Explore an overview of the world map, discover its history via the Mappa Mundi, and review its major geographical regions, including North America and South America.
Updated: 11/21/2023
World Regions Map | Outline & History
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does a world region map show?
A map of the world's regions will be broken down by continent and by other significant factors. The map could display vernacular regions, or regions grouped together by people's perceptions, or formal regions, which are distinguished by shared physical or cultural characteristics.
What are the 7 geographical regions?
The seven geographical regions are based on the world's continents. They include North America, South America, Europasia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica.
Table of Contents
ShowThe Mappa Mundi is a 13th-century world map. Designed by British cartographers, the map is significant because it offers insight into how Englishmen in the Middle Ages viewed the world. The map is circular, with Jerusalem and the Catholic Church in the center. All other continents branch out from the middle, with some geographically correct depictions of Europe and Asia, while other regions of the world are either unclear or inaccurate.
The map interprets some information quite literally; for instance, while oceans are marked in green and rivers in blue, the Red Sea is drawn in red. The map displays real and mythical animals alike and conceives of biblical tribes and heroes from classical myths.
While the map is not cartographically sound, it still proves valuable for historians, who use it to better understand the way medieval Europeans viewed the world.
Modern maps do the same thing. While modern mapmakers, or cartographers, are far more accurate in their geographic representations, modern understandings of world regions still reveal how we see and interact with the world.
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The world's land divides into seven continents. Continents are large land masses with distinct geographic characteristics. In studying a map of the world, geographers break down regions in several ways.
For instance, the United Nations (UN) developed a way of organizing the world's regions called the UN Geoscheme. The organizational system was designed to assist in statistical analysis of countries worldwide and divides each continent up into smaller subsections based on both physical and cultural characteristics.
However, geographers can use many different interpretive tools to divide up regions. The following list describes some of the methods geographers use to understand any given geographic area:
- Administrative regions are areas that are governed by the same political or economic authority. For instance, even though the United States is a diverse area with varying climates and cultures the entire country would be categorized as a single administrative region because it is all managed by one federal government.
- Formal regions are assigned by geographers when analyzing areas that share traits. These traits could be physical (altitude, humidity levels, or population density) or cultural (language, religion, or architecture).
- Functional regions include any area that is organized by function, or purpose. For instance, a functional region could include neighborhoods serviced by the same water processing plant.
- Finally, vernacular regions include regions that are perceived as similar (whether or not they actually share any similarities). The American South is an example of a vernacular region, since it has many characteristics that make it heterogeneous but is still perceived by the rest of the country as one cohesive whole.
North America
North America is located in the Western Hemisphere. Its climates vary from continental (forested and cold) to subtropical (warm with lots of rainfall) to dry deserts (low rainfall and high temperatures).
Three countries are in this geographical region: Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
North America was connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama (an isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two large land masses). In 1914, isthmus was destroyed in favor of a canal, or narrow pathway of water, which connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Geographers argue that the loss of the Isthmus of Panama was world-changing, since it altered the flow of currents and allowed marine animals to migrate between the oceans. However, the now-disconnected Isthmus of Panama still serves as the border between North and South America.
South America
South America is in the Western Hemisphere. Its climates are a combination of tropical (including the Amazon rainforest), subtropical, and dry desert. Countries within this geographical region include Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Suriname, and Guyana.
Africa
Africa is in the Eastern Hemisphere. Its climates include dry deserts in North Africa - including the Sahara Desert, which acts as the main division between other African regions. Tropical rainforests line the equator, and subtropical regions are located in the south.
Many countries are located within this geographical region; some include South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Egypt.
Eurasia
Eurasia, a combination of Europe and Asia, is the largest continent and is located in the Eastern Hemisphere. Western Europe has mostly subtropical and Mediterranean climates, mostly due to its lack of broad land masses. Unlike North America or Asia, air currents do not have swaths of cold land to travel and instead roam over the Atlantic Ocean, which moderates temperature; the result is a more stable climate, even at a high latitude.
Western (The UK, France, Germany, and Italy) and Eastern (Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, and Belarus) Europe are separated by physical barriers, such as the Black Sea, as well as cultural barriers, such as the land divisions during the Cold War.
Understanding the geographical regions of Asia is slightly more complicated, due to the continent's size. Western Asia includes Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, which have mostly dry climates. Eastern Europe and Western Asia share a similarity in the sense that they both act as a vague border between Europe and Asia.
Central Asia includes southern Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan and has both dry and continental climates. East Asia includes China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan, which have continental and subtropical climates. Finally, Southeast Asia includes countries like India, Nepal, and Bangladesh and has mostly tropical and subtropical territories, with some dry regions.
Australia
Australia is unique in the sense that it is a country and a continent. Located in the Eastern Hemisphere, Australia has a mostly dry climate, though its northern border does have some tropical regions.
Antarctica
Antarctica has never sustained a permanent human civilization. Its territory is arctic, and its territory surrounds the planet's southern pole.
Oceania
Oceania is located in the Eastern Hemisphere and includes several subsections, including Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Australasia. Large countries such as Indonesia are part of this region, as well as small countries like Tonga, Samoa, and Tuvalu. All of Oceania except New Zealand has a tropical climate; New Zealand's climate is subtropical.
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While assigning formal regions to a map of the world helps humans understand the complexities of human-human and human-nature interactions, challenges do arise from geographers' classification systems.
- When diverse areas are lumped together into one region, people sometimes miss significant differences between both physical territories and human cultures
- Assigning regions can sometimes result in the development of human biases against certain climates, cultures, or human systems (government, economies, religion, etc.)
- With an ever-changing world, regions do not permit a flexible understanding of both human and physical geography.
- While it is wise to be aware of some drawbacks to regional understanding of the world, regions are still an important part of geographic understanding.
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When cartographers, or mapmakers, approach representations of the world, they divide territories into geographic regions. The Mappa Mundi, a 13th-century European map, is a great example of how mapmakers' preconceived notions of the world can influence their documentation of both physical and cultural geography. Modern geographers divide territories into many types of regions, including administrative (legal) regions, formal regions that are based on shared characteristics, functional regions that are organized by shared dependencies on a system, and vernacular regions, which are perceived regions.
The seven main worldwide regions are the seven continents, including North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica. Eurasia is a combination of Europe and Asia, with Eastern Europe and Western Asia acting as a subtle border between the two. Only North and South American are in the Western Hemisphere and are separated by the Isthmus of Panama; the remaining continents are in the Eastern Hemisphere. Antarctica is unique since it is the only continent to have no permanent human civilizations. Africa, a continent with great geographic diversity, has its regions separated mostly by the Saharan Desert.
While the designation of regions can sometimes bring challenges, such as a loss of detailed understanding of world cultures, the benefits of understanding world regions certainly outweigh the costs.
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Video Transcript
Mappa Mundi
In Medieval Europe, some adventurous groups began exploring the boundaries of their known world. Their ultimate goal was the discovery of a rare and powerful treasure. That treasure was a mappa mundi. Those of you that speak Latin know what's coming. The mappa mundi was a map of the world.
Throughout medieval history, we actually had several attempts to create a mappa mundi, but why? The concept of a world map was extremely powerful. At the time, they were less of navigational charts and more symbols of knowledge - a way to understand a growing world and one's place in it. That tradition has never been lost. The world map remains a very powerful symbol - an expression of who we are, where we belong, and how we relate to each other. It's an ancient treasure, and one that still has immense value.
Regions of the World
When looking at the world map, there are several ways we can begin to understand it. Geography is often easiest to comprehend in terms of regions, or areas with similar traits. Some regions are defined by the humans and cultures residing within them, others by resources, but the most basic is the division by land forms or physical features. Our largest regional unit within geography is the continent, a massive expanse of land and its associated islands. That's how we'll be looking at the world map today.
North America
Let's start with the continent of North America. North America occupies the Northwestern Hemisphere of the globe, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Pacific Ocean to the west. Most Americans are pretty familiar with it because, you know, we live here. But fewer are actually able to definitively define its borders. In terms of strict geography, North America extends from the land mass within the Arctic Circle and down through the Isthmus of Panama, the narrow land bridge that links North and South America. The islands of the Caribbean are, therefore, included as parts of North America, as well.
Why is this so confusing? The nations of Mexico through Panama, collectively called Central America, share a cultural heritage with those of South America, so they are often grouped together. However, the land forms of Central America, including the southern most regions of the Rocky Mountains, are connected physically to North America.
South America
Heading south, we find the aptly named continent of South America. South America formally begins below the Isthmus of Panama and encompasses the Southwestern Hemisphere. It is one of the most ecologically diverse places on the planet, featuring remarkable biomes, like the Amazon, containing roughly 10% of all the world's plant and animal species; the high peaks of the Andes Mountains, the world's longest mountain range; and the vast highland Atacama Desert, the driest, nonpolar desert in the world.
Africa
Hopping east across the Atlantic, we move from South America to Africa. Africa is a very large continent, which may be best understood through its three primary regions: North Africa is the region along Africa's northern border, along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It is wide, narrow, and climatically has more in common with Mediterranean nations of Europe and west Asia than other parts of Africa. Thanks to fertile soils and major river systems like the Nile, some of the world's oldest settled civilizations appeared here.
North Africa is bordered to its south by one of the harshest environments in the world. The Sahara Desert is the world's largest desert, covering roughly 3.5 million square miles. It is largely inhospitable and features relatively little plant or animal life. South of the Sahara, Africa becomes again lush, characterized by massive jungles and dense foliage. This is Sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, people from North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa had little contact with each other since the desert formed such a formidable boundary between them.
Eurasia
Next on our list is another region that is actually harder to define than you may think. Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean across the Northern Hemisphere to the Pacific, is a giant land mass we call Eurasia. Geologically, Eurasia is really a single continent. Historically however, we treat it as two.
The first part of it is Europe, the landmass north of the Mediterranean Sea. Europe is generally temperate, although there are climatic variations between the northern and southern halves. The borders of Europe traditionally extend east to a series of lakes and rivers, just beyond the northeast edge of the Mediterranean Sea. This region, comprised of major features like the Balkan Mountains and the Black Sea, is often called Eastern Europe. It serves as a vague border between Europe and Asia, which historically has caused crises of identity for people who live there.
South of Eastern Europe, along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, is the region called West Asia, or sometimes, the Middle East. Like Eastern Europe, West Asia is not always easy to define but serves as a region that separates Asia from Europe and in this case, Africa as well.
The overall term for the landmass east of Europe is what we call Asia. Besides Western Asia, this massive continent also has a few other regions. India is a subcontinent, a very large land form along the Indian Ocean. Central Asia describes the plateaus and open plains that do not border any oceans, and East Asia includes the fertile, ecologically rich regions along the Pacific Ocean.
Australia
South of Asia is the world's largest island, one so massive that it constitutes its own continent. Australia is almost entirely arid, with pockets of more temperate climates along the coasts. It has been cut off from Asia for roughly 10,000-15,000 years, resulting in unique species not found elsewhere in the world.
Antarctica
The last continent on the globe is Antarctica, the frozen landmass around the South Pole. Yes, there actually is land under all that ice! Antarctica is technically a desert because it gets very little precipitation, instead creating ice by freezing existing water in the ocean. This harsh continent is the only one to have never held a permanent human society. It's a desolate place, but it does round out our mappa mundi. That's the world!
Lesson Summary
Geographically, the world can be divided into a few major continents, or giant landmasses bordered by water. North America and South America compose the Western Hemisphere, separated by the Isthmus of Panama. The continents of Europe and Asia may be more correctly seen as the major continent of Eurasia. However, regions like Eastern Europe and Western Asia have historically served to separate Europe and Asia. Africa is a massive continent to the south of Europe, divided in the middle by the Sahara Desert. Australia is the world's largest island, to the southeast of Asia, and Antarctica is the coldest continent and the only one unable to sustain human life.
So now that we have our mappa mundi, we can view the entire world. Go find your place in it!
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World Regions Map | Outline & History
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