Jason Kennon, age 12, of Hutchinson, Kan., for his question:
WHAT IS THE THIRD WORLD?
After World War II, the United States, and other countries that opposed the spread of Communism, became known as the Free World. Russia and other Communist countries became known as the Communist World. Nations that were not committed to either of these two groups were sometimes called the countries of the Third World.
Nations that are part of the Third World consider themselves to be neutral or nonaligned nations. Included in this grouping are Switzerland, India and most of the African countries.
Countries of the world are also grouped in other ways. For example, people often call the countries of the Eastern Hemisphere the Old World and those of the Western Hemisphere the New World.
Countries also may be grouped by regions, such as the Far East, the Middle East or Latin America. Sometimes countries are grouped according to continent, such as African, Asian or European.
Today there are about 158 independent countries in the world, and about 55 other political units, chiefly colonies and territories, which are sometimes called dependencies. An independent country has its own government. A colony or dependency is governed by another nation.
The independent countries cover almost all of the land area of the world. Their people account for about 4 billion persons most of the world's population. Only about 15 million people live in the dependencies.
The largest country in area in the world is Russia. It has an area of 8,649,500 square miles. Seven other countries each have an area of over 1 million square miles. These countries, listed in order of size, are Canada, China, the United States, Brazil, Australia, India and Argentina.
About 45 new African nations have been established since the 1950s and they form a very important block in the group of Third World countries.
China is the country with the largest population in the world. Just within the past 10 years, experts believe that China has exceeded a population of 1 billion people.
The second largest nation in population in the world is India, followed by the Soviet Union, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil and Japan.
All human beings are members of the species Homo sapiens. But because many groups of mankind have lived apart for long periods of time and have come to differ from one another in various ways, the different groups are called races.
Many scholars recognize nine major geographical races and hundreds of local races. The nine geographical races include: African, American Indian, Asian, Australian, European, Indian, Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian.
Most members of the so called "white" population are part of the European geographical race. Most blacks are of African origin.