THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the main places of interest:
the Capitol, the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial
America was discovered by
Columbus in 1492. The USA is situated
in the central part of the North American
continent. It borders on Canada in the
north and on Mexico in the south. It is
washed by the Pacific Ocean in the west,
the Atlantic Ocean in the east and by the
Gulf of Mexico in the south. The area of
the country is over 9 million square
kilometers.
The landscape of the country is various, there are mountains, valleys,
highlands, lowlands and deep canyons – the Grand
Canyon (in Arizona) is the biggest. It is one of the
natural wonders of the world as well. The main
mountains are the Appalachian Mountains in the east
and the Rocky Mountains in the west; the highest peak
is Mount Denali (McKinley). Between the Cordillera
and Appalachian mountains are the central lowlands,
which are called the prairies. Desert is situated in the
south-west of the country. The main rivers of the USA
are the Mississippi (the longest), the Colorado, the Columbia,
the St. Lawrence, the Rio Grande, and the Yukon. The main fresh water
resource is the five Great Lakes: Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and
Ontario. The world famous Niagara Falls is situated between lakes Erie and
Ontario. The USA is a very large country, so it has several different climatic
regions from subtropical in Florida to arctic in Alaska.
The USA consists of 50 states; Alaska and
Hawaii lie apart from the main territory. The largest state
is Alaska and the smallest state is Rhode Island. The
population of the USA is more than 300 million people.
The USA is called the country of immigrants because
there you can find representatives of nearly all nations of
the world. The natives of the country are American
Indians, and Alaska native people.
The capital of the USA is Washington DC.
Letters DC stand for District of Columbia, a separate
territory around the capital that does not belong to any
state with its own laws and regulations. The main street of the city is
and Washington Monument.
New York is the biggest city in the USA. It stands on the river
Hudson. Its population is more than 10 million people. The main places of
interest in New York are the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building,
Brooklyn Bridge, the Metropolitan Museum, Broadway, etc.
Other big cities of the USA are Boston, Chicago, Detroit,
Philadelphia, San Francisco (The Golden Gate Bridge is the symbol of this
city), Los Angeles in the state of California (Hollywood is the centre of the
USA film industry), Las Vegas (sometimes is called “The city that never
sleeps” or “Disneyland for Adults”).
Rushmore Mountain (in
South Dakota) is a monument to
four famous presidents of the USA:
George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and
Theodore Roosevelt; carved in a
rock where there is a historical
museum.
The USA is a highly
developed industrial country. It is
rich in: coal, iron, natural gas, gold,
silver and other mineral resources. The main industries of the country are:
heavy, automobile, textile, food, electronic equipment.
The USA is a federal democracy consisting of 50 states, each of which
has its own government. The Constitution of the USA was proclaimed in
1787 in Philadelphia and it sets the basic form of the government. The
president is elected for 4 years and is the head of the state and the
Government. The US government has 3 branches: legislative – Congress,
which consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate,
executive – the president and the cabinet, judicial – the Supreme Court,
which consists of 9 judges, who work as long as they live.
In the USA there are 2 main political parties: the Democratic Party
(the symbol is a donkey) and the Republican Party (the symbol is an
elephant).
The flag of the USA consists of 13 stripes and 50 stars. It is called
“Stars and Stripes” or “Uncle Sam”. Stripes stand for first 13 colonies which
in 1776 united and formed the USA. Stars stand for the present number of
states.