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| Relief map of the 48 states of the U.S. mainland | |
| Area | |
| Total | 3,717,813 sq mi 9.63 Mm² |
| Land | 3,536,294 sq mi 9.16 Mm² |
| Water | 181,519 sq mi 470,131 km² |
| Latitude | 38°0' N |
| Longitude | 97°0'W |
| Borders | |
| Canada | 5,526 miles8.89 Mm |
| Mexico | 2,067 miles3.33 Mm |
| Coastlines | 12,380 miles 1.99 Mm |
| Maritime claims | |
| Contiguous zone | 24 nautical miles (44 km) |
| Economic zone | 200 nautical miles (370 km) |
| Territorial sea | 12 nautical miles (22 km) |
is a country in the Western
Hemisphere
. It consists of forty-eight contiguous
states on the North American continent; Alaska
, an enormous
peninsula which forms the northwestern
most part of North America, and Hawaii
, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean
. It also holds several United States territories in the
Pacific and Caribbean
. The term "United States",... when used in
the geographical sense,means the continental United States, Alaska,
Hawaii, Puerto Rico,Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United
States. The country shares land borders with Canada
and Mexico
and water
borders with Russia
, the
United
Kingdom
, and The
Bahamas
.
, making it the world's third largest
country. Its rank depends on whether one includes two
territories claimed by India
but governed
by China when calculating China's size. Both China and the
United States follow behind Canada and Russia in total
area, and are followed by Brazil
. By
land area (exclusive of waters), the United States is the world's
third largest country, following Russia and China.In total area
(including inland water), Russia and Canada
are larger than the United States. Ranking for third-largest
status is disputed. Some sources (including Encyclopædia Britannica
and all publications of the People's Republic of China), list China as larger than the U.S. Many
other sources list the U.S. as larger. The dispute appears to
hinge on Taiwan, without
which China takes fourth place. Total U.S. area is 3,718,711 square
miles (9.63 Mm²), of which land is 3,537,438 square miles
(9.16 Mm²) and water is 181,273 square miles
(469,495 km²). Ranked by land area, the top countries in order
are Russia, China, the U.S., Canada and Brazil.
(to the
north) and Mexico (to the
south), and a territorial water
border with Russia in the
northwest. The contiguous forty-eight states are
otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean
on the east, and the Gulf of Mexico
to the southeast. Alaska borders the
Pacific
Ocean to the south, the Bering Strait
to the west, and the Arctic Ocean
to the north, while Hawaii lies far to
the southwest of the mainland in the Pacific Ocean., which is
not included in the term contiguous United States, is at
the northwestern end of North America,
separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The State of Hawaii is an
archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington,
District of Columbia
, is a federal district located on land donated by
the state of Maryland
. (Virginia
had also donated land, but it was returned in
1847.) The United States also has
overseas territories with varying levels of independence and
organization.
form a line of low mountains separating the eastern
seaboard from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin.
The five
Great
Lakes
are located in the north-central portion of the
country, four of them forming part of the border with Canada.
The
southeast United States contain subtropical forests and, near the
gulf coast, mangrove wetlands, especially
in Florida
. West of the Appalachians lies the Mississippi River basin and two large
eastern tributaries, the Ohio River and
the Tennessee River. The Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and the Midwest consist largely of rolling hills and
productive farmland, stretching south to the Gulf Coast.
lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the
Rocky Mountains. A large portion of the country's
agricultural products are grown in the Great Plains. Before their
general conversion to farmland, the Great Plains were noted for
their extensive grasslands, from tallgrass prairie in the eastern plains to
shortgrass steppe in the western
High Plains. Elevation
rises gradually from less than a few hundred feet near the
Mississippi River to more than a mile high in the High Plains.
The
generally low relief of the plains is broken in several places,
most notably in the Ozark
and Ouachita
Mountains
, which form the U.S. Interior Highlands, the only major
mountainous region between the Rocky
Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains.The Great Plains come to an abrupt end at
the Rocky Mountains. The Rocky Mountains
form a large portion of the Western
U.S., entering from Canada and
stretching nearly to Mexico.
The Rocky
Mountains generally contain fairly mild slopes and low peaks
compared to many of the other great mountain ranges, with a few
exceptions (such as the Teton Mountains
in Wyoming
and the Sawatch Range
in Colorado
). In addition, instead of being one
generally continuous and solid mountain range, it is broken up into
a number of smaller, intermittent mountain ranges, forming a large
series of basins and valleys.
, Arches
, and Bryce Canyon
, among others.
(14,505 ft; 4,421 m). These areas contain
some spectacular scenery as well, as evidenced by such national
parks as Yosemite
and Mount Rainier
. West of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada is a
series of valleys, such as the Central
Valley
in California
and the Willamette
Valley in Oregon
.
Along the coast is a series of low mountain ranges known as the
Pacific Coast Ranges. Much of
the Pacific Northwest coast is
inhabited by some of the densest vegetation outside of the Tropics, and also the tallest trees in the world
(the Redwoods). contains
some of the most dramatic and untapped scenery in the
country. Tall, prominent mountain ranges rise up sharply
from broad, flat tundra plains. On the islands off the south and
southwest coast are many volcanoes.
Hawaii, far to the
south of Alaska in the
Pacific
Ocean, is a chain of tropical, volcanic islands, popular
as a tourist destination for many from East
Asia and the mainland United States.
area.
- the coastal regions of the eastern and southern
parts includes the continental shelf, the Atlantic Coast and the
Gulf Coast.
- lying on the eastern side of the United States,
it includes the Appalachian Mountains, the Watchung
Mountains, the Adirondacks and
New
England
province originally containing the Great Eastern
Forest..
Plateau.
system lying far inland in the western
states.
, the Colorado
Plateau and the Basin and
Range Province, it is a system of plateaus, basins, ranges and
gorges between the Rocky and Pacific Mountain Systems.
It is the
setting for the Grand
Canyon
, the Great Basin and
Death
Valley
.
on the western side of the continent is lofty,
broad and complicated having two branches, the Rocky Mountain
System and the Pacific Mountain System. In between these,
lie the Intermontaine Plateaus. Heavy forests cover the northwest
coast, but elsewhere trees are found only on the higher ranges
below the Alpine region. The intermontane valleys, plateaus and basins range
from treeless to desert with the very arid region being in
thesouthwest.
rise far inland near the easternmost members of the
Cordilleran system, and flow through plateaus and intermontaine
basins to the ocean. northward, far beyond the national boundary, to the
Arctic
Ocean. The central plains are divided by a hardly
perceptible height of land into a Canadian and a United States portion. It is from the
United States side, that the great Mississippi system discharges southward to
the Gulf of Mexico. The upper Mississippi and some of the Ohio basin is the semi-arid prairie region, with
trees originally only along the watercourses. The uplands towards
the Appalachians were included in the great eastern forested area,
while the western part of the plains has so dry a climate that its
native plant life is scanty, and in the south it is practically
barren., Inyo County, California
282 feet below sea level
(-86 m)
, Denali Borough, Alaska
20,320 feet above sea level
(+6,194 m)
Climate zones of the lower 48 United
States.
Average precipitation and southern
Florida, polar in Alaska, semiarid in
the Great
Plains west of the 100th
meridian, Mediterranean in coastal California and arid in the Great
Basin. Its comparatively generous climate contributed
(in part) to the country's rise as a world power, with infrequent
severe drought in the major agricultural regions, a general lack of
widespread flooding, and a mainly temperate climate that receives
adequate precipitation.
. The Cascade
Range, Sierra Nevada, and
Rocky Mountains pick up most of the
moisture from these systems as they move eastward. Greatly
diminished by the time they reach the High Plains, much of the
moisture has been sapped by the orographic
effect as it is forced over several mountain ranges.
However,
once it moves over the Great Plains, uninterrupted flat land allows it to reorganize
and can lead to major clashes of air masses. In addition, moisture
from the Gulf of
Mexico is often drawn northward. When combined with
a powerful jet stream, this can lead to violent thunderstorms,
especially during spring and summer. Sometimes during late
winter and spring these storms can combine with another low
pressure system as they move up the East Coast and into the
Atlantic
Ocean, where they intensify rapidly. These storms are
known as Nor'easters and often bring widespread, heavy snowfall to
the Mid-Atlantic and New England. The uninterrupted flat grasslands of the
Great
Plains also leads to some of the most extreme climate
swings in the world. Temperatures can rise or drop rapidly
and winds can be extreme, and the flow of heat waves or Arctic air
masses often advance uninterrupted through the plains.
(the Intermontane
Plateaus) are arid or semiarid regions that lie in the rain
shadow of the Cascades and
Sierra Nevada.
Precipitation averages less than 15 inches (38 cm). The
Southwest is a hot desert, with
temperatures exceeding 100°F (38°C) for several weeks at a time in
summer. The Southwest and the Great Basin are also
affected by the monsoon from the Gulf of
California
from July-September, which brings localized but
often severe thunderstorms to the region. consists of a Mediterranean climate, with sometimes
excessive rainfall from October-April and nearly no rain the rest
of the year. In the Pacific
Northwest rain falls year-round, but is much heavier during
winter and spring. The mountains of the west receive abundant
precipitation and very heavy snowfall. The Cascades are one of the
snowiest places in the world, with some places averaging over
600 inches (1,520 cm) of snow annually, but the lower
elevations closer to the coast receive very little snow.
Another
significant (but localized) weather effect is lake-effect snow that falls south and east
of the Great
Lakes, especially in the hilly portions of the Upper
Peninsula
of
Michigan
and on the Tug Hill
Plateau in New
York
.The lake effect dumped well over 5 feet of snow in
the Buffalo, New York area throughout the 2006-2007 winter The
Wasatch Front and Wasatch Range in Utah
can also
receive significant lake effect accumulations off of the Great Salt
Lake
.
once reached 134 °F (56.7 °C), the
second-highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.
in Washington
, at 692 inches (17,580 mm); the record
there was 1,122 inches (28,500 mm) in the winter of
1971–72. This record was broken by the Mt. Baker Ski Area in
northwestern Washington which reported 1,140 inches of
snowfall for the 1998-99 snowfall season. Other places with
significant snowfall outside the Cascade Range are the Wasatch Mountains, near the Great Salt
Lake, and the Sierra
Nevada, near Lake
Tahoe
. In the east, while snowfall does not
approach western levels, the region near the Great Lakes and the
mountains of the Northeast receive the most. Along the northwestern
Pacific coast, rainfall is greater than anywhere else in the
continental U.S., with Quinault
Ranger in Washington having an average of 137 inches
(3480 mm). Hawaii receives even more, with
460 inches (11,680 mm) measured annually on Mount
Waialeale
, in
Kauai
. The Mojave
Desert, in the southwest, is home to the driest locale in the
U.S. Yuma, Arizona
, has an average of 2.63 inches (66.8 mm)
of precipitation each
year. have developed.[5657] In the past year, drought has spread
from the Southern Plains westward through the Southwest and east
along the Gulf Coast to Florida.
A powerful tornado near Dimmitt, Texas
on June 2, 1995
north to
Kansas
and east
into Tennessee
is known as Tornado
Alley, where many houses have tornado shelters and many towns
have tornado sirens. Another natural disaster that frequents the
country are hurricanes, which can hit
anywhere along the Gulf Coast or the
Atlantic Coast as well as Hawaii in the
Pacific
Ocean. Particularly at risk are the central and
southern Texas coasts,
the area from southeastern Louisiana
east to the Florida
Panhandle, the east coast of Florida, and the Outer Banks
of North
Carolina
, although
any portion of the coast could be struck. Hurricane season
runs from June 1 to November 30, with a peak from mid-August
through early October. Some of the more devastating hurricanes have
included the Galveston Hurricane of 1900
, Hurricane
Andrew in 1992, and Hurricane
Katrina in 2005. The remnants of tropical cyclones from
the Eastern Pacific also occasionally impact the southwestern
United States, bringing sometimes heavy rainfall.
, the Alaskan Peninsula
and southern Alaskan coast) make up part of the
Pacific Ring of Fire, an area
of heavy tectonic and volcanic activity that is the source of 90%
of the world's earthquakes. The American Northwest sees the highest
concentration of active volcanoes in the United States, in Washington, Oregon and
northern California along the
Cascade Mountains.
There are
several active volcanoes located in the islands of Hawaii, including
Kilauea in ongoing eruption since 1983, but they do not typically
adversely affect the inhabitants of the islands. There has
not been a major life-threatening eruption on the Hawaiian islands
since the 17th century. Volcanic eruptions can occasionally be
devastating, such as in the 1980
eruption of Mount St. Helens
in Washington. and southern Alaska particularly
vulnerable to earthquakes.
Earthquakes can cause extensive damage, such
as the 1906 San Francisco
Earthquake or the 1964 Good
Friday Earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska
. California is well known for seismic
activity, and requires large structures to be earthquake resistant to minimize loss
of life and property. Outside of devastating earthquakes,
California experiences minor earthquakes on a regular basis., and forest fires in the west. your
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