The Nile flows over 6,800 kilometers before it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. It threads its way through 11 African countries. Some researchers have contested the Nile's status as the world's longest river and credit the Amazon instead. The Nile was critical to the development of ancient Egypt. The soil of the Nile River Delta between Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea is rich in nutrients. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, is the southern source of the Nile. The Blue Nile flows from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Africa covers about 30.4 million square kilometers, or 11.7 million square miles.

Africa also has dramatic land. Kilimanjaro is a triple volcano with three peaks. It is high enough to keep a permanent snow cap even though it lies close to the equator. The Ethiopian Highlands are home to 80 percent of Africa's tallest mountains. The Great Rift Valley is a site of major tectonic activity, where the continent of Africa is splitting into two. Central-eastern Africa is important to scientists who study evolution and the earliest origins of humanity. It is thought to be where hominins began to evolve. African savannas cover more than 13 million square kilometers. More than one million wildebeest travel in a circular migration there.

Asia is a land of extremes. Asia stretches from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western Pacific Ocean. It has the longest series of coastlines of any continent. It has climates from polar in the Siberian Arctic to tropical in equatorial Indonesia. It is the most mountainous of all the continents. The Tibetan Plateau averages more than 4,500 meters above sea level. Approximately 2 billion people depend on the rivers fed by its glaciers. Lake Baikal in southern Russia is the deepest lake in the world. As of November 2026, its depth is given as 1,642 meters, or 5,387 feet. The Himalaya extend for about 2,500 kilometers, or 1,550 miles.

How tall is Mount Everest? The answer has changed with the measuring. Each number comes from a different team. The Survey of India gave about 8,848 meters in 1954. A National Geographic GPS team gave 8,850 meters in 1999. A Chinese team gave 8,844.43 meters in 2005, which left out the snow cap. Nepal and China jointly announced a new height of 8,848.86 meters in December 2020. A Nepali team of surveyors reached the top of Everest in May 2019, and a Chinese team measured it in 2020. As of November 2026, 8,848.86 meters, or 29,031.7 feet, is the official height. Mount Everest soars to about 8,850 meters, or 29,035 feet, according to National Geographic. It sits between Nepal and Tibet.

North America has records of its own. These are some of its records and landmarks. The Rockies stretch from British Columbia, Canada, to the U.S. state of New Mexico. The Great Lakes form the planet's largest area of fresh water. The Mississippi River is 3,730 kilometers (2,320 miles) long, one of the longest river systems in the world. The Caribbean region includes more than 7,000 islands, islets, reefs and cays. As of November 2026, the U.S. Geological Survey measurement of Denali, made in 2015, is 6,190 meters (20,310 feet), making it the continent's highest peak. At Panama's narrowest part, North America is just 50 kilometers (31 miles) across. North America has more climate variation than any other continent.

South America has the Andes. The Andes cover about 8,850 kilometers, and hundreds of their peaks are more than 4,500 meters tall. NASA says the Amazon basin spans at least 6 million square kilometers, nearly twice the size of India. National Geographic gives almost 7 million. About 80 percent of the basin is rainforest. The Amazon rainforest is home to one-fifth of the world's land species, many found nowhere else. The basin spans eight countries. Iguazu Falls, on the Paraná River, extends for 2.7 kilometers. Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Andes, stands at 6,962 meters, or 22,841 feet. It straddles the Argentina-Chile border.

Antarctica is a place of extremes. Temperatures there, much lower than Arctic temperatures, plunge lower than -73 degrees Celsius. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains about 30 million cubic kilometers of ice. If all of it melted, sea level would rise about 58 meters. Penguins and seals make their homes in Antarctica even though it is covered in ice. The Antarctic Treaty guarantees freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end. Bellingshausen reported seeing an ice shore of extreme height in the last week of January 1820.

Australia has its own marks on the map. The Great Dividing Range, a long mountain range, rises near its east coast. The Great Barrier Reef off Queensland is approximately 2,300 kilometers long. The country of Australia has a total area of 7,688,287 square kilometers and is the world's sixth-largest country. Geographers classify Australia as a continent because it sits on its own continental crust. It is surrounded by the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Mainland Australia is known for the Outback, a desert area in the interior.

The land itself has moved. Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in the early 1900s. Three articles he published in 1912 suggested the continents are slowly moving. By 240 million years ago almost all of the world's land was joined in a single huge continent. The big supercontinent was called Pangaea. The positions of the continents are always changing.

Words to know

• delta: river mouth land
• volcano: fire mountain
• plateau: high flat land
• Pangaea: old supercontinent
• continental: of a continent