The Earth is more than four billion years old, with a population of over seven billion. Modern civilization as we know it has been around for about six thousand years. Today, there are nearly 200 countries on seven continents spanning more than 57 million square miles of land around the world.
With all of these people and places, it should not be surprising that the world is packed with interesting facts that you may not know about. Here, we will share some of the most interesting world facts. Enjoy reading and hopefully learning something new about this great big world in which we live.
What? We all learned that the Earth is round in elementary school social studies. Remember reading about people discovering they were not going to fall off the earth at the point of the horizon and that the world was not flat?
The Earth is definitely not flat, but it is also not perfectly round like a circle. The shape of earth is technically an oblate spheroid, or oblate ellipsoid because there are flatter areas at the poles and bulging areas along the equator.
If the entire human population stood shoulder to shoulder, all 7 billion of us could fit into about 500 square miles, which is about the size of Los Angeles, CA.
Coca-Cola is the world’s largest soft-drink brand. But it is not technically available everywhere in the world. If you go to Cuba or North Korea, you might not find Coca-Cola. Why? because of trade embargoes between the US and these countries dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, the people of Cuba and North Korea can’t necessarily get this popular drink. North Korea and Cuba do make their own versions of cola.
Did you know that the bird from the twitter logo has a name and that it was named after an iconic Boston Celtics legend and NBA hall-of-famer? In 2011 one of Twitter’s co-founders disclosed that the logo’s name is Larry the Bird as in, Larry Bird.
A lot of people assume that the United States or Canada are the largest countries in the world. But they don’t even come close. Russia, with 6601668 square miles is almost twice as big as Canada, the US, and China which have 3474919.427 square miles.
In Japan, some traffic lights have blue as the go symbol instead of green. Why? There was a time that blue and green were the same word in Japanese – so they used both colors.
The Rungrado 1st of May Stadium is the largest stadium in the world in terms of crowd capacity. It can officially hold 150,000 people. The stadium is shaped like a parachute, though it was intended to resemble a magnolia flower. It is designed to host numerous types of sporting events, including football (soccer) matches involving North Korea’s national team. More often than not, however, the stadium is used to host military parades.
Nearly all countries use the metric system. But, not all. Four countries still use the “Imperial System.” The US, Myanmar, and Liberia still use non-metric measurement. The system is usually referred to as “standard” measurement.
Soccer comes in first with about 3.5 billion fans scattered in Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. Cricket comes in second an estimated 2.5 billion fans in Asia, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Approximately 385,000 babies are born every day. That equals about 4.5 births per second.
And the Spam Capital of the World is….Guam. Everyone person in Guam consumes an average of 16 cans of spam per year, the most of any country.
Guam was introduced to Spam after World War II, when American solders introduced it.
Japan is the most earthquake prone country on earth. It sits right inside the most active earthquake zone in the world called the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Homo Sapiens, the first “modern” humans roamed the earth as many as 50,000 years ago. Since then, an estimated 108 billion people have existed on earth. This means that the current world population of 7.5 billion is only about 7% of the humans that ever lived.
As of 2020, about 59.51 percent of the global population of more than seven billion people, lived in Asia. About 4.561 billion (17.91 percent) lived in Africa. The combined populations of Africa and Asia makes up almost 80 percent of the world’s population.
The Vatican, home of the Catholic Church and the Pope, is smaller than New York City’s Central Park. It has an area of about 108 acres. The Vatican is the smallest Country in the world and is situated inside the Country of Italy. Seventy five percent of the Vatican’s residents are members of the clergy.
Afghanistan is the only non-African country to end up on the list of 20 countries with the youngest populations. Niger tops the list with the median age of its people coming in at 15.
There are 24 time zones in the world. The earth moves on its axis, about 15 degrees every hour. In one day, 24 hours, it rotates a full 360 degrees.
Almost all panda’s you see around the world are on loan from China. Zoos pay to get pandas – almost like a rental agreement. Some zoos sign contracts that if a baby panda is born in the zoo, the zoo has to pay a fee or tax to China for the additional panda.
Estimates suggest that there are more than 778 million adults around the world who are illiterate, mostly women. The illiteracy rate in some countries is as high as 70 percent. North Korea is the most literate country, boasting a 100% literacy rate.
There is a World Death Clock that tracks deaths around the globe. Accordingly, 56,000,000 people die yearly, 4 million monthly, 150,000 per day, 6000 per hour, 106.60 per minute and about two per second.
