The United States has a diverse climate ranging from subtropical to subarctic. It consists of 50 states and Washington D.C. located in central North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. With over 314 million people, it has a very ethnically diverse population and was formed from large-scale immigration. Indigenous peoples first migrated to North America over 12,000 years ago, and European colonization began in the 15th century. The country declared independence from Britain in 1776 and the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in 1863 after the Civil War.

1. THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA

2. The Climate
• The country’s climatic zones range from
subtropical to sub-arctic and tundra, from
humid continental to Mediterranean-type
climates.Hot winds blowing from the Gulf
of Mexica often bring
typhoons.Temperatures vary from
southern Florida, where the visitors come
to sunbathe in December, to northern
Alaska, where, in winter, the temperature
may drop to -80 C.

3. • The United States of America (commonly called
the United States, the U.S., theUSA, America, and
the States) 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 andMexico to the south. The state of Alaska
is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to
the east and Russia to the west across the Bering
Strait.At 3.76 million square miles (9.83 million km2)
and with over 314 million people, the United States is
the third- or fourth-largest country by total area, and
the third-largest by both land area and population.

4. Population
• It is one of the world's most ethnically
diverse and multicultural nations, the
product of large-scale immigration from
many countries.
• There are Asians, whites, blacks,American
Indians, Eskimos, Hispanics or
Latinos.Hispanics form the second largest
ethnic minority in the country after the
nation’s 34 million blacks.Newcomers are
often surprised by the variety of skin
colours they see.Americans take it for
granted.

6. History
• The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland,
including Alaska Natives, are believed to have
migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000
and 12,000 years ago. Some, such as the
pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed
advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and
state-level societies. After Europeans began
settling the Americas, many millions of
indigenous Americans died from epidemics of
imported diseases .
• In 1492 while under contract to Spanish crown,
Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus
discovered several Caribbean islands and
made first contact with the indigenous people.

8. • The national flag of the United States of America,
often simply referred to as theAmerican flag, consists
of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and
bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in
the canton (referred to specifically as the "union")
bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars .The 50
stars on the flag represent the 50 states of the United
States of America and the 13 stripes represent the
thirteen British colonies that declared independence
from the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the
first states in the Union. Nicknames for the flag include
the "Stars and Stripes", "Old Glory",and "The Star-
Spangled Banner"

10. • The Great Seal of the United States is used to
authenticate certain documents issued by the United
States federal government. The Great Seal was first
used publicly in 1782. The supporter of the shield is
a bald eagle with its wings outstretched. From the
eagle's perspective, it holds a bundle of 13 arrows in
its left talon, (referring to the13 original states), and
an olive branch in its right talon, together symbolizing
that the United States of America has "a strong desire
for peace, but will always be ready for war." Although
not specified by law, the olive branch is usually
depicted with 13 leaves and 13 olives, again
representing the 13 original states

11. E pluribus unum "Out of Many, One".

12. Etymology
• In 1507, German
cartographer Martin
Waldseemüller
produced a world map
on which he named
the lands of the
Western Hemisphere "
America" after Italian
explorer and
cartographer Amerigo
Vespucci.

13. • On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador
Juan Ponce de León landed on what he
called "La Florida" - the first documented
European arrival on what would become
the U.S. mainland. Spanish settlements in
the region were followed by ones in the
present-day southwestern United States.
French fur traders established outposts of
New France around the Great Lakes;
France eventually claimed much of the
North American interior, down to the Gulf
of Mexico

14. • The first successful English settlements were
the Virginia Colony in Jamestownin 1607 and
the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The
1628 chartering of theMassachusetts Bay
Colony resulted in a wave of migration1634.
• By 1634, New England had been settled by
some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s
and the American Revolution, about 50,000
convicts were shipped to Britain's American
colonies. Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled
along the lower Hudson River, including New
Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.

16. • In the French and Indian War, British forces
seized Canada from the French, but the
francophone population remained politically
isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding
the Native Americans, who were being
displaced, thirteen colonies had a population of
2.6 million in 1770, nearly one in five
Americans were black slaves.

17. The Congress
adopted the
Declaration of
Independence,
drafted largely by
Thomas Jefferson,
on July 4, 1776.
That date is now
celebrated annually
as America's
Independence Day.

18. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the
largely antislavery Republican
Party, was elected president in
1860. Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation in 1863 declared
slaves in the Confederacy to be
free. Following the Union victory in
1865, three amendments to the
U.S. Constitution ensured freedom
for the nearly four million African
Americans who had been slaves,
made them citizens, and gave
them voting rights.