The United States of America. Pre-reading task: do you know why the US is called ‘the United States of America’?

Pre-Reading task: Do you know why the US is called ‘The United States of America’? Why, do you think, the US is one of the most popular and influential countries in the world?

The United States is the fourth largest country in the world in size and population. It has an area of 9,371,781 square kilometres (kilomet er s in American English) and its population is 249 million people. The US consists of 50 states. The largest state is Alaska. Hawaii is one of the smallest states, it is a group of islands (archipelago) in the Pacific Ocean, 2,397 miles from California. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Along the Atlantic Coast the land is flat, inland from the coast there are the Appalachian Mountains. In the middle of the continent there is the great Mississippi River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The middle part of the country is generally flat, this area is called the Great Plains. In the west there are two main mountain systems: the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range.

The climate of the US is temperate, with four distinct seasons. The northern part of the country has snow in winter. The hottest places are Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Southern Florida and Hawaii are subtropical. The East is much wetter than the West.

The main rivers are the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Colorado and the Ohio. The largest cities of the US are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. The capital of the US is Washington.

The US has many natural resources, such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas, rich soil for agriculture and forests. The economy of the US is based upon free enterprise. The US produces non-electric machinery, transportation equipment and cars, chemicals, food products, electronic equipment, metal products, paper and plastic products.

The United States of America (the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy.

The federal government is composed of three branches:

Legislative: The Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties.

Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet.

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

There are many ethnic groups in the United States. The largest group is Black Americans (about 12% of the population). Spanish-speaking people are about 9%. The fastest growing ethnic groups are Chinese, Japanese and Indochinese (about 3%). Native Americans are about 1 % of the population. The basic language spoken throughout the country is American English.