The Middle of the World and Its Frozen Ends

Imagine you could spin a giant ball that shows the whole Earth. Where do you think the hottest countries sit on that ball? Where do you think the coldest places are? Think for a moment before you read on.

Look at a globe — the round model of Earth. Imagine slicing it exactly in half, halfway between the top and the bottom. That invisible line running around the middle is called the equator. It is not a real line drawn on the ground, but geographers use it to describe position on Earth. The equator is the widest part of Earth. It passes through countries such as Brazil, Kenya, and Indonesia. Places near the equator receive strong, direct sunlight for many hours every day. This makes them very warm all year round. Tropical rainforests grow near the equator because it is so hot and wet there. Now look at the very top of the globe. That point is called the North Pole. The very bottom point is the South Pole. Together these two points are called the poles. They are as far from the equator as you can get. At the poles, sunlight arrives at a low angle and has to spread over a huge area. This means less warmth reaches the ground. Temperatures can drop far below freezing. The North Pole sits in the middle of a frozen ocean called the Arctic Ocean. The South Pole sits on a continent called Antarctica, which is covered in a thick sheet of ice. Here is the key idea: the closer a place is to the equator, the hotter it tends to be. The closer a place is to the poles, the colder it tends to be. This is because of the angle at which sunlight hits Earth.