The USA

The United States of America are situated in the continent of North America. It borders on Canada in the north and on Mexico in the south (Alaska, Hawaii Islands) and they are surrounded by the oceans – it is the Atlantic Ocean in the east and the Pacific Ocean in the west.
    It is very large country – it covers an area of over nine million square kilometres.
    The surface of the USA is formed by the mountains called the Cordilleras in the west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east. The highest mountains are Mount Mitchell in Appalachian Mountains and Mount Whitney in the Cordilleras. In Alaska it is Mount Mc Kinley. In the middle part of the USA spread large planes. The lowlands can be found along the Mexico Bay. In the Cordilleras there is Grand Canyon which is formed by the river Colorado.
The USA has a few important rivers for example the Saint Laurence River, the Mississippi, the Misury, the Colorado, the Rio Grande and Youcon in Alaska. In the north-east part of the country lei the famous lakes – Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Superior, Huron and Salt Lake City. On the lake Ontario are situated the Niagara Falls.
    The USA is so big country that it has all climate zones. The Arctic zone is in the north in Alaska. The mild zone is along the borders with Canada, the subtropical zone is in the south part of the USA and the tropical zone is in Hawaii Islands. The coasts are influenced by the oceans. Some states of the USA suffered from natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakest. There are several national parks in the USA where you can see beautiful nature and wild animals, for example Death Valley in California, Yellow Stone and Yosemite National Park.
    The originally population of the country were the Indians. Today most of people are of the English, French and Spanish origin but of course there live many others nationality and races. In Alaska still live the Eskimos. We san say that the USA are a big mixture of races and nationalities. There live more than a hundred nationalities and ethnic groups; there live both black, white and Asian people. Together there live over two hundred and eighty – nine million people. The highest density is along the coastline and the lowest density is in the mountains areas.
The official language is American English but somewhere also Spanish. The main differences between English and American English is spelling (color - colour), vocabulary (pick-up - van) and pronunciation (somebody, somebody).
    The USA is highly developed industrial country. The USA is the leading industrial country. There are many large industrial cities for example Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The USA is rich in raw materials like gold, oil, iron and uranium. The main branches of industry are food, textile, car, military, chemical and engineering.
The agriculture is concentrated in southern states. They grow cotton, corns, citrus (lemons and oranges), potatoes, sugar wheat and so on. They breed cattle and picks.
    The USA is a federation of fifty states. The federal capital is Washington DC. It isn’t too large city and industrial country. It has about only one million people. Beside the federal capital each state has its own capital and gouverner.
    The official head of the country is president who is elected for four years. He lives in White House in Washington DC.  The American parliament is called congress and it consists of two parts:
House of Representatives and the Senate. House of Representatives has four hundred and thirty-five members who are called the law-makers. Senate has one hundred members.
In the USA there are two main political parties – the Democrats and the Republicans. Nowadays rule the Republicans with the President George Bush.
The American flag has three colours – white, blue and red. It is divided into two oblongs. One Oblong is blue with fifty white stars (because the USA has also fifty states). The other oblong is divided into fourteen stripes – six of them are white and seven of them are red. The fourteen stripes symbolize fourteen original colonies which refused to pay taxes to Britain.
    The continent of North America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
Later began the colonisation of the continent. The first colonists were the French and Spanish.
The English colonist came in 1620 and settled in Jane’s Town. In the beginning their life was very difficult – lots of them died during the first winter but the Indians helped them a lot. In 1621 they had their first crop and they celebrated the first Thanks Giving Day.
The first colonists founded the first fourteen colonies on the east coast. Later they had to go to the west and they settled in the midlands and in the west – they pushed the Indians.
Originally all these colonies belonged to Britain but they weren’t satisfied by the government to Britain – they had to pay high taxes to Britain so they started the war for independence. This war began with the event called the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and ended with the victory of the USA on the fourth of July in 1776 when was signed the Declaration of Independence. It means the USA was officially founded.
The first president was George Washington. The authors of the declaration are called as Fathers of foundation – they were for example Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton.
Later the development of the USA was different in the south and in the north. The northern states were more industrial and the southern ones were agricultural. In the south there was slavery – the slaves from Africa worked there on plantages. These differences between south and north resulted in the Civil Warm. The war began in 1863 and ended in 1865 when the slavery was abolished. The president during this period was Abraham Lincoln – he was the thirteenth president of the USA.
The USA took part in the both World Wars.