Yes, THE standard or baseline. As in, one.
One Choice is still singular. There is no contradiction here.
For most of those, it's in terms of how to run adventures in/with them; and handwaves at best at how to design them. Religions and governments are the only aspects they touch that involve actual worldbuilding.
A decent worldbuilding guide would have, at the barest minimum, the following (though in a more coherent sequence!):
--- tips, tricks, and how-to's on designing and drawing maps; and what to do with blanks spaces (leave 'em blank!)
This is not part of the bare minimum. You do not need to know how to draw or design a map to worldbuild.
--- a brief primer on medieval social geography e.g. how frequent are villages and why, the frequency and spacing of larger towns/cities, etc.
This could be useful... if you are building a medieval world. What if you aren't? Medieval Social Geography doesn't really apply to Athas or Eberron after all.
--- some ideas on species distribution e.g. a completely mixed society or each species has its own discrete enclaves or a mix of these
--- a guide to different governmental and-or social structures (including the bad ones!)
Governments and social strcutures? Sure, a list of those could be nice. Species distribution? Less certain that's really something needed. That could easily be handled under different social structures.
--- something about food and agriculture in terms of how much land is needed to feed how many people
--- a maybe-not-so-brief primer on weather and climate, with tips and ideas on how different world designs would alter the weather there (e.g. what if the polar axis is vertical thus there are no seasons as we know them)
--- a piece on setting astronomy and what differences would arise if the world had, say, multiple moons or two suns or was a binary planet
--- corollary to this, a guide to how tides and currents would work under different astronomies; essential if the party ever goes to sea or adventures on a coastline
--- a rough guide to ecology; just how many monsters can coexist in a given area, how do-can they interrelate, etc.
--- a rough guide to setting biology; just how are all these monsters created
For Minimums? No. I'm not saying I've never done research on this, but you are basically saying "give me parts of a biology textbook, climatology textbook, astronomy textbook, agriculture textbook" I mean, you want specific tidal information just in case people go to the beach? This is all useful information, but it is far too comprehensive to be considered "the basics". This is advanced stuff.
--- a deep dive into how to create a coherent, if brief, history of how things came to be the way they are today
You realize this is like... an entire book on its own, right? This is a full "how to write alternative histories" writing book. Inside of everything else? Again, this is WAAAAY beyond the minimums.
--- thoughts on how-if your world will or could connect to other worlds/planes
--- a deep dive into cosmology; what other planes are out there, what is their function, who lives there, etc. and how those planes all relate to each other
How, when you make this insane claim below.
Note what's glaringly missing from that list: religion and deities. Those need their own separate book, in tandem with this one.
Wut? How do you expect to build a proper world with a proper history without religion? You want to talk about the outer planes of the gods... without talking about the gods?
And you want it to be a completely different book than the world-building book?
I'm sorry to tell you Lanefan, but you don't want a book, or even two. You want a series of books, likely around five at a minimum. And that is insane for a beginner. The way the DMG handles it, even if not perfect, is leagues better than this idea.
