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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]
United States of America – federal republic located primarily in North America, and the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas , Cuba , Russia , and other nations.
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, [3] [4] [5] known initially as India Nova, [6] are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America. [6] [7] [8] When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent right after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population.
North America's major continental divide is the Great Divide, which runs north and south down through Rocky Mountains. The major watersheds draining to the include the Mississippi / Missouri and Rio Grande draining into the Gulf of Mexico (part of the Atlantic Ocean), and the St. Lawrence draining into the Atlantic .
The Americas, also known as America, [1] are lands of the Western Hemisphere, composed of numerous entities and regions variably defined by geography, politics, and culture. The Americas are recognized in the English-speaking world to include two separate continents : North America and South America .
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.
The Continental Divide in North America in red and other drainage divides in North America The Continental Divide in Central America and South America. The Continental Divide of the Americas (also known as the Great Divide, the Western Divide or simply the Continental Divide; Spanish: Divisoria continental de las Américas, Gran Divisoria) is the principal, and largely mountainous ...
This once-active divergent plate boundary became the passive, trailing edge of westward moving North America. In plate tectonic terms, the Atlantic Plain is known as a classic example of a passive continental margin. [20] During the rifting, South America tore away from North America and headed southward.