WORLD LANDFORMS
Bar graphs show information in the form of a bar or a column. In this case
the bars are shown as mountains. Bar graphs are useful for comparing
quantities. To find out the height of Mount Aconcagua, simply read the horizontal
scale to find the name of the mountain, and move your finger to the top of the bar
(mountain). Read the height off the vertical scale — Mount Aconcagua is nearly
7000 metres above sea level.
T
he Earth has an amazing array of landforms — from towering
mountains to spectacular waterfalls. The landforms have
been built by movements in the
Earth’s crust and lava from
deep inside the Earth.
The landforms are
then shaped by
the action of
water, wind
and ice.
Highest mountain on each continent
Metres above sea level
C
0˚
D
30˚E
60˚E
E
Greenland
5
North Cape
UNT
AINS
a
MO
AL
UR
River
g
Hw
an
DR
A
MO KEN
UN SBE
TAI RG
NS
Indie
Cuba
Yucatan
Peninsula
Mauna Kea 4205 m
F
I
C
O
C
E
A
N
Marquesas
Islands
Vanuatu
Samoa
Fiji
Cook
Islands
Tonga
North
Island
Huascaran 6768 m
S
Lake Titicaca
Mountain
River
Macquarie Island
G
15 0˚E
H
30˚S
S O UT H
AT LA NT I C
Lake
OCEAN
South Georgia
Shape of the sea floor
180˚
I
150˚W
J
120˚W
K
10
20
30 m
1
5. Mount Everest is not the world’s
highest mountain from base to tip.
Turn to page 114 to discover the name
and height of this world record holder.
THREE-POINT QUESTION
6. Look at the graph of mountains.
a. Name and estimate the height of
the world record holder.
b. How many times larger is it than
the Australian record holder?
c. Turn to page 54. What is the name
of the highest peak on Australian
territory and how high is it?
FIND . . .
Falkland Islands
Shape of the land surface
120˚E
2
PLATEAU OF
MATO GROSSO
Mt Aconcagua 6960 m
Chatham Islands
South
Island
SOUTH
AMERICA
E
Llullaillaco 6723 m
Rapa Nui
Feature of interest
3754 m
0˚
Amazon River
Chimborazo
6267 m
Tua
mo
tu
Society
Ar
ch
Islands
N
F
3
Angel Falls
Galapagos
Islands
TASMAN
SEA Mt Cook
South East
Cape
90˚E
s
Jamaica
CARIBBEAN SEA
Ton
Tren ga
ch
Co
ngo
ds
Kerma
Trencdec
h
r
ge
Ni
n Is
lan
0
We
st
MOUNTAINS
E
Azores
30˚N
Gulf of
Mexico
Lower
California
D
60˚E
aiia
AN
D
OCEAN
Cape Hatteras
Guadalupe
Ha w
4
Trinidad
I
New
Caledonia
Heard Island
30˚E
AT LA NT I C
Cape Cod
River
C
N O RT H
Newfoundland
Great Lakes
pi
Lake Eyre
Kerguelen Islands
60˚N
p
ssi
ssi
Mi
Simpson
Desert
Great Victoria
Desert
Prince Edward
Islands
NS
4000 km
Steamboat
Geyser
I
TA
0˚
C
CORAL SEA
Modified Cylindrical Projection
B
A
Iceland
Lake Winnipeg
UN
P
Ungava
Peninsula
o
lag
ipe
2
Micronesia
Marshall
Islands
Hudson
Bay
NORTH
AMERICA
Grand Canyon
Mt Kosciuszko
2228 m
1 : 100 000 000 — 1 centimetre on the map
represents 1000 kilometres on the ground.
30˚W
Vancouver
Island
Tuvalu
Solomon Islands
Tasmania
3000
Great Bear
Lake Great Slave
Lake
Great Salt
Lake
ea
AUSTRALIA
Uluru 868 m
Crozet Islands
A
TA
IN
S
Charlotte
Islands
Timor
I N D I A N
O C E A N
1
2000
Island
nds
h
nc
Tre
G R
ING RA
DIVID
Cape of Good Hope
Tristan da Cunha
Guin
T
EA
GR
OCEAN
1000
Baffin Island
EN
ZI
Riv E MO
er
UN
Gulf
of
Kodiak Alaska Queen
Isla
5
Greenland
Kiribati
New
JAVA SEA
Mauritius
Kalahari
Desert
30˚S
Sumatra
Java
Cocos Christmas
Islands Island
Madagascar
AT LA NT I C
0
A le utia n
0˚
Elleslmere
Island
Baffin
Bay
MO
Seychelles
Comoros
BIE Lake Malawi
PLATEAU
rench
ine T
Philipp
Borneo
Sulawesi
Mt Kilimanjaro
5895 m
Lake Tanganyika
Tropic of Capricorn
Sri Lanka
Mt Kenya 5199 m
Lake Victoria
a
an
ari ch
M ren
T
Mindanao
Maldives
S O UT H
THE GRAND CANYON (K4) in the USA is the
world’s largest gorge. The Colorado River
has carved a gorge up to 1.6 kilometres deep
and 30 kilometres wide.
ds
an
Isl
ch
es
CHINA
SEA
nds
N
30˚W
a it
S tr
A
Isla
Mt Kosciuszko
(Australia)
v is
Da
I
ETHIOPIAN
HIGHLANDS
AFRICA
Ascension
2
S
ng
Lake Chad
River
Equator
Sakhalin
beth
Victoria
Island
Mt McKinley 6194 m
BERING
SEA
SEA
OF
Kamchatka
O K H O TT S K Peninsula
Ga
0˚
BEAUFORT SEA
River
a
SEA
er
Riv
Lake Volta
River
3
i
liza
en E
M
60˚W
KY
AS
ATL TAINS
N
OU
S a h a r a
Cape Verde
Islands
r
Lake Baykal
A
LPS
RED
Nile
M
Canary
Islands
Tropic of Cancer
e
L
90˚W
Banks
Island
Japan Tren
30˚N
Ural
E
O C EA N
Yukon
r
Iberian
Peninsula
Azores
Madeira
Islands
P
b
Am u
Cape Finisterre
O
Que
MA
CK
r
CASPIAN
Rive
CA
Rive
DEPRESSION
r
MO UCA
ril
Manchuria
Ku
UN SU
ARAL SEA Lake Balkhash
TA S
INS
Gobi
Hokkaido
Balkan BLACK SEA
Desert
Mt Elbrus
LUN
ril
Peninsula
CASPIAN
KUN TAINS
5642 m
Ku
N
SH
Honshu
SEA
U
MOU
K
H
r
e
IM
DU
Riv
PLATEAU HIN
MEDITERRA
AL PLATEAU OF TIBET
NEAN
OF
SEA
AY (XIZANG PLATEAU)
er EAST
Shikoku
e
IRAN
AS
Riv CHINA Kyushu
gtz
Yan
SEA
Mt Everest
Arabian
Rive8848 m
r
Taiwan
Peninsula
D e s e r t
DECCAN Bay
PLATEAU
Luzon
of
Hainan
Northern
Bengal
Marianas
SOUTH
THE A
Mt Blanc
4807 m
4
R
i
sh
U
CENTRAL SIBERIAN
PLATEAU
S
River
Irty
E
K
120˚W
C
RO
Volga Rive
r
A R CT I C
a
Lake Onega
Lake Ladoga
SEA
Ireland
J
150˚W
Len
d
I
180˚
EAST
SIBERIAN SEA
er
Riv
Shetland Islands
Great
NORTH
Britain
60˚N
an
ul
ns
ni
e
P
b
Sc
H
150˚E
Mt Aconcagua
Mt McKinley
Mt Kilimanjaro Mt Elbrus
(South America) (North America) (Africa)
(Europe)
LAPTEV SEA
Yenisey
Faroe Islands
n
via
ina
G
120˚E
KARA SEA
BARENTS SEA
TWO-POINT QUESTIONS
4. Look at the photograph.
a. Give the name and grid reference
of the world’s highest geyser,
found in the USA.
b. Use the scale on the photograph
to estimate its height.
2000
Mt Everest
(Asia)
New Siberian
Islands
Novaya
Zemlya
Iceland
3000
0
Franz Josef
Land
Arctic Circle
4000
Severnaya
Zemlya
Svalbard
NORWEGIAN
SEA
5000
1000
F
90˚E
6000
NIA
B
30˚W
7000
PAT
AGO
A
O
Highest mountain, Mount Everest
(E3) on the Tibet–Nepal border:
8848 metres
Longest river, Nile River (D3) in
Egypt: 6695 kilometres
Largest desert, Sahara Desert (C3) of
North Africa: 9 269 000 square
kilometres
Largest lake, Caspian Sea (D4) of
Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan and Iran: 371 800 square
kilometres
60˚W
8000
International Date Line
1
ONE-POINT QUESTIONS
1. What am I? I have cut a deep canyon
through the Rocky Mountains. I am
a river.
2. What am I? I am a land feature. I
am so large that I could fit the
world’s largest lake into less than
4 per cent of my area. I am a desert.
3. What am I? At 7200 kilometres I am
the world’s longest mountain range.
The world’s highest navigable lake,
Lake Titicaca, is found in me. I am the
source of the world’s greatest river.
9000
AUSTRALIA’S ULURU (G2) is the world’s largest fully exposed rock or monolith. Uluru is 2.5 kilometres long, 1.6 kilometres wide
and 348 metres high.
WORLD LANDFORM RECORDS
CHALLENGE
SKILLBOOSTER — HOW DO I READ BAR GRAPHS?
90˚W
L
60˚W
M
30˚W
N
• Australia’s World Heritage sites p. 54
• World landforms learning centre at
www.jaconline.com.au/atlases/
discovery
3