USA

The USA is situated in the central part of the North American continent. The total area is over 9 million square kilometers.

The USA is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west coast, the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. It also borders on the countries of Canada to the north and Mexico to the southwest.

The USA is a federal republic of fifty states and the District of Columbia. At first it consisted of only 13 colonies located along the Atlantic coast of America. They were English colonies, but they rebelled against England and in 1776 became an independent nation. They won the victory and a new nation was born.

As the time went on, settlers from all the countries of Europe moved to the west until the nation was populated coast to coast, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. One by one new states were added to the original 13. Much land was taken from the Indians. Some of the territories were bought from France in 1803, others were taken from Mexico. Alaska was bought from Russia in 1817. It became the 49th state of the USA, in 1959. The same year in 1959 the territory of Hawaii became the 50th state.

The USA is divided onto three areas: The Eastern area-a high land, the Central area-a plain, and the western area being mountainous and containing the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada.

The Northern part of the USA embraces the region of the five Great Lakes. (Lake Superior Huron, Michigan, Erie, Ontario) which are connected by natural channels, cut by rapids. The greatest of these rapids is the Niagara Falls. The water of the five lakes have their outlet into the Atlantic Ocean by the St-Lawrence River. The principal rivers of the USA are the Mississippi, the longest river in the world (17,800 kilometers) which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, the Colorado and the Columbia, which flow into the Pacific Ocean, and the Hudson River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

The climate of the USA differs greatly from one part of the country to another. The coldest climate is in the north, when there is heavy snow in winter and the temperature may go down to 40 degrees Celsius below zero. The south has a subtropical climate, with temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius in summer. The climate along the Pacific coast is much warmer than that of the Atlantic coast

The capital of the USA is Washington, in the District of Columbia, referred to as Washington, DC. The American Congress has its seat in the Capitol, and the White House is the residence of the President. Washington DC, is a beautiful administrative city without much industry. It has many famous monuments: the Library of the Congress, the Washington Monument, the Abraham Lincoln, the Jefferson Memorial, WW II Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, and others.

New York City is the largest city and port. It is the country's financial and business center. It is famous for its sky-scrapers. Chicago is one of the biggest industrial cities in the USA. San Francisco, located on the Pacific coast, is a big port and shipbuilding center. The USA is one of the greatest industrial nations in the world. With only about 5 percent of the world's population and about 6 percent of its land area, the U.S. produces around 25 percent of the world's industrial products, agricultural goods, and services. The USA is the world leader in many fields, for instance, biochemical and genetic engineering, aerospace research and development, communications, computer and information services, and similar high-technology fields. The USA is also the world's leading agricultural nation, which not only feeds her own people but many other people in the world as well.

There are many reasons, which can explain why the USA has been able to become a world leader in industrial and agricultural resources. Another very important reason is America's vitality, its so-called spirit of enterprise, optimism, innovation, and initiative. The rapid progress of American industry and agriculture is also the result of the constant willingness to experiment and to find new solutions to old problems. The USA is divided into regions that have different kinds of land and climate, different ways of living and working, and their own characteristics and problems. And each has its own groups of people whose origin and traditions make them different from any of the others. However, out of these differences the American people were able to create a political and social system in which all of these regions and groups were represented and which formed or forged one nation out of many parts.