About the USA

The United States of America is a country nearly 9.3 million square kilometres big with 300 million inhabitans.

The United states are a federation of 50 countries, the youngiest are Alaska and Hawaii from 1959. The USA are situated on northern american continent between Canada in the north and Mexico in the south. On the west coast there is Pacific Ocean and on the east coast there is Atlantic Ocean.The Hawaii is the only country which doesn´t lay on the continent, it is an island country - a group of tropical islands in Pacific Ocean.. Every country has its main city, but the capital of USA is Washington D.C. (D.C. = District of Columbia) it is a city with special rights (for example the inhabitans can vote to Congress, but the winners can not vote for laws).

If you want to visit the USA you can use a ferry, but it is very long journey, everybody uses an aeroplane to get there.

It is a very wide country across the whole continent so man can see a lot of differences between each countries and landscapes. The biggest country is Alaska, 500 times bigger than the smallest country Rhode Island. But the number of Alaska´s inhabitans is 60 times smaller than the number of inhabitans of California, which has the biggest population. US have two territoties - Guam and 7 islands of American Samoa. In the western countries there are high Rocky mountains about 4300 metres (first highest peak: Mount McKinley, Alaska; second highest peak: Mount Whitney, Sierra Nevada), but in the central part there are plains hundreds kilometres wide - important agricultural area. In the northest place of Alaska, Barrow the average year temperature is minus 13 °C, on the other hand in the californian Death Valley there was measured the highest temperature ever, 57°C. In the Death Valley there is the lowest point , 86 metres under the sea. The longest river of USA is Mississippi, important traffic thoroughfare 3779 km long. Another long rivers are Missouri, Yukon, Colorado, Alabama, Ohio and Hudson. The largest lakes are Huron, Eire, Michigan, Superior and Ontario. The weather depends on each country, from tropical and hot to freezy.

Americans: Native Americans, american Indians, are today just small part of american population. They live in 278 reservations. The majority of population are descendants of settlers from overseas and they speak english. Their cultures were mixed together and created a new form of english language, quite different from a version used in Great Britain. Some nations, specially Chinese and Italian keep their traditions and languages and live in small communities. 80% are white, 12% are black, 9% are hispanic, 4% asian and only 1% native. In the past black people from african continent were cought and sold to America as slaves and they had to work on fields. The slavery was abolished in 1865 after the war between North and South (1861), but they were discriminated for a long time. For example women have the right to vote since 1920 but the black people since 1965. The school segregation became illegal in 1954 and the segregation in job in 1964. So we can say, that USA is a multiracial and multinational country. The religion is protestant, catholic and jewish. The currency is american dollar $.

New York is a city which is situated between two rivers Hudson and East. It is the biggest and one of the oldiest cities of country Connecticut and all United States. It was founded in 1624 and now it is an urban area with more than 8 million people. It is a financial centre of USA and a settelemnt of many big corporations. It is also a centre of cultural life. The one of the parts of New York City, Manhattan, is famous for its skycrapers and since 11.9.2001 unfortunatelly as a symbol of terorism´s cruelty.

The United States democratic republic, it is a federation of 50 countries and the head of state is president (now George Bush). The US flag is made of stars and stripes. Independence in 1776.The executive power has the president (he is elected for 4 years with the vice president; chooses the 14 cabinet members who head departments; chooses who will run as vice president; appoints federal judges; chooses heads of agencies such as the FBI=Federal Bureau of Investigation and CIA=Central Intelligent Agency; proposes laws, and approves federal laws after Congress has approved them; is advised by the cabinet about foreign and domestic affairs; is responsible for relations with foreign countries); the legislative power has Congress made of two Houses : The House of Representatives (with 435 representatives elected for two years) and Senate (with 100 senators elected for 6 years). Congress proposes and approves federal laws, can declare war and approves the choice of federal judges and the cabinet. The judiciary power have The Supreme Court (Nine Supreme Court judges are appointed for life) and The Federal Courts (12 courts of appeal and 91 district courts). In USA there are two leading parties: Democratic Party and Republican Party (smaller Libertarian Party and the Labor Party). The first US president was George Washington, the most famous president was Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson wrote the constitution in 1789.

Today the United Sates of America is the state with biggest power in the world. But two hundreds years before it was just small coastal country in the eastern part. The first colony was Delavare. During 19th century, the settlements moved the borders to the west and fighted with native inhabitans - Indians for the land. At that time, millions of immigrants came here from Europe. Till the year 1900 the industry made more than another country in the world. Rich and power the USA started to engage in international conflicts and they fighted in two world wars. American style of bussines, power and culture has moved to the whole world. One of the american nicknames is Melting plot - because of the mixture of nations.