USAUSA

The United States The United States is a country in the Western

Hemisphere. It consists of:-forty-eight contiguous states in North America,-Alaska, a peninsula which forms the northwestern

most part of North America- and Hawaii, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.

General Information I

Area:        - total: 9.612312 million km ²        - land: 9.2 million km ²        - water: 470 thousand. km ²

*data relate only to 50 states

General Information II

Comparison: This area corresponds roughly to 1 / 2 area of Russia, 3 / 10 area of Africa, half the surface of South America, and is slightly smaller than China, about two and a half times the size of Western Europe and almost 31 times larger than the Polish.

Climate

The climate is continental USA on most temperate, tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the Great Highland to the west of the Mississippi River, and dry in the southwest.

Shape of the surface Area of the country is shaped by the central

plains, mountains in west, hills and low mountains in the east, volcanic landscape in Hawaii.

_lowest point: Death Valley (Dolina Śmierci) 86 m bsl(p.p.m)

_highest point: (Alaska) Mount McKinley 6,194 m asl(n.m.p)

Natural Resources Natural resources include coal, copper, lead,

molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, gold, mercury, nickel, potassium, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, wood.

- These resources are largely unexploited. This is due to specific policies of the U.S., which aims to conserve natural resources (most are bought from other countries). At a time when global supplies of raw materials are already used only U.S. will hold them.

Natural Threat Natural hazards of the country, the tsunami,

volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, tornadoes in the areas of central and south-east, mudslides and fires in California, floods.