The United States of AmericaCompiled by O. Zabolotnyi Kyiv 2008 General Information The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a constitutional federal republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district (also known as CONUS – Continental United States), lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific. Left: The map of the USA contiguous states (CONUS) based on a satellite image. At 9.83 million square kilometers and with more than 300 million people, the United States is the third largest country by total area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with a nominal 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 13 trillion US dollars. The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic coastline. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence. The Bill of Rights, part of the Constitution, comprises ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms. In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the nation's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The nation remained a superpower after Cold War. In the current era of globalization the United States remains a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the 21st century. Right: An aircraft carrier (here you can see USS Nimitz) is a symbol of America as a global power. Geography, climate and environment Page 2. Geography The United States is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: the contiguous U.S. stretches from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast; it is bordered by Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. Alaska is the largest state in area; separated from the contiguous U.S. by Canada, it touches the Pacific on the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north. Hawaii occupies an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America. After Russia and Canada, the U.S. is the world's third largest nation by total area. The U.S. also possesses several islands scattered around the West Indies (e.g. Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (e.g., Guam). Task: Study the physical map of the USA and find all the underlined geographical features on it. The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaside gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the country's tallest peak. Active volcanoes are common in Alaska, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The super volcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature. Climate Page 3. The U.S., with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme weather is not uncommon— the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley. The diagram on the right shows how warm humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, warm dry air from the southwest and cold dry air from the north collide and cause tornados. Environment The U.S. ecology is very diverse, with more than 17,000 native species of flora, and more than 400 mammal, 700 bird, 500 reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 insect species. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas. Altogether, the government regulates 28.8% of the country's land area. Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, or cattle ranching. Left: A brown bear is catching salmon in Alaska. Left: A Florida alligator prefers damp tropical habitat of the Everglades. Above: A diamondback rattlesnake lives in dry subtropical areas. Left: In Alameda, California you can see giant sequoia (redwood) trees that live about 2000 years. The tallest tree of all is Hyperion measuring 115.55 m, making him the world’s tallest living thing. US National Symbols Page 4. The United States flag (on the right) is a living symbol of America, standing for its past, present and future. It symbolizes American people, American land and American way of life. The US flag has 13 alternate stripes: 7 red and 6 white ones that remind us of the 13 original British colonies that gained independence and formed the union. There are also 50 white stars on the blue rectangle representing the 50 states bound together as a single nation. Of the three colors of the flag the red color proclaims courage, the white symbolizes liberty, and the blue stands for loyalty. The US flag is known as “Old Glory”, “Star-Spangled Banner” or, most commonly, “Stars and Stripes”. According to the protocol it is never lowered before anybody. The design of the first official US flag was approved by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on June 14, 1777. Today June 14 is celebrated as Flag Day. The very first flag was made for that day by Betsy Ross, and had only 13 stars. With the admission of new states new stars were added. Left: The revolutionary flag of 1775. Right: The Betsy Ross’s flag of June 14, 1777. The Coat of Arms (on the left) of the USA represents a bald eagle with wings outspread, holding a bundle of rods in the left claw and an olive twig in the other one. The rods symbolize administering, and the olive twig stands for love. The motto reads: “E Pluribus Unum” (Latin, meaning “one out of many”). The bald eagle (on the right) is recognized as a bird symbol of America. The information about some other essential US symbols is given below. The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and signed by the delegates of the thirteen American colonies at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The document not only announced the birth of a new nation, but also presented a philosophy of human freedom, which has become a dynamic force for the entire world since then. The Declaration (seen on the right) is considered to be the most significant document in the USA. The date is celebrated as the most important of American holidays – Independence Day. The fact of signing the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress was announced by tolling the bell in the State House in Philadelphia. That bell received the name Liberty Bell. Page 5. The Statue of Liberty (“Liberty Enlightening the World”) is a 225ton female figure made of steel, 150 feet tall, facing the Atlantic Ocean from Liberty Island in New York Harbor. The right hand raises a torch, and in the left hand she holds a tablet with an inscription: “July IV MDCCLXXVI” (July 4, 1776). The statue was given as a gift from the people of France to commemorate the friendship between the two nations. The monument was erected in 1886, when the USA was celebrating the nation’s 100-th birthday. The Statue of Liberty serves the symbol of freedom to many million people around the world. The donkey and the elephant first appeared in political cartoons. The cartoonist Thomas Nast invented the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey (on the left) in the early 1870, and soon they became fixed types. Today they serve “their” political parties quite officially. Uncle Sam has the initials “US”. He originally appeared in political cartoons and is an unofficial symbol of the US government. A legend says that the prototype’s name was Sam Wilson and he supplied meat to the US Army during the war in 1812. He stamped the supplies with the letters “US” to signify that they had been certified by a government inspector. However, the soldiers believed that those letters stood for “Uncle Sam” – the supplier of food. Eventually, everything stamped “US” became recognized as “Uncle Sam’s” property. Initial Uncle Sam’s cartoon images resembled the original: they portrayed a stout little fellow with a beard and a cocky grin. Later, after the death of Abraham Lincoln, the cartoonists started to draw Uncle Sam taller and thinner, making him look like that great American president. Population of the United States The United States population is reported by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 305,397,000, including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants. The U.S. is the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India. The U.S. has a very diverse population— Race/Ethnicity (2007) thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members. White Americans White are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English African American Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups. African Americans are the nation's second Asian Native American and Alaskan largest racial minority group, after Native Hispanics/Latinos, and third largest Native Hawaiian and Pacific ancestry group. In 2007, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 Islander million people with some American Indian Multiracial or Alaskan native ancestry (2.9 million Some other race exclusively of such ancestry) and over 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Hispanic or Latino (of any race) Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively). The chart on the right shows the statistics. 73.94 % 12.38 % 4.39% 0.78% 0.14% 2.16% 6.21% 15.06 % Page 6. About 79% of Americans live in urban areas (as defined by the Census Bureau, such areas include the suburbs); about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. In 2006, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four major cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston). There are fifty metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million, such as, for example those of Atlanta (Georgia), Dallas (Texas), Phoenix (Arizona) and Riverside (California). However, the metropolitan areas of the largest cities accommodate the following number of residents: New York (NY) – 18,818 million, Los Angeles (CA) – 12,950 million, Chicago (IL) – 9,505 million and Houston (TX) – 5,539 million. The photo on the left shows the megapolis of Los Angeles, California, as a hot and smoggy place.