1.2 The geography of the usa
The USA is the 4th largest country in the world (after Russia, Canada and China). It is situated in central North America and stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. It borders on Canada in the north and Mexico in the south and has a sea-border with Russia. It also includes Alaska and Hawaii. The total area of the country is 9.4 million square kilometres. The enormous size of the country influences the diversity of landscape, climate and even people.
The USA is a federal republic, a union of 50 states. The capital of the country Washington is situated in a special federal area called the District of Columbia.
The population of the country is about 260 million people. They are the people of all races and nationalities, either descendants потомок of immigrants or immigrants who have come to America from all the countries of the world in search of independence and self-realization. It’s impossible to generalize about the weather, the landscape and the way of living because the nation occupies nearly half of a continent, which is divided into 4 time zones and has almost every type of climate. If you look at the map of the USA you’ll see snow-topped mountains and flat prairies степь, fertile valleys and deserts, the areas of tropical heat and arctic cold.
The West is a mountainous area of the Rocky Mountains, the Cordillera and the Sierra Nevada. The highest peak is Mount McKinley in Alaska (6,000 metres). As compared with the Appalachians in the east, the Rocky Mountains are sharp and rugged, over 4,000 metres high, rich in gold, copper, lead, silver and other minerals.
The USA has many thousands of streams The longest are the Mississippi (6,400 kilometres), «the father of waters», the Missouri (1,600 kilometres) «too thin to plough and too thick to drink», the Colorado wild, restless and angry, the Columbia full of quiet dignity and the Rio Grande (3,200 kilometres), a national boundary between the USA and Mexico. The Colorado forms the Grand Canyon, which strikes one's imagination as a fabulous phenomenon of nature. Its perpendicular walls go up to 1,500 metres above the river level. The USA has thousands of lakes of all kinds and sizes. The Great Lakes make up the largest group; they are the greatest collection of fresh water lakes in the world with the total area equal to that of Great Britain. Here the famous Niagara Falls precipitate from the height of 50 metres. Among salty lakes the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Salton Sea in California are the most famous. They are rich in salt (6,000 million tons).
The climate of the country varies greatly The climate along the Pacific coast is warmer than that of the Atlantic coast. The temperature changes little between winter and summer there. In the eastern part the difference between summer and winter is distinct, but not so extreme as in the north central part where the difference between winter and summer is 36 °С and even more.
Among the largest cities of the USA are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco and others. But a great proportion of the country consists of open land marked with farm-houses and small towns.
The USA is one of the greatest industrial and leading agricultural nations in the world.the USA produces around 25% of the world’s industrial products, agricultural goods and services. It’s the world’s leader in biochemical and genetic engineering, aerospace research and development, communications, computer and information services and similar high-technology fields. One of the reasons is America’s vitality, its spirit of enterprise инициатива and initiative as well as its size and natural resources.
There are very many large cities in the USA.
Washington, the capital of the United States of America, is situated on the Potomac River. In comparison with such ancient historical cities as, for example, Rome, London, Moscow or Paris, Washington is quite young. The capital owes much to the first Presidento f the USA — George Washington. It was G. Washington, who chose the place for the capital and laid in 1790 the corner-stone угловой камень of the Capitol, where Congress sits. Washington has many historical places. The largest and highest among the buildings is the Capitol with its great House of Representatives палата представителей and the Senate chamber. There are no sky-scrapers in Washington because no other building must be higher than the Capitol.
New York is the largest city in the USA and the biggest sea-port. It is situated in the mouth of the Hudson River. New York was founded by the Dutch. It is interesting to know that Manhattan Island — the central part of New York — was bought from the local Indians by the Dutch for 24 dollars. That was the most profitable commercial deal in the US history. Today Manhattan is the heart of business and commercial life of the country. New York is the city of skyscrapers. The highest of them is the 102–storeyed building. There are many other places of interest in New York: Central Park, Times Square, Rockefeller Centre, the shopping districts and the United Nations Building. In Manhattan, at Broadway, there is Columbia University, one of the biggest universities of the USA.
Another large city of the USA is Boston, one of the first cities which were built on the Atlantic coast of America. It is an important port and a financial and cultural centre. It has three universities.
Chicago is one of the biggest industrial cities in the USA and the second largest after New York.
Los Angeles, in California, is the centre of modern industries. Not far from Los Angeles there is Hollywood, the centre of the US film industry.
3. Religion in the United States is characterized by both a wide diversity of religious beliefs and practices and by a high adherence level. According to recent surveys, 83 percent of Americans identify with a religious denomination, 40 percent state that they attend services nearly every week or more, and 58 percent say that they pray at least weekly.[1] A majority of Americans report that religion plays a "very important" role in their lives, a proportion unique amongdeveloped nations.[2] Many faiths have flourished in the United States, including both later imports spanning the country's multicultural immigrant heritage, as well as those founded within the country; these have led the United States to become one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world.[3]
The majority of Americans (76% to 80%) identify themselves as Protestants or Catholics, accounting for 51% and 25% of the population respectively, according to one survey by Trinity College.[4] Non-Christian religions (including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc.), collectively make up about 5% of the adult population.[4][5][6] Another 15% of the adult population claim no religious affiliation.[4] When asked, about 5.2% said they did not know, or refused to reply.[4] According to the American Religious Identification Survey, religious belief varies considerably by region. The lowest rate is in the West with 59% reporting a belief in God, and the highest rate in the South (the "Bible Belt") at 86%.[4][7]
Despite a high level of religious adherence, only 9% of Americans in a 2008 poll said religion was the most important thing in their life, compared with 45% who said family was paramount in their life and 17% who said money and career was paramount.[8] Mark Chaves, a Duke University professor of sociology, religion and divinity, found that 92% of Americans believed in God in 2008 but that they have significantly less confidence in their religious leaders than they did a generation ago,[9] and polls have shown that doubts about the existence of a god are growing quickly among Americans under 30
The largest religion in the US is Christianity, practiced by the majority of the population (76% in 2008[4]). From those queried, roughly 51.3% of Americans are Protestants, 25% are Catholics, 1.7% are Mormons (the name commonly used to refer to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and 1.7% of various other Christian denominations.the United States has numerically more Christians and Protestants than any other country in the world. After Christianity and no-religion, Judaism is the third-largest religious affiliation in the US. American Islam effectively began with the arrival of African slaves. It is estimated that about 10% of African slaves transported to the United States were Muslim.[32] Most, however, became Christians. "no religious identification" had the greatest increase in population in both absolute and percentage terms.
4. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. The first three Articles of the Constitution establish the rules and separate powers of the three branches of the federal government. The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in eleven states. It went into effect on March 4, 1789[1]. The first ten amendments are known as the Bill of Rights. The Constitution has been amendedseventeen times (for a total of 27 amendments) The Constitution guides American society in law and political culture. It establishes the form of the national government and defines the rights and liberties of the American people. It also lists the aims of the national government and the methods of achieving them. Previously, the nation's leaders had established an alliance among the states under the Articles of Confederation. But the Congress created by the Articles lacked the authority to make the states work together to solve national problems. After the states won independence in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), they faced all the problems of peacetime government. The states had to enforce law and order, collect taxes, pay a large public debt, and regulate trade among themselves. They also had to deal with Indian tribes and negotiate with other governments. Leading statesmen, such as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, began to discuss the need to create a strong national government under a new constitution. Hamilton helped bring about a constitutional convention that met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation. But a majority of the delegates at the convention decided instead to write a new plan of government -- the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution established not merely a league of states, but a government that exercised its authority directly over all citizens. The Constitution defines the powers delegated to the national government. In addition, it protects the powers reserved to the states and the rights of every individual. The Constitution consists of a preamble, seven articles, and 27 amendments. It sets up a federal system by dividing powers between the national and state governments. It also establishes a balanced national government by separating powers among three independent branches -- the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The executive branch, the President, enforces national laws; the legislative branch, the Congress, makes national laws; and the judicial branch, the Supreme Court and other federal courts, applies and interprets laws when deciding legal disputes in federal courts. Federal powers listed in the Constitution include the right to collect taxes, declare war. The Constitution has continued to develop in response to the demands of an ever-growing society through all these methods. Yet the spirit and wording of the Constitution have remained constant. People of each generation have applied its provisions to their own problems in ways that seem reasonable to them. The British statesman William E. Gladstone described the Constitution as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." In a world of change and struggle, the American people have no more precious possession than this great document.