seven seas, and many gulfs. 

    There are also four hemispheres: north, south, east and west. There are invisible lines that separate these hemispheres, such as the equator, which separates north and south, or the prime meridian, which separates east and west.

    There are more invisible lines called longitude and latitude. These help with finding a location, or place.

Another part of the world's history is the natural resources we use. These resources are materials we use from nature to help with everyday life. Examples are water, plants, animals, and fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are fuels, or energy sources made from fossils.

    Some energy sources are able to be replaced easily, this is called renewable energy. Energy from the sun, water, or wind is renewable.

    Nonrenewable, or energy that can't be replaced easily, includes coal, oils, gases, and fossil fuels. These can't be found and replaced easily like water can.

Weather is how hot or cold it is outside everyday. Climate is how hot or cold is outside over a long time. The things that determine weather and climate is how close to the equator you live. If you live in the south, you are more likely to live in a warm climate. If you live in the north, you are more likely to live in a cold climate.

The amount of people in a town or city is called a population. A population distribution is the way people are spread out. As a matter of fact, there is an entire science for this called demography. The population density is how many people there are per square mile, and population growth is how much the population grows per year. Migration is when people move from one place to another place within the country. Urban areas are places like a city, faster moving, bigger schools, and living there is more expensive. A rural area is out in the country, or town. It's slower moving, with smaller schools, and it's cheaper to live in.

The economy is the way we live and how the government controlls us. Producers are owners and workers of products and services. The people who buy and use these products and services are the consumers. The ways to measure the economy is checking the gross domestic product, or GDP. You can check the GDP per capita, or person, or the standard of living, which is a measurement of a country's education, housing, health, and nutrition. Some countries trade stuff out of their country for other things to go into their country. A market economy is where the resources are owned and controlled by people, where a command economy is where the president tells people what to make.

The government is what sets up and enforces rules called laws. The government is here to protect people and their rights and to solve problems within the country and other countries. Most of them either have a tribal rule, where chiefs or elders make up the rules, direct democracy, where the adults decide on rules. A representative government is where people vote on who gets to be in the government. A constitutional monarchy is where there is a king or queen who's in charge, but they have little power and instead a group called parliament makes laws. A dictatorship is ruled by one person and one person only. An absolute monarchy is where a king or queen holds all the power. An oligarchy is where a group controlls the country.

Culture is the way of life for people. Parts of culture can be what people believe in, their ways of doing things, what they eat, what they wear, and their what language they speak. Cultural diffusion is when someone takes their culture and leaves an influence of it somewhere else. Acculturation is twisting that cultural diffusion to make it like their own.

There were many civilizations that built their society on rivers, like the Indus, or Mesopatamians. To keep this simple, the Mesopatamians worshipped their gods in Ziggurats, and date back to 2500 BCE.

    The Indus river and valley people date back to 2500 BCE. Historians don't know a lot because we can't read their writing system! This ancient civilization is the biggest mystery of all.

Ancient China can be split into dynasties. They might have been the last to develope out of four ancient river civilizations, but they're the longest lasting. The very first dynasty dates back to 1525 BCE. They also had a writing system that some still use today. They were polytheistic, thinking that their gods represented the different parts of nature.

    Let's keep it short and sweet about each dynasty, and just say the names and dates of them, then, I'll talk about my favorite. Shang, 1766-1122 BCE. Zhou, 1122-256 BCE. Qin, 221-206 BCE. Han, 206 BCE- 220 CE. Song, 906-1279. Yuan (Mongol), 1279-1318. Ming, 1318-1644. Qing, 1644-1911. And that's it.