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Figure 1. This BLM map depicts the principal meridians and baselines used for surveying states (colored) in the PLSS.. The following are the principal and guide meridians and base lines of the United States, with the year established and a brief summary of what areas' land surveys are based on each.
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]
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 ...
The United States of America is a federal republic [1] consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. [2] [3] Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. [4]
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]
The cartography of the United States is the history of surveying and creation of maps of the United States. Maps of the New World had been produced since the 16th century. The history of cartography of the United States begins in the 18th century, after the declared independence of the original Thirteen Colonies on July 4, 1776 , during the ...
Exclusive economic zone maritime boundaries in the Caribbean Sea and equatorial Atlantic Ocean EEZ maritime boundaries in the Pacific Ocean. The United States has land borders with Canada to the North and East (Alaska), and Mexico to the South and a maritime boundary with Russia to the West, as well as maritime boundaries with several countries of the extensive exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort.