TEST 1: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC

The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly called the United States (US or U.S.)
and America, is a federal constitutional republic consisting of fifty states and a federal district.
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 state of Alaska is situated in the northwest portion of the continent, with Canada to its east
and Russia to its west across the Bering Strait.
The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several
territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
The flag of Washington D.C. consists of three red stars above two red bars on a white
background. The flag of New York is a vertical tricolor of blue, white and orange charged in the
center bar with municipal seal in blue.
Washington, D.C. has been the capital of the United States since 1800. Washington, D.C.,
formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or
simply D.C. On July 16, 1790, the Residence Act approved the creation of a capital district
located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. As permitted by the U.S.
Constitution, the District is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States Congress and is
therefore not a part of any U.S. state.
The United States uses nine standard time zones. Four time zones are the main continental ones.
From east to west they are Atlantic Standard Time (AST), Eastern Standard Time (EST), Central
Standard Time (CST), Mountain Standard Time (MST), Pacific Standard Time (PST). There is
also Alaskan Standard Time (AKST), Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST), Samoa standard
time (UTC-11) and Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10).

The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the
product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the
United States is also extremely diverse and is home to a variety of species.
The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India, the United States is the only
major industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.

Main regions
The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss has written of the mental click he feels when
arriving in the USA: an adjustment to the enormous landscapes and skylines. The so-called lower
48 states sprawl across 4.500 kilometers and four time zones. As an illustration of the country
size, we can mention that a car trip from coast to coast typically takes a minimum of five days
and thats with almost no stops to look around! It is not unusual for the gap between the warmest
and coldest high temperature on a given day in US to reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit (about 40
degrees Celsius). The United States owes much of its national character -- and its wealth -- to its
good fortune in having such a large and varied landmass to inhabit and cultivate. Yet the country
still exhibits marks of regional identity, and one way Americans cope with the size of their
country is to think of themselves as linked geographically by certain traits, such as New England
self-reliance, southern hospitality, midwestern wholesomeness, western mellowness. The United
States is divided into five regions. These regions are
1. Northeast,
2. Southeast,
3. Midwest,
4. Southwest, and
5. the West.
The regions of the United States are grouped by history, traditions, economy, climate, and
geography. Each region is different from one another. The states in the five regions are all in
the same area of the United States.
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Note that there is nothing official about these regions; many other lineups are possible. These
groupings are offered simply as a way to begin the otherwise daunting task of getting acquainted
with the United States.
Similar to our country there are regional differences across the states, those differences are
reflected in everyday life: in food, peoples habits, varieties of English spoken elsewhere. If we
take food in consideration, Most of it is standard wherever you go. A person can buy packages of
frozen peas bearing the same label in Idaho, Missouri, and Virginia. Cereals, candy bars, and
many other items also come in identical packages from Alaska to Florida. Generally, the quality
of fresh fruits and vegetables does not vary much from one state to the next. On the other hand, it
would be unusual to be served hush puppies (a kind of fried dough) or grits (boiled and ground
corn prepared in a variety of ways) in Massachusetts or Illinois, but normal to get them in
Georgia. Other regions have similar favorites that are hard to find elsewhere.
While American English is generally standard, American speech often differs according to what
part of the country you are in. Southerners tend to speak slowly, in what is referred to as a
"Southern drawl." Midwesterners use "flat" a's (as in "bad" or "cat"), and the New York City
patois features a number of Yiddish words ("schlepp," "nosh," "nebbish") contributed by the
city's large Jewish population.
Regional differences also make themselves felt in less tangible ways, such as attitudes and
outlooks. An example is the attention paid to foreign events in newspapers. In the East, where
people look out across the Atlantic Ocean, papers tend to show greatest concern with what is
happening in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and western Asia. On the West Coast, news editors
give more attention to events in East Asia and Australia.
To understand regional differences more fully, let's take a closer look at the regions themselves.
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard or the Atlantic
Seaboard and commonly shortened to East Coast, refers to the easternmost coast of the United
States along the Atlantic Ocean. The states which have shoreline on the East Coast are, from
north to south, the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
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Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
The U.S. Census groups the five states of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii
together as the Pacific States division.
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six
states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
The smallest region, New England has not been blessed with large expanses of rich farmland or a
mild climate. Yet it played a dominant role in American development. From the 17th century
until well into the 19th, New England was the country's cultural and economic center.
The earliest European settlers of New England were English Protestants of firm and settled
doctrine. Many of them came in search of religious liberty. They gave the region its distinctive
political format -- the town meeting (an outgrowth of meetings held by church elders) in which
citizens gathered to discuss issues of the day. Only men of property could vote. Nonetheless,
town meetings afforded New Englanders an unusually high level of participation in government.
Such meetings still function in many New England communities today.
New Englanders found it difficult to farm the land in large lots, as was common in the South. By
1750, many settlers had turned to other pursuits. The mainstays of the region became
shipbuilding, fishing, and trade. In their business dealings, New Englanders gained a reputation
for hard work, shrewdness, thrift, and ingenuity.
In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, new factories sprang up to manufacture such
goods as clothing, rifles, and clocks. Most of the money to run these businesses came from
Boston, which was the financial heart of the nation.
Education is another of the region's strongest legacies. Its cluster of top-ranking universities and
colleges -- including Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Wellesley, Smith, Mt. Holyoke,
Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan -- is unequaled by any other region.

The Middle Atlantic comprises New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and
Maryland. If New England provided the brains and dollars for 19th-century American
expansion, the Middle Atlantic states provided the muscle. The region's largest states, New York
and Pennsylvania, became centers of heavy industry (iron, glass, and steel).
The Middle Atlantic region was settled by a wider range of people than New England. Dutch
immigrants moved into the lower Hudson River Valley in what is now New York State. Swedes
went to Delaware. English Catholics founded Maryland, and an English Protestant sect, the
Friends (Quakers), settled Pennsylvania. In time, all these settlements fell under English control,
but the region continued to be a magnet for people of diverse nationalities.
Early settlers were mostly farmers and traders, and the region served as a bridge between North
and South. As heavy industry spread throughout the region, rivers such as the Hudson and
Delaware were transformed into vital shipping lanes. New York is still the nation's largest city, its
financial hub, and its cultural center.
Florida is a state in the southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the west by the
Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean.
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in
eastern North America. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel as it forms a series
of alternating ridgelines and valleys oriented in opposition to any road running east-west.

MIDWEST
The Midwest is a cultural crossroads. The region consists of 12 states in the north-central and
north-eastern United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Most of the Midwest is flat. The Mississippi River has acted as a regional lifeline, moving
settlers to new homes and foodstuffs to market. The river inspired two classic American books,
both written by a native Missourian, Samuel Clemens, who took the pseudonym Mark
Twain: Life on the Mississippi and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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Midwesterners are praised as being open, friendly, and straightforward. Their politics tend to be
cautious, but the caution is sometimes peppered with protest. The Midwest gave birth to one of
America's two major political parties, the Republican Party, which was formed in the 1850s to
oppose the spread of slavery into new states. At the turn of the century, the region also spawned
the Progressive Movement, which largely consisted of farmers and merchants intent on making
government less corrupt and more receptive to the will of the people. Perhaps because of their
geographic location, many midwesterners have been strong adherents of isolationism, the belief
that Americans should not concern themselves with foreign wars and problems.
The region's hub is Chicago, the nation's third largest city, and Illinois is the most populous
state.
The Midwest is sometimes divided into two regions:
1. the East North Central States, the Great Lakes States, which include Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (states that come in contact with a Great
Lake); and
2. the West North Central States, the Great Plains States, which include Iowa, Kansas,
Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, and South Dakota (states that are located within the
Great Plains region of the country).
The Great Lakes, sometimes disambiguated as the Laurentian Great Lakes, are a collection of
freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the CanadaUnited States border,
which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes
Waterway. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the
largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the world's surface of fresh water.
The northern and southern Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in
prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky
Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S. states of Colorado,
Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and
Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The Canadian
portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies.
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Texas is the second most populous and the second-largest of the 50 states in the United
States of America, and the largest state in the 48 contiguous United States. It is located in the
South Central United States .
The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system in North America. The
Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and tenth largest river in the world. The river either
borders or cuts through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
THE SOUTHWEST
The Southwest differs from the adjoining Midwest in weather (drier), population (less dense),
and ethnicity (strong Spanish-American and Native-American components). Outside the cities,
the region is a land of open spaces, much of which is desert. The magnificent Grand Canyon is
located in this region.
Parts of the Southwest once belonged to Mexico. The United States obtained this land following
the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Its Mexican heritage continues to exert a strong
influence on the region, which is a convenient place to settle for immigrants (legal or illegal)
from farther south. The regional population is growing rapidly, with Arizona in particular
rivaling the southern states as a destination for retired Americans in search of a warm climate.
Yuma is noted for its weather "extremes". Of any populated place in the contiguous United
States, Yuma is the driest, sunniest, and least humid; has the lowest frequency of rain and snow;
and has the most number of days per year175with a daily maximum temperature of 90 F
(32 C) or higher. The sun shines for about 90 percent of the days in Yuma, making it the
sunniest place on Earth.
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States
in the state of Arizona. It is contained within and managed by Grand Canyon National Park, the
Hualapai Tribal Nation, and the Havasupai Tribe. 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. It is considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

The Rocky Mountains, commonly known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range in
western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles (4,830 km) from
the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the
southwestern United States.
THE WEST
The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West,"
traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because
the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time.
Prior to about 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the western frontier.
Since then, the frontier moved further west and the Mississippi River was referenced as the
easternmost possible boundary of the West. The West mostly comprises arid to semi-arid plateaus
and plains and forested mountains.
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United
States, usually California, Oregon, and Washington.
Americans have long regarded the West as the last frontier. Yet California has a history of
European settlement older than that of most midwestern states. Spanish priests founded missions
along the California coast a few years before the outbreak of the American Revolution.
The West is a region of scenic beauty on a grand scale. All of its 11 states are partly
mountainous, and the ranges are the sources of startling contrasts.
Alaska, the northernmost state in the Union, is a vast land of few, but hardy, people and great
stretches of wilderness, protected in national parks and wildlife refuges.
Hawaii is the only state in the union in which Asian Americans outnumber residents of European
stock. Beginning in the 1980s large numbers of Asians have also settled in California, mainly
around Los Angeles.
Los Angeles -- and Southern California as a whole -- bears the stamp of its large MexicanAmerican population. Now the second largest city in the nation, Los Angeles is best known as
the home of the Hollywood film industry.
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Western cities are known for their tolerance. Perhaps because so many westerners have moved
there from other regions to make a new start, as rule interpersonal relations are marked by a liveand-let-live attitude. The western economy is varied. California, for example, is both an
agricultural state and a high-technology manufacturing state.