The United States of America (1)

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The United States of America
The U.S.A. is situated in the central part of the North American continent . The area of the U.S.A. is over nine million square kilometres. Its western coast is washed by Pacific Ocean and its eastern coast by the Atlantic ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The continental United States is bounded to the North by Canada and to the South by Mexico. There are two mountain ranges in the continental United States: the Appalachians in the east and the Rockies in the west . In the very middle of the continent is the Mississippi river.
The five Great lakes , between the U.S.A. and Canada, are joined together by short rivers or canals. They are connected with the Atlantic Ocean by the St. Lawrence River, and with the Hudson River by a canal . In the west of the U.S.A. there is another big lake called the Great Salt Lake.
Hawaii , a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean, has a tropical climate. Alaska is separated from the continental US by Canada.
The history of the USA began when England started creating colonies in the North America in the 1600s. The colonies became independent States and joined to form the “United States” in the 1700s. The USA expanded westward in the 1800s and reached the Pacific Ocean. As it grew, it became the greatest industrial power in the world. It wanted to stay out of European problems, but in the two World Wars, it decided that it could not afford to let Germany win. In the 1940s it became the leader of the West and organized an alliance of the democracies. Today it is the only superpower left in the world.
Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress , convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights ," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. This meant war. Britain lost the war and lost America. It recognized the United States as a separate country in 1783.
The population of the USA is about 270 million people. They are called Americans. Most of the people live in towns. In America there are the representatives of all the races and national groups of the world. There are about 24 million Negroes in the country and over 800,000 Indians. Many of the inhabitants come from Mexico and other South American countries.
The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule . Most of the states were carved out of unorganized territories, with the exceptions being Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii; each was an independent republic before joining the union. Early in the country's history, three states were created out of the territory of existing ones : Kentucky from Virginia ; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the states do not have the right to secede from the union.
New York City is the biggest city in America, with 7 million people. About the 40% is foreign -born. Although its not the capital it has always been the cultural centre of the whole country. The Statue of Liberty stands in the harbour of New York. A gift from France, she is a strong woman and holds up the torch of freedom. Washington, DC is the capital of the USA. Designed by a French architect, its streets are laid out in a classical geometric pattern. “DC” stands for “ District of Columbia”, in honour of Christopher Columbus . Chicago is famous for its meat factories and has earned a bad name as a home of gangsters. Los Angeles is an important centre of modern industries. Not far from it is Hollywood, the world-famous centre of the US film business.
America has the largest economy of any single country in the world, with a total product of almost $8 trillion a year . Its people have the highest standard of living of any large country in the world; only a few small countries have the higher standards of living. Its economy is still growing , but several other important countries are growing even faster at the present time. There is a widespread belief , both in America and in other countries, that the United States is in economic decline. Agriculture is very wide -spread, above all in the prairie regions, where wheat and other grain crops are grown . Cotton is grown in the Mississippi valley, tobacco in Maryland and Virginia. California is famous for its fruit, and the west for its cattle -farming. Poultry farming is highly developed in the countryside near all big cities. The United States is rich in various metals and minerals. It holds first place in the capitalist world. The Great Lakes and the rivers, especially the Mississippi, are important waterways.
For Americans, democracy means more than majority rule. It also means minority rights. The American democratic government was established in March 1789 in the Constitution of the United States. In this system, rights and powers are divided between the individual states and the central, or Federal government. To prevent any political party from becoming too powerful , the powers of the Federal Government are divided. The Federal government has 3 branches - the executive , the legislature and the judiciary . The power of each branch is carefully balanced by the powers of each of the others . The Congress writes the laws . The President carries out the laws and policies of the Government.
Since the late nineteenth century , baseball has been regarded as the national sport ; football , basketball, and ice hockey are the country's three other leading professional team sports . College football and basketball also attract large audiences. Football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States. Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing. Soccer , though not a leading professional sport in the country, is played widely at the youth and amateur levels. Tennis and many outdoor sports are also popular. While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,191 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 216 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most.