1. Geographical position. Climate and vegetation.

The USA is the fourth largest country in the world. It stretches east to the Atlantic Ocean and West to the Pacific Ocean. South of the USA is the country of Mexico. The county of Canada is the Northern neighbour. The USA territory consists of 3 separate parts. The main parts are Alaska and Hawaii. These parts are different in size, natural resources, level of development and population. Alaska- occupies the North-Western part of the continent of North America. Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The USA is mostly situated in the tempered and subtropical zones. About half of the USA territory is covered with plateaus.

The Northern part of the Pacific coast has a moderate climate with a cool summer and a rather warm winter, without permanent snow cover. The Southern part of the Pacific coast of California has a Mediterranean climate: A hot, cloudless and dry summer and cool rainy winter with the minimal temperatures 20-25 C degrees in summer and 5-10 C in winter. The rainfall is rather small. The climate on the Atlantic coast is continental. The highest temperature is observed in the Death Valley. Summer temperature is up to 56C degrees.

Vegetation.

In the North-East of the country and in the region of the Great Lakes there are mixed forests of pine, fur, silver fur, lime, ash. Further south they are replaced by broad deep forest of maple tulip tree and plane tree. Still further south there appear magnolia, laurel and other ever green plants. In the central the tall grass prairie into staple. In the Great basin there are deserts and semi-deserts.

2. Rivers and mountains of the usa.

The largest river in the US is the Mississippi with its west tributary Missouri. The other main tributary of the Mississippi is the O’Hare River. The Mississippi flows to the South and empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Another important river is the Hudson River. World famous is the region of the Grate Lakes. It is a system of 5 Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Moron. Erie, Ontario). These lakes are joined by natural channels. The Eastern part is occupied by the Appalachian Mountains. West of the Appalachians stretch the central plains, the Grate Plane and Mexican Lowland.

The Western part of the country is made up high mountain ranges, tablelands and platos of the Cordillera system. The Cordillera consists of Rose of mountain ranges with the heights of up to 3000-5000 meters. In Alaska mountain ranges stretch in the West-East direction and include the Brooks Range the Ukan tableland and a Leutian range with Mount McKinley (6193 m). On the territory of the USA the mountain ranges stretch in the North-West direction. Only the Rocky Mountains stretch from the East. The largest mountain is the Death Valley containing the lowest point in the Western atmosphere 86 m. below sea level. Further West is a narrow belt of the Cascade Mountains and the Sierra Nevada range.

3. Economy and natural resources.

The US is reach in coal, iron and oil. There are coal mines in the Cordillera Mountains in the Kansas City region, iron is near the great lakes and in Pittsburgh, Birmingham and Philadelphia. In California and Texas there are rich oil fields. In Alaska they get diamonds. There are also deposits of silver and gold. America is a country of highly developed economy. Heavy industry includes mining metalogical engineering and chemical industries. Detroit is a large motorcar industry center. Shipbuilding is developed along the Atlantic coast and in San-Francisco on the Pacific coast. Textile industry is also well developed, especially in the South near large cotton plantations. Agriculture is wide spread above all in the prairie regions. Cotton is grown in the Mississippi valley, tobacco in Maryland and Virginia. California is famous for its fruit plantations and west for its cattle farming. Poultry farming is wide spread in the countryside in the all big sites.