Continents and World Geography

About 71 per cent of the Earth's surface is water and 29 per cent is land. The land is broken into big pieces called continents, and the water into oceans. By common convention there are seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia (with Oceania). Europe and Asia are really one landmass, Eurasia, but history and culture treat them separately. Remember the order of size, because it is asked again and again: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, Australia.

Mountains are the Earth's wrinkles. Most of the great ranges are young fold mountains pushed up where plates collided, which is why they are high, rugged and still rising, and why they run in long arcs: the Himalaya (Asia), the Alps (Europe), the Rockies (North America) and the Andes (South America) together make the great Alpine–Himalayan and Pacific mountain belts. Older ranges such as the Appalachians (North America), the Urals and the Great Dividing Range (Australia) are worn down and much lower. For exams, learn a range together with its continent, its highest peak and one special fact.

The Himalayan giants outside India. Everest (Nepal–China border) is the highest. K2 (also called Godwin-Austen) is the second highest and the highest in the Karakoram; it lies on the Pakistan–China border. Kangchenjunga is third, on the India–Nepal border, and is the highest peak in India. After the joint Nepal–China survey, Everest's official height is 8,848.86 m, which is rounded to about 8,849 m.

Plateaus. A plateau is a high flat-topped land. The Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest and largest plateau, averages over 4,500 m and is often called the 'Roof of the World', a name also given to the Pamirs. Other plateaus to know: the Deccan (India), the Iranian and Anatolian plateaus (West Asia), the Arabian plateau, the Mongolian plateau (Gobi), the Ethiopian Highlands ('Roof of Africa'), the Colorado Plateau (Grand Canyon, USA), the Altiplano (Bolivia, Peru; Lake Titicaca), the Patagonian plateau (Argentina), the Guiana Highlands (Angel Falls) and the Brazilian Highlands.

Mountain passes matter because they are the only gaps in a wall of mountains. That is why great trade routes, invasions and highways all follow them. The Khyber and Bolan passes opened the north-west of the subcontinent to Central Asia, while the Karakoram Highway uses the Khunjerab Pass to link Pakistan with China.

Rivers decide where people settle, where cities grow and where trade flows, so exams ask the same few things again and again: which is the longest, which is the largest, where does it rise, where does it end, which cities stand on it. Keep two different questions apart. The longest river is the Nile by the traditional count (about 6,650 km); the largest by volume of water and by basin is the Amazon. Some measurements put the Amazon close to the Nile in length, so exams safely ask only 'longest = Nile' and 'largest discharge = Amazon'.

A strait is a narrow natural water passage joining two larger water bodies, and a canal is the same job done by human digging. Straits and canals matter because ships, oil and trade squeeze through them, so they are called chokepoints. The exam rarely asks for a strait alone; it asks 'which two water bodies does it join, and which countries stand on either side'. Learn each strait as water A, water B, country X, country Y.

The Sargasso Sea is the odd one out: a 'sea' with no coast. It lies in the North Atlantic, ringed by ocean currents (the Gulf Stream and others) instead of land, and is known for floating brown Sargassum seaweed. A gulf is a large inlet of the sea (Persian Gulf, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Aden); the Bay of Bengal is the world's largest bay.

Capitals and currencies are the most direct 'one-mark' facts in World Geography. The way to learn them is to group them by region and then mark the surprises, the countries whose capital is not their biggest or best-known city (Canberra, not Sydney; Ottawa, not Toronto; Ankara, not Istanbul; Brasília, not Rio). Start with the eight countries of South Asia, where exams ask most.

South Asia means the eight countries above (the members of SAARC): Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Three are landlocked or hill states (Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan); two are islands (Sri Lanka, Maldives). Sri Lanka's legislative capital is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, and Colombo is its commercial centre.

Landlocked countries have no sea coast. In Asia: Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Laos. In Europe: Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Luxembourg. In Africa: Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana. In South America: Bolivia and Paraguay. Uzbekistan and Liechtenstein are double-landlocked (every neighbour is landlocked too). Laos is the only landlocked country of South-East Asia.

A port is where land and sea trade meet, so a great port stands where three things combine: a deep, sheltered harbour, a rich hinterland behind it (farms, mines, factories) and a good rail, road or river link to that hinterland. Santos serves the coffee lands of São Paulo; Rotterdam serves the whole Rhine basin; Shanghai serves the Yangtze delta. Ask 'what does the port export, and from which region?' and the country follows.

Industrial regions grow where power, raw material, transport and market come together. The classic example is the Ruhr in Germany: coal in the ground, iron ore brought by the Rhine, and a huge market around it, which made Essen, Dortmund and Duisburg the steel heart of Europe. Learn each region with its country and its speciality.

'Superlatives' (largest, longest, highest, deepest) are the favourite one-liners of every GS paper. They are easy marks, but only if you keep two different kinds of 'largest' apart: largest by area, by population, by volume or by length. Learn the table below as pairs, 'what' and 'which', and then read the notes for the traps.

Tribes show how people adapt to their environment. Each famous tribe is tied to one landscape, so learn the habitat first, then the name. Cold lands give reindeer herders and sealers; deserts give camel nomads; forests give hunter-gatherers; grasslands give cattle herders.