THE COUNTRY OF

THE
United States
 LOCATION

Characteristics:
• Borders Canada to the North and Mexico to the South
• Borders the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean.
• Takes up 1/3 of the North American continent
• Also comprised of a number of territories, including Puerto
Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern
Mariana Islands.

Guam
Puerto Rico

Northern Mariana Island

 HISTORY

The history of the United States can be roughly divided

into 8 periods:

American
Early European Growing as a
Revolutionary
settlement colonization nation
War

American WW1 and

Cold War Modern Day
Civil War WW2

Early settlement
• Native American ancestry can be
traced to twelve thousand years
ago.
• They crossed from modern day
Siberia across a now lost stretch of
land.
• Their ancestors settled
throughout Canada, the Great
Plains and, and the Eastern
Woodlands, which included the
North Carolina area.
• Civilizations in America were
much smaller and spread out
compared to

European colonization
• The first European civilization to
colonize the Americas were the
Portuguese
• By the 16th century, Spain and
France also took part in the
colonization. England was one of
the later European countries to
colonize the Americas
• The first permanent British
settlement was Jamestown in
modern day Virginia.
 HISTORY

American Revolutionary
War
• By the late 18th century, England
was struggling to keep control of
their American territories.
• England decided to increase their
military prescence and forced
harsher laws as a last effort.
• The American colonizers revolted
against the British control, in part
because of 2 main events: The
Stamp Act and The Boston Tea
Party
• The American revolutionary war lasted for 8 years from 1775 to 1783.
One of the major aid that the USA received was secretly from
France.
• The Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the official ending to the war. Britain
recognised the USA as an independent country.

Growing as a nation

•The USA was still struggling to form a stable government after

the war.
•The Constitution of the US was officially formed in 1789, with
George Washington as the President.
•The Louisiana Purchase was one of the first act of the USA to
expand its territory.
•The USA believed in “Manifest Destiny”, an idea that they were
destined by god to spread democracy across North America.
 HISTORY

American Civil War

• The issue of slavery was highly debated among the states, with
some opposing it and others fear they were being threaten.
• After Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, 11 states proclaimed
independence and formed the Confederate States of America.
• The two countries went to war for 4 years. The conclusion meant an
end to slavery in America and re-formed the United States

WW1 to WW2
• Did not suffer as many losses as other European countries from both
World Wars, creating an opportunity for the US to rise up to the top
of the world.
• Civil rights became a core focus, with events such as voting rights for
women coming into fruition.
• The USA, along with the rest of the world, suffered through the Great
Depression. It was able to overcome it by 1933.

Cold War
• The Cold War was a period of political tension between the largest
superpowers of the world at the time, the USA and the USSR.

• Both countries created many alliances and waged proxy wars such
as the Korean War and the Vietnam War against each other.
• Both countries raced to research new technological fields,
culminating with the USA being the first country to send a man to
the moon
 Physical Geography

The East and South

Main features:
• The low area on the eastern coast of the US is called the Atlantic
Coastal Plain. To the west of that is the region called Piedmont
• The highest mountain in the Applachians is about 2040 meters.

The Interior Plains and The Great Plain

Main features:
• Contains the Great Lakes, one of the largest groups of freshwater
lakes in the world.
• One of America’s most important rivers, the Mississippi, flows
through here.
• The land begins to elevate deeper into the west, creating the Great
Plains. This 800 kilometers wide area stretches from Canada to
Mexico.
 Physical Geography

The West
Main features:
• Several high and rugged mountain ranges make up the Rocky
Mountains, North America’s largest mountain system. One of the
continent’s Continental Divides sits here.
• Other mountain ranges are The Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada,
many of which contains dormant volcanoes
• One of the USA’s largest active volcanoes, Mount Saint Helens, lies
here.
• North America’s highest peak, Mount McKinley, is also present here.

Climate
The USA is the only country in the world that has all of the earth’s
five climate zones: tropical, dry, temperate, continental, and polar.
•Arctic and tropical climates are limited to high mountain-tops,
inland Alaska and Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida
respectively.
•The middle latitudes are known for wide variations in
temperature and rainfall
 Physical Geography

Rainfall
•Rainfall from the Pacific Ocean is so confined to the coastal strip that
the areas between the mountains and the Great Plains are arid or
semi-arid.
•Farther east, rainfall increases because warm, moist air moves up over
the nation's middle from the Gulf of Mexico. However, it often comes
in cloudbursts, hailstorms, tornadoes and blizzards.

The seasons

In the Plains:
• Winter: dry frigid Canadian air moves south, spreading cold weather to
the plains and lowlands and causing storms at its southern edge.
• Summer: that stormy edge moves north as gulf air brings hot weather
that eliminates much of the temperature difference between the north
and south.
In North-west regions:
• Winter: overcast and drizzly as a result of warm, moist air from the
Alaskan coast. Southern California is a climatic refuge in winter because
of its mild temperatures and long periods of sunny weather.
• Summer: mild air from the Pacific, and, except in the mountains, is
nearly rainless. Farther south, summer means dry, hot air and high
temperatures.
In North-east regions:
• Autumn: mild days, frosty nights and crystal-clear skies.
• Spring: temperate weather, but autumn and spring are also the
seasons when the gulf and Canadian air masses lurch most violently
together, spawning hurricanes along the gulf and Atlantic coasts in the
fall and tornadoes in the Mississippi valley in the spring.
 Physical Geography
Natural resources

Large
Coastlines
landmass

Land for
farming

• The geography and geology of the United States provided a

tremendous comparative advantage in building its economy.
• America's large coastline means no hostile governments border it.
• The Plains was a huge basin sculpted out by glaciers during the
Great Ice Age. As a result, mountain streams from the Rockies
deposited layers of sediment. These streams then cut through the
sediment to create plateaus.

Minerals
•Gold:
• Widely mined in the U.S. to primarily use in jewelry and
computer circuitry.
• A majority of this nation’s gold reserves can be found in Fort
Knox, Kentucky.
• Overall, the United States is estimated to have almost 9,000
tons of gold spread across the country.
•Lead:
• The United States of America is the largest producer and
consumer of lead in the world.
• A majority of lead in the U.S. is mined in Missouri, as well as in
some parts of Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Washington.
•Copper:
• Is extensively mined in the U.S for use in consumer products.
• Two of the largest copper mines in the world are located in
the United States: the Morenci mine in Arizona and the
Bingham Canyon Mine in Salt Lake City, Utah.
•Iron ore:
• Production is predominantly conducted in the surrounding
regions of Minnesota and Michigan.
 THE NORTH-EAST

Demographic: A majority of the population here are White Americans

with European ancestry, however, there are still large groups of Black,
Latino and Asian people.

New England:
New England is further divided into two parts:
• Southern New England, which has a cultural importance due to its
size, natural resources, and population.
• Massachusetts, which was heavily influenced by Britain and the
northern half of the country.
Americans traced their core values here with optimistic individualism
expressed in introspective self-reliance and self-improvement, thrift,
hard work, and progress.

Notable features:
•Concentrates many higher education facilities and high-technology
industries
•Booming tourist industry due to scenic qualities and as a repository for
the nation’s history, especially in the northern zones.

Mid-Atlantic region:
Experienced a boom in the 1700s due to its larger, more varied
population, better soil, and greater share of natural resources.

Notable features:
•A commercial-industrial hub with harbours, canals, railroads, and the
Erie Canal, which reduced the cost of shipping freight from Lake Erie to
New York City.
•Today, the region is renamed the 'Rust Belt' due to the migration of
heavy industries abroad and 'high-tech' companies to the south and
southwest.
 THE SOUTH

Ethnicities: Predominately White American, with equally large groups

of Black and Latino minorities

The lowland south is located on the Coastal Plain and includes the
Creole and Cajun areas of Louisiana and the Caribbean-African-
influenced Sea Islands off the Atlantic Coast. It has been losing much
of its traditional character due to economic transformation and
migration from other parts of the nation and abroad.

Notable features:
• In the past, it was very pro-slavery as Africans were used for most of
its agricultural industries. This was a primary reason for the Civil
War
• After the war, cotton remained a cash-crop, with many former
slaves still working for their former masters.
• Compared to other regions: southerners less educated, more
religious, more conservative, and more predominantly old-stock
Americans
 THE MIDWEST

It is characterized by two tiers of states west of the Mississippi River, from

Missouri and Kansas to Canada.

Ethnicities: An increase in immigration from Africa, Asia and Latin America

Notable features:
•Is primarily industrial in nature, with farm states and industrial cities like
St. Louis and Minneapolis.
•The Great Lakes were the first place where the cultures of New England,
the mid-Atlantic, and the South combined.
•Many cities are recovering from the loss of manufacturing jobs, slums and
urban blight. Many large cities include Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland and
Chicago.
•Is the birthplace of many progressive movements such as the original
Republican party, which opposed slavery.
 THE WEST

The federal government is the largest landowner in the south-west

and dominates the economy of the mountain states. It owns over
four-fifths of Nevada, two-thirds of Utah, and vast areas of the sub-
regions other states, leading to a lack of control over local
resources.

A variety of industries powers the region, from mining to agriculture,

tourism to gambling and other entertainment

• The San Francisco area was the first to experience rapid

development, becoming an industrializing metropolis by the 1870s.
• Los Angeles has experienced rapid population growth ever since it
became the terminus of a transcontinental railroad in 1885.

Hawaii and Alaska have a unique land use system with areas for
commercial, industrial, and residential buildings, protected
farmland, nature reserves, and tourist attractions

The federal, state, and Native-American tribal governments own

over 99% of Alaska, Until Alaska won statehood in 1959, settlers and
natives subsisted primarily through fishing, hunting, and logging
 INFRASTRUCTURE

Communications
Telecommunications in the US is regulated by the Federal
Communications Commission (abbreviated as FCC). Most
telecommunications services are provided by four privately owned
service providers: Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and Dish Wireless.

Issues:
• Regulation of the FCC over Internet service providers has been a
point of debate over the years, such as the debate on net neutrality.
• Lack of fast and affordable Internet in many parts of the country.

Mailing
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post
Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the
executive branch of the United States federal government
responsible for providing postal service in the U.S.

The USPS also competes with privately own parcel service such as
the UPS, FedEx and Amazon.
 INFRASTRUCTURE

Aviation

• The US handles 8 of the world’s 30 busiest airports, including the

world's second busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International
Airport.
• In terms of cargo, in 2015, eight of the world's thirty busiest airports
were in the U.S.
• Public airports are usually constructed and operated by local
governments

• The U.S. has no single flag carrier and passenger airlines in the
United States have always been privately owned. The U.S. has
three major international carriers (Delta Air Lines, American
Airlines, and United Airlines)

Railway

• Coast-to-coast railroads helped build the modern United

States into an economic powerhouse
• Freight companies have become increasingly efficient and
profitable while passenger trains are struggling.
Roadway
• The road system in the United States has evolved over time
to a complex network of physical structures that include
roads, bridges, and overpasses, all designed to carry an
enormous amount of traffic.
• A large part of this is what is known as the Interstate
Highway, a large network of highways that spans all over
the country, even in non-contiguous states.

Issues: Many have expressed that the state of the US roadways

has fallen.
• One in five miles, or 173,000 total miles, of our highways
and major roads and more than 43,500 bridges are in poor
condition.
• Others have also expressed that governments are spending
too much on building new highways.

Waterway
• Cargo ships remain as the most important method of
importing goods in the country, making up over half of the
volume of trade each year.