Seven continents, five oceans

The world's land is split into seven continents and its water into five oceans. Knowing where they sit is the foundation of all locational knowledge.

Watch out: a continent is one of the seven huge land masses; a country is a much smaller area with its own government. Africa is a continent made up of over 50 countries — it is not a country itself.

Continent or country?

Places that shape the world

KS3 focuses on some of the world's most significant places. You should know roughly where each one is and one or two facts about it:

• Russia — the world's largest country by area, stretching across Europe and Asia.
• China and India — in Asia, the two most populous countries on Earth.
• The Middle East — where Asia, Africa and Europe meet; a major source of the world's oil.
• Africa — a huge continent of over 50 countries, from the Sahara Desert to tropical rainforest.

Environmental regions matter too: Russia's far north is tundra and polar; most of Russia is cold forest (taiga) with very cold winters. North Africa and the Middle East contain vast hot deserts.

The biggest country

Physical features of the world

Physical features are the natural parts of the landscape — nobody built them. Key examples you should be able to locate:

• Mountains — e.g. the Himalayas (Asia), the Andes (South America), the Alps (Europe).
• Rivers — e.g. the Nile (Africa), the Amazon (South America), the Ganges (India).
• Deserts — places that get very little rain or snow, e.g. the Sahara (Africa), and Antarctica, a cold polar desert.
• Biomes — large regions with a shared climate, plants and animals, e.g. tropical rainforest, desert, tundra.

Remember: a biome is defined mainly by climate, not by country borders — the same rainforest biome can stretch across several countries.

Human features of the world

Human features are things people have built or created. Key examples:

• Major cities — e.g. Tokyo, Delhi, Cairo, London.
• Countries and their borders — lines agreed by people, not made by nature.
• Roads, bridges, ports, farms and reservoirs.

The key test: if it would exist without people, it is physical (a mountain, a river). If people made it, it is human (a city, a border). A capital city is human; the river running through it is physical.

Physical or human feature?

Tap whether each feature is physical (natural) or human (built by people).

Can somewhere this cold be a desert?

Why isn't it midday everywhere at once?

Latitude — how far north or south

Latitude lines run horizontally (side to side, like the rungs of a ladder). They tell you how far north or south of the Equator a place is, measured in degrees.

Watch out: latitude lines are the horizontal ones. A handy memory trick: "lat" sounds like "flat" — latitude lines lie flat.

Longitude — how far east or west

Longitude lines run vertically, from the North Pole to the South Pole. They tell you how far east or west a place is of the Prime Meridian.

Watch out: don't mix up the two zeros. The Equator is 0° latitude; the Prime Meridian is 0° longitude. Together they set the starting point for the whole grid.

Which lines are horizontal?

Splitting the Earth in two

A hemisphere is half of the Earth. There are two ways to split it:

The UK is in the Northern hemisphere. Because the Prime Meridian runs through London, the UK sits on the boundary of the Eastern and Western hemispheres.

Special circles on the map

Five lines of latitude have special names because of the way sunlight hits the Earth:

• Equator — 0°, the hottest zone, around the Earth's middle.
• Tropic of Cancer — north of the Equator; the tropics lie between it and…
• Tropic of Capricorn — south of the Equator.
• Arctic Circle — surrounds the cold far north.
• Antarctic Circle — surrounds the cold far south.

Tip: Cancer is above the Equator (north) and Capricorn is below (south). The area between the two Tropics — the tropics — is where the Sun can be directly overhead, so it is warm all year.

The two zeros

Why the clock changes around the world

The Earth spins once every 24 hours, so different places see the Sun at different times. To cope, the world is split into time zones that run roughly along lines of longitude.

When it is midday in London, it is already evening in China (to the east) and still morning in the eastern USA (to the west).

Watch out: time zones follow longitude, not latitude. Two places on the same line of longitude share (roughly) the same time even if one is far north and one far south.

Your turn — the start line

Why isn't it midday everywhere at once?

Are Great Britain and the UK the same place?

The regions of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Watch out: "UK", "Great Britain" and "British Isles" are not the same. Great Britain is the island of England, Scotland and Wales. The UK also includes Northern Ireland.

Countries of the UK

Match the continent to a fact

Tap a continent, then tap the fact that matches it.

Spot the human feature

Your turn — reading the grid

Are Great Britain and the UK the same place?

The key ideas to know

You've covered the key ideas in the KS3 Locational knowledge strand. Press Finish to see your score.