Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The term mainland United States is sometimes used synonymously with continental United States, but technically refers only to those parts of states connected to the landmass of North America, thereby excluding not only Hawaii and overseas insular areas, but also islands which are part of continental states but separated from the mainland, such ...
The West Coast of the continental United States makes up part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of heavy tectonic and volcanic activity that is the source of 90% of the world's earthquakes. [28] The American Northwest sees the highest concentration of active volcanoes in the United States, in Washington , Oregon and northern California along ...
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 ...
Lake Superior – Lying along the Canada–United States border, it is the second largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, at 31,700 sq mi (82,100 km 2), of which 20,600 square miles (53,350 km 2) is within the United States
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]
Historically, the United States of America saw itself as a blossoming continental nation-state. Accordingly, the first governing body for the North American colonists was called the Continental Congress, [1] [2] which sought to receive delegates from across the British colonized areas of the continent, including the future Canadian provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia.
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]