World

This article is about the World, meaning the Earth. For uses of the specific phrase "The World", see The World (disambiguation)

The World in plate carrée projection

The World

In English, world is rooted in a compound of the obsolete words were, man, and eld, age; thus, its oldest meaning is "age or life of man". Its primary modern meaning is the planet Earth, especially when capitalized: the World. In this sense, a world map is a map of the surface of the Earth. World can also refer to human population in general or to a distinct group of people.

Physical locations

In other contexts, "world" is sometimes used poetically to mean any planet or moon; for example, Mars and Titan are two 'worlds' within the solar system.

"World" is sometimes used to refer to the entire Universe. This is less common now that knowledge of space is commonplace; however, it is still used vaguely in this sense (as in "the whole wide world"). A similar sense is also used in philosophy, particularly in discussion of "possible worlds"; a possible world is any possible complete history of the whole universe.

Other meanings

World can be used in less literal words; for example, two people with very little in common are "living in two different worlds". The "end of the world" usually means "the end of everything I am familiar with."

• In Christianity the world connotes the fallen and corrupt world order of human society outside the community of believers. The world is frequently cited alongside the flesh and the Devil as a source of temptation that Christians should flee. Monks speak of striving to be "in this world, but not of this world", and the term "worldhood" has been distinguished from "monkhood", the former being the status of merchants, farmers, and others who deal with "worldly" things.

• World can also refer to a fictional setting, for example the world of Star Trek or the world of The Lord of the Rings. See fictional realm.

• In knowledge engineering and knowledge level modeling, a system's world is the knowledge that system has about its environment.

• The term can also be used in a culturally specific context: commentators increasingly refer, for example, to the "Muslim world" as if it were a distinct entity.

• In modern Europe, refering to the world usually means Europe to its furthest extent, plus ocassionaly USA and Japan. (example: Everyone in the world learns English.)

• In Native American mythology, the Fifth World is the coming world that will exist after the current world.

• World can refer to WORLD Magazine, the fourth largest newsweekly in the United States.

First World, Second World, Third World

Robinson projection map (larger version)

The terms First World, Second World, and Third World were used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories. The three terms did not arise simultaneously. After World War II it became common to speak of the capitalist and Communist countries as two major blocs, scarcely using such terms as the "free world" as compared to the "communist bloc". The two "worlds" were not numbered. It was eventually pointed out that there were a great many countries that fit into neither category, and in the 1950s this latter group came to be called the Third World. It then began to seem that there ought to be a "First World" and a "Second World". These latter terms were always much less common.

In the context of the Cold War:

• First World refers to nations that were within the Western European and United States' sphere of influence — e.g., the NATO countries of North America and Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and some of the former British colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

• Second World referred to nations within the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, principally the Warsaw Pact countries. Besides the Soviet Union proper, most of Eastern Europe was run by satellite governments working closely with Moscow. This term may or may not also refer to Communist countries whose leadership were at odds with Moscow, e.g. China and Yugoslavia. Recently, this term has been used to describe former Third World countries that have experienced too much development to be classified any longer as being a part of the Third World.

• Third World refers to nations within neither sphere of influence, who were often members of the Non-Aligned Movement. They were mostly developing countries, and many of them are located in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. They are often nations that were colonized by another nation in the past. After World War II, the First and Second Worlds struggled to expand their respective spheres of influence to the Third World. The militaries and intelligence services of the United States and the Soviet Union worked both secretly and overtly to influence Third World governments, with mixed success.

There were a number of countries which did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, and the Republic of Ireland, which chose to be neutral. Finland was under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence but was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact. Austria was under the United States' sphere of influence, but in 1955, when the country again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remained neutral.

With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the term "Second World" largely fell out of use, though the term "Third World" remains popular, mostly as another term for developing countries. The remaining Communist countries either became more isolated from the world economy, as in North Korea and Cuba, or began integrating capitalist concepts such as private enterprise into their societies and forging new trading ties with external capitalist economies, as in Vietnam and China.

In more recent use, the term First World refers to developed nations, while Third World, in contrast, refers to developing/undeveloped nations.

There is also the less commonly used term Fourth World, often used to refer to nations that lack any national representation at the UN, but that may enjoy representation at UNPO — indigenous peoples living within or across state boundaries.

"The World" can also be used to refer to the group of people on the planet earth.

See also

• World economy