Transportation

Bicycles are an important form of personal transport in countries like the Netherlands (above). Many people also cycle to and from work in Asia, Europe and Africa.

📖 In short

Transportation means moving people and goods from one place to another. By car, bus, train, ship and plane, people go to work and school and travel, and food, clothes and the things we need reach us from far away.

🤩 Did you know?

The Cairo Metro opened in 1987, the first in Africa and the Middle East.
In some countries fast trains travel at more than 300 kilometers an hour.
Ships carry most of the goods traded between the world's countries.
Saudi Arabia has a modern road network with many bridges and tunnels.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Long ago

Long ago people walked, rode horses, camels and donkeys, and sailed in sailing boats. Caravans carried goods across the desert for many weeks.

🔍 The wheel changed everything

Inventing the wheel thousands of years ago let people make carts pulled by animals, so carrying heavy things became much easier.

💡 Modern transport

Today we have cars, fast trains, jet planes, huge ships carrying thousands of containers, and metro trains under cities.

🎯 Transport of the future

Engineers are working on cleaner and faster transport, like electric cars, magnetic trains that float above the track and self-driving cars.

📸 More pictures

Public buses in Saudi Arabia carry passengers within cities and also between cities and to neighboring countries.

An old way of moving goods is by people themselves. These women in Burma carry bricks on their heads for other workers on a building site.

🧩 Test yourself

1 Which old invention made it easier to move heavy things?

2 What carries most trade goods between countries?

3 In some countries fast trains travel at more than ?? kilometers an hour.

4 Which picture shows “Transportation”?