The United States of America

The USA is the most powerful and highly developed country of the world. It is situated in the central part of the North American continent. Its western coast is washed by the Pacific Ocean and its eastern coast is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

The USA is separated from Canada in the north by the 49th parallel and the Great Lakes, and from Mexico in the south by a line following the Rio Grande River and continuing across the highlands to the Pacific Ocean. The total area of the USA is over 9 million square kilometres.

The continental part of the USA consists of the highland regions and two lowland regions. The highland regions are the Appalachia mountains in the east and the Cordillera in the west.

Between the Cordillera and the Appalachian Mountains are the central lowlands which are called the prairie, and eastern lowlands called the Mississippi valley.
The principal rivers of the USA are the Mississippi, the longest river in the world (7,330 km) and the Hudson river. The climate of the USA differs greatly from one part of the country to another. The coldest climate is in the northern part, where there is heavy snow in winter and the temperature may go down to 40 degrees below zero. The south has a subtropical climate, with temperature as high as 49 degrees in summer.

The population of the United States of America is about 250 million people, who are called Americans. Most of the people live in towns and the population of the countryside is becoming smaller and smaller.

For many decades the USA has been the place where lots of people sought refuge from persecution for political or religious beliefs. That's why in America there are representatives of practically all racial and national groups. There are about 25 million Negroes in the country and a little over half a million Indians.

The capital of the USA is Washington. It is situated in the District of Columbia. Washington is a beautiful administrative city with practically no industry. The USA is a highly developed industrial state. Its agriculture is also highly mechanized. There are coal-mines in the Cordillera Mountains, in the Kansas City region. Iron is mined near the Great Lakes. The USA has rich oil-fields in California, Texas and some other regions. It occupies one of the first places among the countries of the world for production of coal, iron and oil.

The USA has a highly developed motor-ear industry. It would be no exaggeration to say that cars have become the symbol of American way of life. The vehicles produced at such companies as Ford and the General Motors are known world-wide. The motor-car industry is concentrated in and around Detroit. Ship-building is developed along the Atlantic coast and in San Francisco. The textile industry is to be found in the north-east and in the south of the country.

The USA has a highly developed railway system. It also has the best network of roads in the world. They are called highways.

The USA is a federal country of 50 states and the District of Columbia. The political life of the country has always been dominated by the two major parties: the Democratic party and the Republican party. At an election time they contest presidency and the majority of seats in the Congress. The Congress is the highest legislative body of the country. It consists of two chambers — the House of Representatives and the Senate. The President, elected by the whole nation for four years, is head of the state and the Government.

After 350 years of development the United States of America still holds the leading position in the western world. The USA is the most powerful and highly developed country of the world. The United States of America lies in the central part of North American continent. Its western coast is washed by the Pacific Ocean. Its eastern coast is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

The USA consists of three separate parts. They are the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska and the rest major part of the USA. There are fifty states and district of Columbia. The states differ very much in size, population and economical development. The population of the United States is about 250 million people.

What makes the USA the leader of the western world is its economical, political and military dominance over other countries.

The United States is a federal republic. The Government is divided into three branches: legislative (the US Congress), executive (the President and his Administration) and judicial (the US Supreme Court).

There are two main political parties in the USA: the Democratic and the Republican.

The flag of the USA is called "Stars and Stripes". The 50 stars — white on a blue field — represent the 50 states, 18 stripes represent 13 original English colonies, which in 1776 became independent of England.

The capital of the United States is Washington. It was named in honour of the first president whose name was George Washington. The biggest cities of the USA are New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and other.

The USA is a federal republic of 50 states. Besides the 48 contiguous states that occupy the middle latitudes of the continent, the United States includes the state of Alaska at the north-western extreme of North America and the island state of Hawaii in the mid-Pacific Ocean.

The conterminous states are bounded on the north by Canada, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. The national capital is Washington, which is coextensive with the District of Columbia, the federal capital region created in 1790.

The total area of the United States is 3,679,192 square miles (9,529,063 square kilometres), making it the fourth largest country in the world in area (after Russia, Canada and China). Outlying territories and other politically associated areas in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea add approximately 4,000 square miles to this figure.

The major characteristic of the United States is probably its great variety. Its physical environment ranges from the Arctic to the subtropical, from the moist rain forest to the arid desert, from the rugged mountain peak to the flat prairie. Although the total population of the United States is large by world standards, its overall population density is relatively low; the country embraces some of the worlds largest urban concentrations as well as some of the most extensive areas that are almost devoid of habitation.

The United States contains a highly diverse population; but, unlike a country such as China that largely incorporated indigenous peoples, its diversity has to a great degree come from an immense and sustained global immigration. Probably no other country has a wider range of racial, ethnic and cultural types than does the United States.

In addition to the presence of surviving native Americans (including American Indians, Aleuts and Eskimo) and the descendants of Africans taken as slaves to America, the national character has been enriched and tested, by the tens of millions of immigrants who by and large have gone to America hoping for greater social, political and economic opportunities than they had in the places they left.

The United States is the worlds greatest economic power, measured in terms of gross national product (GNP). The nations wealth is partly a reflection of its rich natural resources and its enormous agricultural output, but it owes more to the country's highly developed industry.

Despite its relative economic self-sufficiency in many areas, the United States is the most important single factor in world trade by virtue of the sheer size of its economy. Its exports and imports represent major proportions of the world total. The United States also impinges on the global economy as a source of and as a destination for investment capital.

The country continues to sustain an economic life that is more diversified than any other on Earth, providing the majority of its people with one of the world's highest standards of living.

The United States is relatively young by world standards, being barely more than 200 years old. America was the first of the European colonies to separate successfully from its motherland, and it was the first nation to be established on the premise that sovereignty rests with its citizens and not with the government.

In its first century and a half, the country was mainly preoccupied with its own territorial expansion and economic growth and with social debates that ultimately led to civil war and a healing period that is still not complete. In the 20th century the United States emerged as a world power, and since World War II it has been one of the pre-eminent powers.

Although the United States still offers its residents opportunities for unparalleled personal advancement and wealth, the depletion of its resources, contamination of its environment, and continuing social and economic inequality that perpetuates areas of poverty and blight all threaten the fabric of the country.