They are different in geographical location, size and shape, which affects the features of their nature.

Geographic location and size of the continents

Continents are placed on the surface of the Earth unevenly. In the Northern Hemisphere, they occupy 39% of the surface, and in the Southern - only 19%. For this reason, the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth is called the continental, and the Southern - the oceanic.

According to the position relative to the equator, the continents are divided into a group of southern and a group of northern continents.

Since the continents are located at different latitudes, they receive an unequal amount of light and heat from the Sun. In shaping the nature of the continent, its area plays an important role: the larger the continent, the more territories on it that are remote from the oceans and do not experience their influence. Of great geographical importance is the relative position of the continents.

Geographic location and size of the oceans

The separating continents differ from each other in size, properties of waters, systems of currents, features of the organic world.

And they have a similar geographical position: they stretch from the Arctic Circle to. almost entirely in the southern hemisphere. A special geographical position at - it is located around the North Pole within the Arctic Circle, covered with sea ice and isolated from other oceans.

The border of the continents with the oceans runs along the coastline. It can be straight or indented, that is, having many protrusions. The rugged coastlines have many seas and bays. Going deep into the land, they have a significant impact on the nature of the continents.

Interaction between continents and oceans

Land and water have different properties, while they are constantly in close interaction. The oceans strongly influence the natural processes on the continents, but the continents also take part in the formation of the nature of the oceans.

Some maps show separate relatively small territories, while others show entire continents or oceans. What is shown on the physical map of the hemispheres? What is its scale? And what information can be extracted from it? You will definitely find answers to all these questions in our article.

A few words about cards

Cartography was born at about the same time as writing. In ancient times, our ancestors drew primitive plans on the walls of caves and rocks, on which they indicated important features of the area in which they lived. The first map of the world, according to scientists, was created in Babylon about 3 thousand years ago.

Cartography flourished during the so-called Age of Discovery. Numerous travelers and navigators created hundreds of fairly detailed and interesting maps. All the information received during wanderings to distant and unknown lands was applied to them.

Despite the passage of time, the map did not become archaic and retained its significance to this day. In modern science, there is even a special research method - cartographic. Today, geographical maps are used in various sectors of the national economy - urban planning, territorial planning, agriculture, transport, meteorology, tourism, etc.

Maps are different: physical, economic, recreational, climatic, synoptic, geological, political, and many, many others. Physical maps show continents and oceans. You can also see hydrographic objects (rivers, seas, lakes), various forms and sometimes the largest cities on them.

Back in 150 BC, the ancient Greek scientist Crates of Mallus created the first three-dimensional model of the Earth - a globe. However, later it turned out that using this model in practice is not so convenient. You won’t take it on a long hiking expedition, and it definitely won’t fit in a travel backpack. Besides, when you look at the globe, you see only one half of it. This is also not always convenient.

Apparently, this is why maps of the hemispheres of the Earth were invented. Of course, distortion is inevitable here. But on the other hand, such maps make it possible to contemplate the whole picture of the world at once, because they show two halves of our huge planet at once. If we dissect the globe along the equator, we will get a map of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. If we divide the planet along the Zero (Greenwich) meridian, then we get, respectively, a map of the Western and Eastern hemispheres.

The scale of the physical map of the hemispheres

Scale is a purely mathematical concept. This is the ratio of the length of a segment on a geographical map or plan to the actual length of the same segment on the ground. For example, we have a topographic map with the following scale: 1:2000. This means that one centimeter on it corresponds to two thousand centimeters (or twenty meters) on the ground.

Physical maps of the hemispheres are of an overview nature and are used for educational purposes (usually in a wall version). Therefore, they tend to be small scale. The scales of physical maps of the hemispheres most often range from 1:15,000,000 to 1:80,000,000. That is, the distance between Kyiv and Moscow on them does not exceed 3-4 centimeters.

What is shown on the physical map of the hemispheres

On a physical map of any scale, various natural objects are displayed first of all. What exactly? What is shown on the physical map of the hemispheres of the Earth specifically? Let's list all these objects.

• Relief forms of hills, plateaus, mountain ranges).
• Elements of the coastline (islands, peninsulas, bays, straits, bays, capes).
• Hydrographic objects (seas, oceans, rivers, lakes, canals, large reservoirs, glaciers).
• Elements of the underwater relief (hollows, oceanic ridges, trenches).
• Capitals and largest cities.

The map of the Earth shows three continents (North and South America, Antarctica) and three oceans (Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic), on the map of the Eastern Hemisphere - four continents (Eurasia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica) and four oceans (Arctic, Atlantic , Pacific and Indian).

How to read a physical map

Any geographical map has its own specific language. Knowing this language, you can learn how to read it correctly. First of all, you should pay attention to the scale of the map. Most often it is placed in the upper left corner of the sheet. The scale is indicated not only in the numerical version, but also in the linear one, so that the process of determining distances on the map is as convenient as possible.

There are not too many symbols on the physical map of the hemispheres (as a rule, no more than two dozen). Thus, rivers are marked with dark blue lines, lakes and reservoirs are marked with blue spots. Continental ice and permanent snow are shown as rows of blue dots parallel to each other. This "pattern" covers most of Antarctica and Greenland.

On physical maps, you can also find some other conventional signs (see photo below). The relief on them is displayed using various shades. This is worth talking about in more detail below.

Relief display on a physical map

Under each physical map, the so-called scale of heights and depths with numerical marks in meters is necessarily placed. The forms of the earth's surface are indicated by different colors, depending on the absolute height of the area. Thus, lowlands are shown in green, uplands in yellow, mountain systems and ranges in orange or dark brown.

The same - and with depths. The shallow waters of the ocean floor are indicated by a light blue tint. But the deep areas are shown in more saturated blue. Here the principle is as follows: the deeper - the darker the color.

The absolute height marks of individual points on the land surface are indicated in black, and the depths of the seas and oceans are indicated in blue.

Our planet is conventionally divided into four hemispheres. How are the boundaries between them defined? What are the characteristics of the hemispheres of the Earth?

Equator and meridian

It has the shape of a ball, slightly flattened at the poles - a spheroid. In scientific circles, its shape is usually called the geoid, that is, "like the Earth." The surface of the geoid is perpendicular to the direction of gravity at any point.

For convenience, the characteristics of the planet use conditional, or imaginary, lines. One of them is the axis. It runs through the center of the Earth, connecting the upper and lower parts, called the North and South Poles.

Between the poles, at an equal distance from them, is the next imaginary line, which is called the equator. It is horizontal and is a separator into the Southern (everything below the line) and Northern (everything above the line) hemispheres of the Earth. is a little over 40 thousand kilometers.

Another conditional line is Greenwich, or This is a vertical line passing through the observatory in Greenwich. The meridian divides the planet into the Western and Eastern hemispheres, and is also the starting point for measuring geographic longitude.

The difference between the southern and northern hemispheres

The equator line horizontally divides the planet in half, while crossing several continents. Africa, Eurasia and South America are partially located in two hemispheres at once. The rest of the continents are located within one. So, Australia and Antarctica are completely in the southern part, and North America is in the northern part.

The hemispheres of the Earth have other differences. Thanks to the Arctic Ocean at the pole, the climate of the Northern Hemisphere is generally milder than the Southern, where the land is located - Antarctica. The seasons in the hemispheres are opposite: winter in the northern part of the planet comes simultaneously with summer in the south.

The difference is observed in the movement of air and water. To the north of the equator, river flows and sea currents deviate to the right (river banks are usually steeper to the right), anticyclones rotate clockwise, and cyclones counterclockwise. To the south of the equator, everything happens exactly the opposite.

Even the starry sky above is different. The pattern in each hemisphere is different. The main landmark for the northern part of the Earth is the polar star, the Southern Cross serves as a landmark. Above the equator, land dominates, and therefore the main number of people live here. Below the equator, the total number of inhabitants is 10%, since the oceanic part predominates.

Western and Eastern Hemispheres

To the east of the prime meridian is the Eastern Hemisphere of the Earth. Within its limits is Australia, most of Africa, Eurasia, part of Antarctica. Approximately 82% of the world's population lives here. In a geopolitical and cultural sense, it is called the Old World, as opposed to the New World of the American continents. In the eastern part there is a deep trench and the highest mountain on our planet.

The earth is located west of the Greenwich meridian. It covers North and South America, part of Africa and Eurasia. It includes the entire Atlantic Ocean and most of the Pacific. Here is the longest mountain range in the world, the largest volcano, the driest desert, the highest mountain lake and a full-flowing river. Only 18% of the inhabitants live in the western part of the world.

Dateline

As already mentioned, the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth are separated by the Greenwich meridian. Its continuation is the 180th meridian, which outlines the border on the other side. It is the date line, it is here that today turns into tomorrow.

Different calendar days are fixed on both sides of the meridian. This is due to the peculiarities of the rotation of the planet. The International Date Line mostly passes through the ocean, but also crosses some islands (Vanua Levu, Taviuni, etc.). In these places, for convenience, the line is shifted along the land border, otherwise the inhabitants of one island would exist on different dates.