United States of America

Location: North America

Geography

• At 9.83 million km2 and with over 308 million people, the United States is the third largest country, both by land area and population.

• Its geography varies a lot:

• There are meadows and mountains, prairies and rivers, deserts and forests, volcanoes and beaches.

Climate

• The United States includes most climate types. The climate varies along with the geography, from tropical (hot and wet in summer, warm and dry in winter) in Florida to subarctic or polar (cold all year) in Alaska. Large parts of the country have warm summers and cold winters. Some parts of the United States, like parts of California, have Mediterranean climate.

Climate

• Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country as well.

Environment

• The U.S. ecology is considered “mega diverse“ – there are tens of thousands of different plant and animal species.

• There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Death Valley, California

Arches National Park, Utah

Yosemite National Park, California

Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii

History• Native Americans (probably of Asian

decent) have lived in Northern America for thousands of years.

• After Europeans came, millions of Native Americans died in epidemics of imported diseases. They also lost their land.

Europeans

• In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached America.

• The first successful English settlements were Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620.

• Although the United States was settled mostly by the English, people from France, Spain, and the Netherlands also settled in parts of the United States.

The First Colonies

• By 1733, there were 13 British colonies. • All legalized the African slave trade. • They had a population of 2.6 million in 1770

(about one-third that of Britain); nearly one in five Americans was a black slaves.

• Though subject to British taxation, the American colonists had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.