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The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term the West changed.
NASA satellite photo of typical Basin and Range topography across central Nevada. The Basin and Range Province includes much of western North America.In the United States, it is bordered on the west by the eastern fault scarp of the Sierra Nevada and spans over 500 miles (800 km) to its eastern border marked by the Wasatch Fault, the Colorado Plateau and the Rio Grande Rift.
The physiographic regions of the contiguous United States comprise 8 divisions, 25 provinces, and 85 sections. [1] The system dates to Nevin Fenneman's report Physiographic Divisions of the United States, published in 1916. [2] [3] The map was updated and republished by the Association of American Geographers in 1928. [4]
Its physical geography ranges from some of the highest mountain peaks in the continental United States to large desert lands and rolling plains in the eastern portion of the region. The Great Basin Desert is located in almost all of Nevada, western Utah, and southern Idaho.
The term "United States," when used in the geographic sense, refers to the contiguous United States (sometimes referred to as the Lower 48, including the District of Columbia not as a state), Alaska, Hawaii, the five insular territories of Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and minor outlying possessions. [1]
The intermountain states are generally considered to be Nevada, Utah, Idaho, the western third of Montana, Arizona north of the Mogollon Rim, Colorado from the Front Range westward, New Mexico from the central mountain chain westward, California east of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges, and Far West Texas from the Pecos River westward. [2]
A physiographic province is a geographic region with a characteristic geomorphology, and often specific subsurface rock type or structural elements.The continents are subdivided into various physiographic provinces, each having a specific character, relief, and environment which contributes to its distinctiveness.
Shaded relief map of the United States, showing 10 geological provinces. The richly textured landscape of the United States is a product of the dueling forces of plate tectonics, weathering and erosion. Over the 4.5 billion-year history of the Earth, tectonic upheavals and colliding plates have raised great mountain ranges while the forces of ...