It s a record naturally

By Steve Cunningham< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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EVERYONE knows what's the world's longest river, don't they Of course you do - it's the Nile. But do you know the natural world's other record-breakers Read on ...

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The Nile is formed by three main streams: the Blue Nile, the Atbara and the White Nile.

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You'll know this one, too.

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What's the world's tallest mountain

Mount Everest, on the border between Nepal and China (Tibet) is the highest point on Earth.

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Three ridges - the South-east, North-east, and West - culminate in two summits at 29,035ft (8,850m; Everest) and 28,700ft (8,748m; South Peak).

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The summit reaches two-thirds of the way through the air of the Earth's atmosphere.

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The mountain, then known as Peak XV, was discovered to be the world's highest by the survey department of the Government of India in 1856 from� theodolite readings. It was named after Colonel George Everest (1790-1866), former surveyor-general of India.

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What's the world's biggest island

Greenland�... and it's not a place for the faint-hearted.

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Greenland's surrounding seas are either permanently frozen or chilled. The inland area is covered with ice, which can be up to 2 miles (5km) thick. The ice-free coastal region, where all the population lives, covers 131,900 sq miles (341,700 sq km).

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Most of the country is covered in continuous twilight in the winter except for the north, where there's complete darkness.

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The Disko Bay region and South Greenland are the most visited places and offer the widest selection of tours. Nuuk, the capital, has a population of 12,233.

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What's the world's highest waterfall

The Salto Angel falls in the Guiana Highlands, south-eastern Venezuela, on the Chur�n River. It drops 3,212ft (979m) and is 500ft (150m) wide at the base. It leaps from a flat-topped plateau, Auy�n-Tepu� (Devil's Mountain) and was discovered in 1935. Curiously, the falls are named after James Angel, an American adventurer who crash-landed his plane nearby in 1937.

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What's the world's tallest tree

It's a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) called Tall Tree. It can be found in the southern section of the Redwood National Park in the north-western corner of California.

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In 1963 it was measured at 367.8ft (112.1m) tall (although its top broke off later) and had a diameter of 14ft (4m).� Redwoods can live as long as 2,000 years, protected from fire by their thick, sapless bark.

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Finally, for this little outing on the world's record-breaking wonders, what's the deepest point in an ocean It's the Mariana Trench, in the floor of the western North Pacific Ocean, east of the Mariana Islands.

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It stretches for more than 1,580 miles (2,550km) with a mean width of 43 miles (69km) and 36,201ft (11,034m) deep.

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On 23 January, 1960, the French-built United States Navy-operated bathyscaph Trieste, with Jacques Piccard aboard, made a record dive to 35,800ft (10,911m) in the trench.