Geography of the United States

The total land area of the contiguous United States is approximately 1.9 billion acres. Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 365 million acres. Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, has just over 4 million acres. By total area including water, the United States is either slightly larger or smaller than the People's Republic of China, making it the world's third or fourth largest country. The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and a territorial water border with Russia in the northwest. The contiguous forty-eight states are otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Alaska borders the Pacific Ocean to the south, the Bering Strait to the west, and the Arctic Ocean to the north, while Hawaii lies far to the southwest of the mainland in the Pacific Ocean.

Total U.S. area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km2),
of which land is 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km2)
and water is 181,273 square miles (469,495 km2).

Government and elections and elections

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic, in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though U.S. citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels. Federal and state judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the executive branch and approved by the legislature, although some state judges and officials are elected by popular vote.

White House

The federal government is composed of three branches:

Legislative:The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.

Executive:The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.

Judicial:The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.

Parties, ideology, and politics

The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history. For elective offices at all levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or "conservative" and the Democratic Party is considered center-left or "liberal". The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and much of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.

The winner of the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president and the first African American to hold the office. All previous presidents were men of solely European descent. The 2008 elections also saw the Democratic Party strengthen its control of both the House and the Senate. In the 111th United States Congress, the Senate comprises 57 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 40 Republicans (one seat remains in dispute); the House comprises 256 Democrats and 178 Republicans (one seat is vacant).

Barack Obama

The States & Territories

The federal entity created by the Constitution is the dominant feature of the American governmental system. There are fifty (50) states and Washington D.C. The last two states to join the Union were Alaska (49th) and Hawaii (50th). Both joined in 1959.

Washington D.C. is a federal district under the authority of Congress. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth associated with the United States. Other dependent areas include American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Palmyra Atoll, Virgin Islands, Wake Island. From 18 July 1947 until 1 October 1994, the US administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, but recently entered into a new political relationship with all four political units: the Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth in political union with the US (effective 3 November 1986); Palau concluded a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 1 October 1994); the Federated States of Micronesia signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 3 November 1986); the Republic of the Marshall Islands signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 21 October 1986).

In general, matters that lie entirely within state borders are the exclusive concern of state governments. These include internal communications; regulations relating to property, industry, business, and public utilities; the state criminal code; and working conditions within the state. There are many areas of overlap between state and federal jurisdictions. In recent years, the federal government has assumed broader responsibility in such matters as health, education, welfare, transportation, and housing and urban development. The constitutions of the various states differ in some details but generally follow a pattern similar to that of the federal Constitution, including a statement of the rights of the people and a plan for organizing the government. On such matters as the operation of businesses, banks, public utilities, and charitable institutions, state constitutions are often more detailed and explicit than the federal constitution.

Food

Mainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Everybody knows what fast food is. This kind of food is very popular in the U.S. Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, too. A typical fast food meal in the United States consists of fries and a burger. The well-known fast food restaurant is McDonald’s. It primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. Pizza is a common fast food category in the United States, with chains such as Domino's Pizza, Sbarro and Pizza Hut. Menus are more limited and standardized than in traditional pizzerias, and pizza delivery, often with a time commitment, is offered. The drink that is worldwide success is Coca-Cola. Soda and sweetened drinks are the main source of calories in the American diet. Everybody drinks it, even very young children. This very unhealthy diet makes many diseases. Enormous problem is overweigh. Many of us heard how many people in the U.S. have serious problem with that. The only way is to change diet and have more active lifestyle.

The amazing places, which you must see!!!

The White House

It is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the executive residence of every U.S. President since John Adams.

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. Its name is derived from the nickname for the state of New York. It stood as the world's tallest building for more than forty years, from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower was completed in 1972. Following the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, the Empire State Building once again became the tallest building in New York City and New York State.

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty (French: Statue de la Liberté), officially titled Liberty Enlightening the World (French: La liberté éclairant le monde), is a monument that was presented to the United States of America by the people of France in 1886 to celebrate its centennial.

Wall Street

There are 383 different Wall Streets known in the world, but the historical one is in lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. It runs east from Broadway to South Street on the East River, through the historical center of the Financial District. It is the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange; over time Wall Street became the name of the surrounding geographic neighborhood. Wall Street is also shorthand (or a metonym) for the "influential financial interests" of the American financial industry, which is centered in the New York City area.

Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5,989 feet (1825 m) over the East River, connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn (on Long Island). Upon completion, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, the first steel-wire suspension bridge, and the first bridge to connect to Long Island. Originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, it was dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge in an 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an iconic part of the New York skyline.

Central Park

This park is a large public, urban park in the heart of New York City and is host to approximately twenty-five million visitors each year. Central Park has been a National Historic Landmark since 1963.

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park — one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, near Keystone, South Dakota, is a monumental granite sculpture by Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941), located within the United States Presidential Memorial that represents the first 150 years of the history of the United States of America with 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents (left to right): George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km2)[2] and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level. It is managed by the National Park Service, a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. The memorial attracts approximately two million people annually.

Los Angeles

New York

Hollywood

Materiał przygotowany przez J.Lisowskš i K.Borzymowskš