1.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
North America
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Map of North America, from 1621.
North America
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North America
North America
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The
El Castillo pyramid, at
Chichén Itzá, Mexico.
North America
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Benjamin West 's
The Death of General Wolfe (1771) depicting the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
2.
Denali
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Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level. With a topographic prominence of 20,156 feet and an isolation of 4,629 miles, Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak after Mount Everest. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U. S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park, the Koyukon people who inhabit the area around the mountain have referred to the peak as Denali for centuries. In August 2015, following the 1975 lead of the state of Alaska, prior to this, most Alaskans already referred to the mountain as Denali. In 1903, James Wickersham recorded the first attempt at climbing Denali, in 1906, Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent, which was later proven to be false. The first verifiable ascent to Denalis summit was achieved on June 7,1913, by climbers Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Walter Harper, and Robert Tatum, who went by the South Summit. In 1951, Bradford Washburn pioneered the West Buttress route, considered to be the safest and easiest route, and therefore the most popular currently in use. On September 2,2015, the U. S. Geological Survey announced that the mountain is 20,310 feet high, not 20,320 feet, the forces that lifted Denali also cause many deep earthquakes in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is seismically active beneath Denali, a region that is known as the McKinley cluster. Denali has an elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level, making it the highest peak in North America. Measured from base to peak at some 18,000 ft, Denali rises from a sloping plain with elevations from 1,000 to 3,000 ft, for a base-to-peak height of 17,000 to 19,000 ft. By comparison, Mount Everest rises from the Tibetan Plateau at a higher base elevation. Denali has two significant summits, the South Summit is the one, while the North Summit has an elevation of 19,470 ft. The North Summit is sometimes counted as a peak and sometimes not, it is rarely climbed. Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain, the Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier, the Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain. With a length of 44 mi, the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range, the Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for high or tall, during the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora, which is the Russian translation of Denali
Denali
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From the north, with Wonder Lake in the foreground
Denali
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Hudson Stuck and
Harry Karstens, co-leaders of the first successful summit of Denali in 1913
Denali
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The reverse side of the Denali National Park quarter
Denali
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High camp (17,200 ft or 5,200 m) of the West Buttress Route pioneered by
Bradford Washburn, photographed in 2001
3.
Mount McKinley
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Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level. With a topographic prominence of 20,156 feet and an isolation of 4,629 miles, Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak after Mount Everest. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U. S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park, the Koyukon people who inhabit the area around the mountain have referred to the peak as Denali for centuries. In August 2015, following the 1975 lead of the state of Alaska, prior to this, most Alaskans already referred to the mountain as Denali. In 1903, James Wickersham recorded the first attempt at climbing Denali, in 1906, Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent, which was later proven to be false. The first verifiable ascent to Denalis summit was achieved on June 7,1913, by climbers Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Walter Harper, and Robert Tatum, who went by the South Summit. In 1951, Bradford Washburn pioneered the West Buttress route, considered to be the safest and easiest route, and therefore the most popular currently in use. On September 2,2015, the U. S. Geological Survey announced that the mountain is 20,310 feet high, not 20,320 feet, the forces that lifted Denali also cause many deep earthquakes in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is seismically active beneath Denali, a region that is known as the McKinley cluster. Denali has an elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level, making it the highest peak in North America. Measured from base to peak at some 18,000 ft, Denali rises from a sloping plain with elevations from 1,000 to 3,000 ft, for a base-to-peak height of 17,000 to 19,000 ft. By comparison, Mount Everest rises from the Tibetan Plateau at a higher base elevation. Denali has two significant summits, the South Summit is the one, while the North Summit has an elevation of 19,470 ft. The North Summit is sometimes counted as a peak and sometimes not, it is rarely climbed. Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain, the Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier, the Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain. With a length of 44 mi, the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range, the Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for high or tall, during the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora, which is the Russian translation of Denali
Mount McKinley
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From the north, with Wonder Lake in the foreground
Mount McKinley
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Hudson Stuck and
Harry Karstens, co-leaders of the first successful summit of Denali in 1913
Mount McKinley
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The reverse side of the Denali National Park quarter
Mount McKinley
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High camp (17,200 ft or 5,200 m) of the West Buttress Route pioneered by
Bradford Washburn, photographed in 2001
4.
Badwater Basin
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Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America, with an elevation of 282 ft below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, is only 84.6 miles to the north west. The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of bad water next to the road in a sink, the pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail. Adjacent to the pool, where water is not always present at the surface, repeated freeze–thaw, the pool is not the lowest point of the basin, the lowest point is several miles to the west and varies in position, depending on rainfall and evaporation patterns. The salt flats are hazardous to traverse, and so the sign marking the low point is at the pool instead, the basin was considered the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere until the discovery of Laguna del Carbón in Argentina at −344 ft. At Badwater Basin, significant rainstorms flood the valley bottom periodically, newly formed lakes do not last long though, because the 1.9 in of average rainfall is overwhelmed by a 150 in annual evaporation rate. This is the greatest evaporation potential in the United States, meaning that a 12 ft lake could dry up in a single year, when the basin is flooded, some of the salt is dissolved, it is redeposited as clean crystals when the water evaporates. A popular site for tourists is the sign marking sea level on the cliff above the Badwater Basin, numerous evaporation cycles and a lack of outflow caused an increasing hypersalinity, typical for endorheic bodies of water. Over time, this hypersalinization, combined with sporadic rainfall and occasional aquifer intrusion, has resulted in periods of briny soup, or salty pools, on the lowest parts of Death Valleys floor. Salts began to crystallize, coating the surface with the thick crust, ranging from 3 to 60 in, Death Valley pupfish List of elevation extremes by country List of elevation extremes by region John McKinney, Californias Desert Parks, A Day Hikers Guide. Wilderness Press 2006, ISBN 0-89997-389-2, S. 54–55 Don J. Easterbrook, geological Society of America 2003, ISBN 94-592-0504-6, S. 63–64 Badwater Basin in the Encyclopædia Britannica
Badwater Basin
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Badwater Basin
Badwater Basin
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Badwater Basin elevation sign
Badwater Basin
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View of the Basins's
salt flats
Badwater Basin
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Crust of hexagonal shapes
5.
Missouri River
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The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river takes drainage from a populated, semi-arid watershed of more than half a million square miles. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the fourth longest river system. For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River and its tributaries as a source of sustenance and transportation. More than ten major groups of Native Americans populated the watershed, most leading a nomadic lifestyle, the Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century. The growth of the fur trade in the early 1800s laid much of the groundwork as trappers explored the region, pioneers headed west en masse beginning in the 1830s, first by covered wagon, then by the growing numbers of steamboats entering service on the river. Former Native American lands in the watershed were taken over by settlers, leading to some of the most longstanding, during the 20th century, the Missouri River basin was extensively developed for irrigation, flood control and the generation of hydroelectric power. Fifteen dams impound the main stem of the river, with more on tributaries. Meanders have been cut and the river channelized to improve navigation, from the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River. The longest begins near Browers Spring,9,100 feet above sea level, on the southeastern slopes of Mount Jefferson in the Centennial Mountains. Flowing west then north, it runs first in Hell Roaring Creek, then west into the Red Rock, swings northeast to become the Beaverhead and these two streams then flow north and northwest into Montana. The Missouri River officially starts at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison in Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks, Montana, the Missouri then passes through Canyon Ferry Lake, a reservoir west of the Big Belt Mountains. Issuing from the mountains near Cascade, the flows northeast to the city of Great Falls, where it drops over the Great Falls of the Missouri. Farther on, the passes through the Fort Peck Dam, and immediately downstream. At the confluence, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river, the Missouri then meanders east past Williston and into Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir formed by Garrison Dam. Below the dam the Missouri receives the Knife River from the west and flows south to Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota and it slows into the Lake Oahe reservoir just before the Cannonball River confluence. While it continues south, eventually reaching Oahe Dam in South Dakota, the Missouri makes a bend to the southeast as it winds through the Great Plains, receiving the Niobrara River and many smaller tributaries from the southwest
Missouri River
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A relatively undeveloped reach of the river near
Rocheport, Missouri
Missouri River
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Map of the Missouri River and its tributaries in North America
Missouri River
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Holter Lake, a reservoir on the upper Missouri River
Missouri River
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The Missouri in North Dakota, which was the furthest upstream that French explorers traveled on the river
6.
Lake Superior
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Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes of North America. The lake is shared by the Canadian province of Ontario to the north, the US state of Minnesota to the west and it is generally considered the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. It is the worlds third-largest freshwater lake by volume and the largest by volume in North America, the Ojibwe call the lake gichi-gami, meaning be a great sea. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the name as Gitche Gumee in The Song of Hiawatha, as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song, according to other sources the actual Ojibwe name is Ojibwe Gichigami or Anishinaabe Gichigami. The 1878 dictionary by Father Frederic Baraga, the first one written for the Ojibway language, the first French explorers approaching the great inland sea by way of the Ottawa River and Lake Huron during the 17th century referred to their discovery as le lac supérieur. Properly translated, the expression means Upper Lake, that is, the lake was also called Lac Tracy by 17th century Jesuit missionaries. Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron via the St. Marys River, Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world in area, and the third largest in volume, behind Lake Baikal in Siberia and Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. Lake Superior has an area of 31,700 square miles. It has a length of 350 statute miles and maximum breadth of 160 statute miles. Its average depth is 80.5 fathoms with a depth of 222.17 fathoms. Lake Superior contains 2,900 cubic miles of water, there is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South America to a depth of 30 centimetres. The shoreline of the lake stretches 2,726 miles, while the temperature of the surface of Lake Superior varies seasonally, the temperature below 110 fathoms is an almost constant 39 °F. This variation in temperature makes the lake seasonally stratigraphic, twice per year, however, the water column reaches a uniform temperature of 39 °F from top to bottom, and the lake waters thoroughly mix. This feature makes the lake dimictic, because of its volume, Lake Superior has a retention time of 191 years. Annual storms on Lake Superior regularly feature wave heights of over 20 feet, waves well over 30 feet have been recorded. The lake is fed by over 200 rivers, the largest include the Nipigon River, the St. Louis River, the Pigeon River, the Pic River, the White River, the Michipicoten River, the Bois Brule River and the Kaministiquia River. Lake Superior drains into Lake Huron via the St. Marys River, there are rapids at the rivers upper end where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient. The Soo Locks were built to enable ships to bypass the rapids, the lakes average surface elevation is 600 feet above sea level
Lake Superior
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Landsat image
Lake Superior
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Lake Superior in winter, as seen from
Duluth, Minnesota in December 2004
Lake Superior
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Ice on Lake Superior as seen from space (
MODIS, March 3, 2009)
Lake Superior
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Brooklyn Museum - Lake Superior - Walter Shirlaw
7.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
8.
Contiguous United States
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The contiguous United States consists of the 48 adjoining U. S. states plus Washington, D. C. on the continent of North America. S. The greatest distance entirely within the 48 contiguous states is 2,802 miles, the greatest north-south line is 1,650 miles. Together, the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D. C. occupy an area of 3,119,884.69 square miles. Of this area,2,959,064.44 square miles is land, composing 83. 65% of U. S. land area, officially,160,820.25 square miles is water area, composing 62. 66% of the nations total water area. The contiguous United States would be placed 5th in the list of states and dependencies by area. The 2010 census population of area was 306,675,006, comprising 99. 33% of the nations population. While conterminous U. S. has the meaning of contiguous U. S. other terms commonly used to describe the 48 contiguous states have a greater degree of ambiguity. The term was in use prior to the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states of the United States, the District of Columbia is not always specifically mentioned as being part of CONUS. OCONUS is derived from CONUS with O for outside added, thus referring to Outside of Continental United States, the term Lower 48 is also used to refer to the conterminous United States. The National Geographic style guide recommends the use of contiguous or conterminous United States instead of lower 48 when the 48 states are meant, both Alaskans and Hawaiians have unique labels for the contiguous United States because of their own locations relative to them. Alaska became the 49th state of the United States on January 3,1959, Alaska is on the northwest end of the North American continent, but separated from the rest of the United States Pacific coast by the Canadian province of British Columbia. In Alaska, given the ambiguity surrounding the usage of continental, several other terms have been used over the years. Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States on August 21,1959 and it is the southernmost and so far, the latest state to join the Union. Not part of any continent, Hawaii is located in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,200 miles from North America, in Hawaii and overseas American territories, for instance, the terms the Mainland or U. S. Mainland are often used to refer to the continental United States, apart from off-shore US islands, a few continental portions of the contiguous US are accessible by road only by traveling through Canada. Point Roberts, Washington, Elm Point, Minnesota, and the Northwest Angle in Minnesota are three such places, alburgh, Vermont, is not directly connected by land, but is accessible by road via bridges from within Vermont and from from New York. The 48 contiguous United States are, Washington, D. C. is distinct from the state of Washington, extreme points of the United States Mainland Definition of continental Definition of contiguous Definition of coterminous and conterminous
Contiguous United States
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This map shows the contiguous
United States and in insets at the lower left, the two states that are not contiguous
9.
Alaska
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Alaska is a U. S. state located in the northwest extremity of North America. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas–the southern parts of the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 3rd least populous, approximately half of Alaskas residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaskas economy is dominated by the fishing, natural gas, military bases and tourism are also a significant part of the economy. The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30,1867, the area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11,1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U. S. on January 3,1959, the name Alaska was introduced in the Russian colonial period when it was used to refer to the peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut, or Unangam idiom, which refers to the mainland of Alaska. Literally, it means object to which the action of the sea is directed, Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States and has the most easterly longitude in the United States because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere. Alaska is the only non-contiguous U. S. state on continental North America and it is technically part of the continental U. S. but is sometimes not included in colloquial use, Alaska is not part of the contiguous U. S. often called the Lower 48. The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system. Alaskas territorial waters touch Russias territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island, Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U. S. states combined. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by total area at 663,268 square miles, over twice the size of Texas, Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries. Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the area of the next three largest states, Texas, California, and Montana. It is also larger than the area of the 22 smallest U. S. states. Also referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the rest of the United States, as such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase. The region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest and it contains the state capital Juneau, the former capital Sitka, and Ketchikan, at one time Alaskas largest city. The Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital transportation link throughout the area. The Interior is the largest region of Alaska, much of it is uninhabited wilderness, Fairbanks is the only large city in the region
Alaska
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Denali is the highest peak in North America.
Alaska
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Flag
Alaska
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Grizzly bear fishing for
salmon at
Brooks Falls, part of
Katmai National Park and Preserve.
Alaska
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Augustine Volcano erupting on January 12, 2006
10.
Hawaii
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Hawaii is the 50th and most recent state to have joined the United States of America, having received statehood on August 21,1959. Hawaii is the only U. S. state located in Oceania and it is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is the only U. S. state not located in the Americas, the state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian archipelago, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles. At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight main islands are—in order from northwest to southeast, Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi. The last is the largest island in the group, it is called the Big Island or Hawaiʻi Island to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania, Hawaii has over a million permanent residents, along with many visitors and U. S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii is the 8th-smallest and the 11th-least populous, but the 13th-most densely populated of the fifty U. S. states. It is the state with an Asian plurality. The states coastline is about 750 miles long, the fourth longest in the U. S. after the coastlines of Alaska, Florida, the state of Hawaii derives its name from the name of its largest island, Hawaiʻi. A common Hawaiian explanation of the name of Hawaiʻi is that was named for Hawaiʻiloa and he is said to have discovered the islands when they were first settled. The Hawaiian language word Hawaiʻi is very similar to Proto-Polynesian *Sawaiki, cognates of Hawaiʻi are found in other Polynesian languages, including Māori, Rarotongan and Samoan. According to linguists Pukui and Elbert, lsewhere in Polynesia, Hawaiʻi or a cognate is the name of the underworld or of the home, but in Hawaii. A somewhat divisive political issue arose in 1978 when the Constitution of the State of Hawaii added Hawaiian as an official state language. The title of the constitution is The Constitution of the State of Hawaii. Article XV, Section 1 of the Constitution uses The State of Hawaii, diacritics were not used because the document, drafted in 1949, predates the use of the okina and the kahakō in modern Hawaiian orthography. The exact spelling of the name in the Hawaiian language is Hawaiʻi. In the Hawaii Admission Act that granted Hawaiian statehood, the government recognized Hawaii as the official state name. Official government publications, department and office titles, and the Seal of Hawaii use the spelling with no symbols for glottal stops or vowel length
Hawaii
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Hawaii from space, January 26, 2014
Hawaii
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Flag
Hawaii
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Nā Pali coast, Kaua ʻ i
Hawaii
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The main islands and undersea terrain of Hawaii
11.
United States territory
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United States territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters and all U. S. naval vessels. The United States asserts sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting, conserving and this extent of territory is all the area belonging to, and under the dominion of, the United States federal government for administrative and other purposes. The United States total territory includes a subset of political divisions, the United States territory includes any geography under the control of the United States federal government. Various regions, districts, and divisions are under the supervision of the United States federal government, the United States territory includes clearly defined geographical area and refers to an area of land, air, or sea under jurisdiction of United States federal governmental authority. The extent of territory is all the area belonging to, and under the dominion of, under Article IV of the U. S. Constitution, territory is subject to and belongs to the United States. This includes tracts of land or water not included within the limits of any State, Congress possesses power to set territorial governments within the boundaries of the United States. The power of Congress over such territory is exclusive and universal, congressional legislation is subject to no control, unless in the case of ceded territory. The U. S. Congress is granted the exclusive and universal power to set a United States territorys political divisions, all territory under the control of the federal government is considered part of the United States for purposes of law. From 1901–1905, the U. S. Supreme Court in a series of known as the Insular Cases held that the Constitution extended ex proprio vigore to the territories. However, the Court in these cases also established the doctrine of territorial incorporation, a Supreme Court ruling from 1945 stated that the term United States can have three different meanings, in different contexts, The term United States may be used in any one of several senses. It may be merely the name of a sovereign occupying the position analogous to that of sovereigns in the family of nations. It may designate the territory over which the sovereignty of the United States extends, or it may be the name of the states which are united by. The United States Department of the Interior is charged with managing federal affairs within U. S. territory, the Interior Department has a wide range of responsibilities. The contiguous United States, Hawaii, and Alaska are divided into administrative regions. These are called counties in 48 of the 50 states, and they are called boroughs in Alaska, a county can include a number of cities and towns, or just a portion of either type. These counties have varying degrees of political and legal significance, a township in the United States refers to a small geographic area. Territories are subdivided into legally administered tracts—e. g, geographic areas that are under the authority of a government. The District of Columbia and territories are under the authority of Congress
United States territory
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Original copy of the
Constitution.
United States territory
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A map of the Earth, showing the fifty U.S. states in green.
United States territory
12.
Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
Puerto Rico
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A Taíno Village at the
Tibes Ceremonial Center.
Puerto Rico
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Flag
Puerto Rico
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Juan Ponce de León (
Santervás de Campos,
Valladolid, Spain), was the first governor of Puerto Rico. His grandson
Juan Ponce de León II was the first criollo governor of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico
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The 16th century
Fort San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico
13.
Northern Mariana Islands
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The CNMI includes all islands in the Mariana Archipelago except Guam which is the southernmost island of the chain and a separate U. S. territory. The United States Department of the Interior cites a landmass of 183.5 square miles, according to the 2010 United States Census,53,883 people were living in the CNMI at that time. The vast majority of the population resides on Saipan, Tinian, the administrative center is Capitol Hill, a village in northwestern Saipan. However, most publications consider Saipan to be the capital because the island is governed as a single municipality, the first people of the Mariana Islands immigrated at some point between 4000 BC and 2000 BC from Southeast Asia. After first contact with Spaniards, they became known as the Chamorros, a Spanish word similar to Chamori. The ancient people of the Marianas raised colonnades of megalithic capped pillars called latte stones upon which they built their homes, the first European explorer of the area, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, arrived in 1521. He landed on Guam, the southernmost island of the Marianas, the Spanish ships were met offshore by the native Chamorros, who delivered refreshments and then helped themselves to a small boat belonging to Magellans fleet. This led to a clash, in Chamorro tradition, little property was private and taking something one needed, such as a boat for fishing. The Spanish did not understand this custom, and fought the Chamorros until the boat was recovered, three days after he had been welcomed on his arrival, Magellan fled the archipelago. Spain regarded the islands as annexed and later made part of the Spanish East Indies. In 1734, the Spanish built a palace in Guam for the governor of the islands. Its remains are visible even in the 21st century, see the Plaza de España article, Guam operated as an important stopover between Manila and Mexico for galleons carrying gold between the Philippines and Spain. Some galleons sunk in Guam remain, in 1668, Father Diego Luis de San Vitores renamed the islands Las Marianas in honor of his patroness the Spanish regent Mariana of Austria, widow of Felipe IV. Most of the native population died from Spanish diseases or married non-Chamorro settlers under Spanish rule. New settlers, primarily from the Philippines and the Caroline Islands, were brought to repopulate the islands, the Chamorro population gradually recovered, and Chamorro, Filipino, and Carolinian languages and other ethnic differences remain in the Marianas. During the 17th century, Spanish colonists forcibly moved the Chamorros to Guam, by the time they were allowed to return to the Northern Marianas, many Carolinians from present-day eastern Yap State and western Chuuk State had settled in the Marianas. Both languages, as well as English, are now official in the Commonwealth, the Northern Marianas experienced an influx of immigration from the Carolines during the 19th century. Both this Carolinian subethnicity and Carolinians in the Carolines archipelago refer to themselves as the Refaluwasch, the indigenous Chamoru word for the same group of people is gupalao
Northern Mariana Islands
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Colonial tower, vestige of the ex-Spanish colony.
Northern Mariana Islands
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Flag
Northern Mariana Islands
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Saipan under the administration of
Japan
Northern Mariana Islands
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Marine infantrymen in
Garapan, Saipan
14.
United States Virgin Islands
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The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of islands in the Caribbean that are an insular area of the United States. The islands are part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The U. S. Virgin Islands consist of the islands of Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas. The total land area of the territory is 133.73 square miles, the territorys capital is Charlotte Amalie on the island of Saint Thomas. Previously the Danish West Indies of the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway, they were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of 1916. They are classified by the U. N. as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, the U. S. Virgin Islands are organized under the 1954 Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands and have since held five constitutional conventions. The Fifth Constitutional Convention of the U. S. Virgin Islands met in October 2012 to address these concerns, in 2010 the population was 106,405, and mostly Afro-Caribbean. Tourism and related categories are the economic activity, employing a high percentage of the civilian non-farm labor force that totalled 42,752 persons in 2016. Private sector jobs made up 71 percent of the total workforce, the average private sector salary was $34,088 and the average public sector salary was $52,572. In a May 2016 report, some 11,000 people were categorized as being involved in some aspect of agriculture in the first half of 2016, at that time, there were approximately 607 manufacturing jobs and 1,487 natural resource and construction jobs. The single largest employer was the government, in mid February 2017, the USVI was facing a financial crisis due to a very high debt level of $2 billion and a structural budget deficit of $110 million. The U. S. Virgin Islands were originally inhabited by the Ciboney, Carib, the islands were named by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493 for Saint Ursula and her virgin followers. Over the next two hundred years, the islands were held by many European powers, including Spain, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Denmark-Norway. The Danish West India Company settled on Saint Thomas in 1672, settled on Saint John in 1694, the islands became royal Danish colonies in 1754, named the Danish West Indian Islands. Sugarcane, produced by labor, drove the islands economy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The Danish West India and Guinea Company are also credited with naming the island St. John, the Danish crown took full control of Saint John in 1754 along with St. Thomas and St. Croix. Sugarcane plantations such as the famous Annaberg Sugar Plantation were established in great numbers on St. John because of the intense heat, the establishment of sugarcane plantations also led to the buying of more slaves from Africa. In 1733 St. John was the site of one of the first significant slave rebellions in the New World when Akwamu slaves from the Gold Coast took over the island for six months, the Danish were able to defeat the enslaved Africans with help from the French in Martinique
United States Virgin Islands
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The aftermath of
Hurricane Marilyn on the island of St. Thomas, 1995.
United States Virgin Islands
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Flag
United States Virgin Islands
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Charlotte Amalie,
St. Thomas, the Islands' capital.
United States Virgin Islands
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Christiansted, the largest town on
St. Croix.
15.
Guam
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Guam is an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, Guam is one of five American territories with a civilian government. The capital city is Hagåtña and the most populous city is Dededo, in 2015,161,785 people resided on Guam. Guamanians are American citizens by birth, Guam has an area of 210 sq mi and a population density of 770/sq mi. It is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia, among its municipalities, Mongmong-Toto-Maite has the highest density at 3, 691/sq mi, whereas Inarajan and Umatac have the lowest density at 119/sq mi. The highest point is Mount Lamlam at 406 meters above sea level, the Chamorros, Guams indigenous people, settled the island approximately 4,000 years ago. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to visit the island on March 6,1521, Guam was colonized in 1668 with settlers, like Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Catholic missionary. Between the 16th century and the 18th century, Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons, during the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam on June 21,1898. Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Guam to the United States on December 10,1898, Guam is among the seventeen Non-Self-Governing Territories of the United Nations. Before World War II, Guam and three other territories – American Samoa, Hawaii, and the Philippines – were the only American jurisdictions in the Pacific Ocean. On December 7,1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was captured by the Japanese, during the occupation, Guamanians were subjected to beheadings, forced labor, rape, and torture. Guam endured hostilities when American forces recaptured the island on July 21,1944, since the 1960s, the economy has been supported by two industries, tourism and the United States Armed Forces. The original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BC and they evolved into the Chamorro people. The ancient-Chamorro society had four classes, chamorri, matua, achaot, the matua were located in the coastal villages, which meant they had the best access to fishing grounds, whereas the manachang were located in the interior of the island. Matua and manachang rarely communicated with other, and matua often used achaot as intermediaries. There were also makåhna, skilled in healing and medicine, belief in spirits of ancient Chamorros called Taotao mona still persists as a remnant of pre-European culture. Their society was organized along matrilineal clans, Latte stones are stone pillars that are found only in the Mariana Islands, they are a recent development in Pre-Contact Chamorro society. The latte-stone was used as a foundation on which thatched huts were built, Latte stones consist of a base shaped from limestone called the haligi and with a capstone, or tåsa, made either from a large brain coral or limestone, placed on top
Guam
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Marines laying fire on a
Japanese sniper nest (July 28, 1944).
Guam
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Flag
Guam
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Guam from satellite
Guam
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Aerial view of
Apra Harbor
16.
American Samoa
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American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of Samoa. American Samoa consists of five islands and two coral atolls. The largest and most populous island is Tutuila, with the Manuʻa Islands, Rose Atoll, All islands except for Swains Island are part of the Samoan Islands, located west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and some 300 miles south of Tokelau. To the west are the islands of the Wallis and Futuna group, the 2010 census showed a total population of 55,519 people. The total land area is 199 square kilometers, slightly more than Washington, American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the U. S. and one of two U. S. territories south of the Equator, along with the uninhabited Jarvis Island. Tuna products are the exports, and the main trading partner is the United States. American Samoa is noted for having the highest rate of enlistment of any U. S. state or territory. Most American Samoans are bilingual and can speak English and Samoan fluently, Samoan is the same language spoken in neighboring independent Samoa. Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century, dutchman Jacob Roggeveen was the first known European to sight the Samoan Islands in 1722. This visit was followed by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville who named them the Navigator Islands in 1768, contact was limited before the 1830s, when English missionaries and traders began arriving. The site of battle is called Massacre Bay. Mission work in the Samoas had begun in late 1830 when John Williams of the London Missionary Society arrived from the Cook Islands, by that time, the Samoans had gained a reputation for being savage and warlike, as violent altercations had occurred between natives and European visitors. In March 1889, an Imperial German naval force entered a village on Samoa, three American warships then entered the Apia harbor and prepared to engage the three German warships found there. Before any shots were fired, a typhoon wrecked both the American and German ships, a compulsory armistice was then called because of the lack of any warships. Forerunners to the Tripartite Convention of 1899 were the Washington Conference of 1887, the Treaty of Berlin of 1889, the following year, the USA formally occupied its portion, a smaller group of eastern islands, one of which contains the noted harbor of Pago Pago. The Navy secured a Deed of Cession of Tutuila in 1900, the territory became known as the US Naval Station Tutuila. On July 17,1911, the US Naval Station Tutuila, in 1918 during the final stages of World War I, the flu pandemic had taken its toll, spreading rapidly from country to country. The result of Poyers quick actions earned him the Navy Cross from the US Navy, with this distinction, American Samoans regarded Poyer as their hero for what he had done to prevent the deadly disease
American Samoa
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Coastline of American Samoa
American Samoa
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Flag
American Samoa
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1896 map of the Samoa Islands.
American Samoa
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German, British and American warships in Apia Harbor, Samoa, 1899.
17.
Insular area
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An insular area is a territory of the United States of America that is neither a part of one of the fifty U. S. states nor the U. S. federal district of Washington, D. C. The term insular possession is sometimes used. The people of American Samoa are U. S. nationals by place of birth, or they are U. S. citizens by parentage, or naturalization after residing in a State for three months. Nationals are free to move around and seek employment within the United States without immigration restrictions but cannot vote or hold office outside of American Samoa. Residents of insular areas do not pay U. S. federal income taxes but are required to pay other U. S. federal taxes such as taxes, federal commodity taxes, social security taxes. Individuals working for the government pay federal income taxes while all residents are required to pay federal payroll taxes. While these nations participate in many otherwise domestic programs, they are distinct from the United States. U. S. insular areas can be incorporated territories or unincorporated territories, since the admission of Hawaii to the Union in 1959, there have been no incorporated territories other than the uninhabited Palmyra Atoll. Several overseas unincorporated territories are now independent countries including the Philippines, the Federated States of Micronesia, unlike within the states, sovereignty over insular areas rests not with the local people, but in Congress. In most areas, Congress has granted considerable self-rule through an Organic Act which functions as a local constitution, the Northwest Ordinance grants territories the right to send a non-voting delegate to the U. S. Congress. The United States government is part of international disputes over the disposition of certain maritime. See International territorial disputes of the United States, several islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific are considered insular areas of the United States. S. Administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a United Nations Trust Territory, later the U. S. entered into new political relationships with each of the four political units. One is the Northern Mariana Islands listed above, the others being the three freely associated states below. The freely associated states are the three states with a Compact of Free Association with the United States where the U. S. provides national defense, funding. Marshall Islands Federated States of Micronesia Palau Philippines, granted to U. S. through the Treaty of Paris in 1898, panama Canal Zone, under effective joint Panama-U. S. control under provisions of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty from 1903 to 1979. In November 2008 a district judge ruled that a sequence of prior Congressional actions had had the cumulative effect of changing Puerto Ricos status to incorporated. However, as of April 2011 the issue had not yet made its way through the courts, census Bureau, Geographic Areas Reference Manual
Insular area
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Locations of the insular areas of the United States
18.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
Russia
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Kievan Rus' in the 11th century
Russia
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Flag
Russia
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The
Baptism of Kievans, by
Klavdy Lebedev
Russia
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Sergius of Radonezh blessing
Dmitry Donskoy in
Trinity Sergius Lavra, before the
Battle of Kulikovo, depicted in a painting by
Ernst Lissner
19.
Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
Cuba
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Hatuey, an early
Taíno chief of Cuba.
Cuba
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Flag
Cuba
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Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar,
conquistador of Cuba.
Cuba
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Slaves in Cuba unloading ice from Maine, c. 1832.
20.
The Bahamas
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The Bahamas, known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is an archipelagic state within the Lucayan Archipelago. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence, the designation of the Bahamas can refer either to the country or to the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. As stated in the mandate/manifesto of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Bahamas is the site of Columbus first landfall in the New World in 1492. At that time, the islands were inhabited by the Lucayan, although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera, the Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas, they brought their slaves with them, Africans constituted the majority of the population from this period. Slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834, Today the descendants of slaves and free Africans make up nearly 90% of the population, issues related to the slavery years are part of society. The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973, retaining Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch, in terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas, with an economy based on tourism and finance. The name Bahamas is derived from either the Taino ba ha ma, alternatively, it may originate from Guanahani, a local name of unclear meaning. In English, the Bahamas is one of two countries whose self-standing short name begins with the word the, along with The Gambia. Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 11th century and they came to be known as the Lucayan people. An estimated 30,000 Lucayan inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus arrival in 1492, Columbuss first landfall in the New World was on an island he named San Salvador. Some researchers believe this site to be present-day San Salvador Island, an alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbuss log. Evidence in support of this remains inconclusive, on the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayan and exchanged goods with them. The Spanish forced much of the Lucayan population to Hispaniola for use as forced labour, the slaves suffered from harsh conditions and most died from contracting diseases to which they had no immunity, half of the Taino died from smallpox alone. The population of the Bahamas was severely diminished, in 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers, led by William Sayle, migrated from Bermuda. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera—the name derives from the Greek word for freedom and they later settled New Providence, naming it Sayles Island after one of their leaders. To survive, the settlers salvaged goods from wrecks, in 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America
The Bahamas
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A depiction of Columbus' first landing, claiming possession of the
New World for Spain in
caravels; the
Niña and the
Pinta, on Watling Island, an island of The Bahamas that the natives called
Guanahani and that he named San Salvador, on October 12, 1492.
The Bahamas
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Flag
The Bahamas
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Sign at
Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park commemorating hundreds of
African-American slaves who escaped to freedom in the early 1820s in the Bahamas.
The Bahamas
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Edward VIII, the
Duke of Windsor and
Governor of the Bahamas from 1940 to 1945.
21.
Territorial waters
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Adjustment of these boundaries is called, in international law, maritime delimitation. Normally, the baseline from which the sea is measured is the low-water line along the coast as marked on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal state. Straight baselines can alternatively be defined connecting fringing islands along a coast, across the mouths of rivers, or with certain restrictions across the mouths of bays. An indentation shall not, however, be regarded as a bay unless its area is as large as, or larger than, the baseline across the bay must also be no more than 24 nautical miles in length. Waters landward of the baseline are defined as waters, over which the state has complete sovereignty. Lakes and rivers are considered internal waters, however, archipelagic states may designate certain sea lanes through these waters. A states territorial sea extends up to 12 nautical miles from its baseline, if this would overlap with another states territorial sea, the border is taken as the median point between the states baselines, unless the states in question agree otherwise. A state can also choose to claim a territorial sea. Conflicts still occur whenever a coastal nation claims an entire gulf as its territorial waters while other nations recognize the more restrictive definitions of the UN convention. In the U. S. federal system, individual states exercise ownership up to 3 nautical miles from shore and this will typically be 12 nautical miles wide, but could be more, or less, if it would otherwise overlap another states contiguous zone. However, unlike the sea, there is no standard rule for resolving such conflicts. The United States invoked a contiguous zone out to 24 nmi on 24 September 1999, an exclusive economic zone extends from the outer limit of the territorial sea to a maximum of 200 nautical miles from the territorial sea baseline, thus it includes the contiguous zone. A coastal nation has control of all resources within its exclusive economic zone, including fishing, mining, oil exploration. Indeed, the economic zone is still popularly, though erroneously. Article 76 gives the definition of continental shelf of coastal countries. For the physical geography definition, see the continental shelf page, coastal states have the right of exploration and exploitation of its natural resources, however other states could lay cables and pipelines if they are authorised by the coastal state. The foot of the slope is determined as the point of maximum change in the gradient at its base. The portion of the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit is known as the extended continental shelf
Territorial waters
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Schematic map of maritime zones
22.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
Brazil
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Megaliths in the
Solstice Archaeological Park, in
Amapá, erected between 500 and 2000 years ago, probably to carry out
astronomical observations.
Brazil
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Flag
Brazil
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Representation of the landing of
Pedro Álvares Cabral in
Porto Seguro, 1500.
Brazil
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Painting showing the arrest of
Tiradentes; he was sentenced to death for his involvement in the best known
movement for independence in Colonial Brazil.
23.
Aksai Chin
–
Aksai Chin is one of the two main disputed border areas between China and India, the other being a part of Arunachal Pradesh. In 1962, China and India fought a war over Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, but in 1993 and 1996. The etymology of Aksai Chin is uncertain regarding the word chin, as a word of Turkic origin, aksai literally means white brook but whether the word chin refers to Chinese or pass is disputed. The Chinese name of the region, 阿克赛钦, is composed of Chinese characters chosen for their phonetic values, Aksai Chin is one of the two large disputed border areas between India and China. India claims Aksai Chin as the easternmost part of the Jammu, China claims that Aksai Chin is part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The line that separates Indian-administered areas of Jammu and Kashmir from Aksai Chin is known as the Line of Actual Control and is concurrent with the Chinese Aksai Chin claim line. Aksai Chin covers an area of about 37,244 square kilometres. The area is largely a vast high-altitude desert with a low point at about 4,300 m above sea level. In the southwest, mountains up to 7,000 m extending southeast from the Depsang Plains form the de facto border between Aksai Chin and Indian-controlled Kashmir. In the north, the Kunlun Range separates Aksai Chin from the Tarim Basin, according to a recent detailed Chinese map, no roads cross the Kunlun Range within Hotan Prefecture, and only one track does so, over the Hindutash Pass. Aksai Chin area has number of basins with many salt or soda lakes. The major salt lakes are Surigh yil ganning kol, Tso tang, Aksai Chin Lake, Hongshan hu, the western part of Aksai Chin region is drained by the Tarim River. The eastern part of the region contains several small endorheic basins, the largest of them is that of the Aksai Chin Lake, which is fed by the river of the same name. The region as a whole receives little precipitation as the Himalayas, besides officials from the Chinese military, the inhabitants of Aksai Chin are, for the most part, members of nomadic groups such as the Bakarwal who regularly pass through the area. The best known settlements are the town of Tianshuihai and the village of Tielongtan, one of the earliest treaties regarding the boundaries in the western sector was signed in 1842. The Sikh Confederacy of the Punjab region in India had annexed Ladakh into the state of Jammu in 1834, in 1841, they invaded Tibet with an army. Chinese forces defeated the Sikh army and in turn entered Ladakh, after being checked by the Sikh forces, the Chinese and the Sikhs signed a treaty in September 1842, which stipulated no transgressions or interference in the other countrys frontiers. However, both sides were sufficiently satisfied that a traditional border was recognized and defined by natural elements. The boundaries beyond the extremities of Aksai Chin near Pangong Lake and near the Karakoram Pass were well-defined, william Johnson, a civil servant with the Survey of India proposed the Johnson Line in 1865, which put Aksai Chin in Kashmir
Aksai Chin
–
India - China border showing Aksai Chin (अक्साई चिन)
Aksai Chin
–
Aksai Chin
Aksai Chin
–
Map of
Central Asia (1878) showing
Khotan (near top right corner). The previous border claimed by the
British Indian Empire is shown in the two-toned purple and pink band with
Shahidulla and the Kilik, Kilian and Sanju Passes clearly north of the border.
Aksai Chin
–
The map given by Hung Ta-chen to the British consul at Kashgar in 1893. The boundary, marked with a thin dot-dashed line, matches the Macartney-MacDonald line.
24.
Trans-Karakoram Tract
–
The Trans-Karakoram Tract, also known as Shaksgam or the Shaksgam Tract, is an area of more than 9,900 km2 along both sides of the Shaksgam River and extending from the Karakoram to the Kunlun range. It is claimed by India as part of the state of Jammu, most of the tract is composed of the Shaksgam Valley and was formerly administered as a part of Shigar, a valley in the Baltistan region. The Raja of Shigar controlled most of land until 1971. A polo ground in Shaksgam was built by the Amacha Royal family of Shigar, most of the names of the mountains, lakes, rivers and passes are in Balti/Ladakhi, suggesting that this land had been part of Baltistan/Ladakh region for a long time. The tract is one of the most inhospitable areas of the world, historically the people of Hunza cultivated and grazed areas to the north of the Karakoram, and the Mir of Hunza claimed those areas as part of Hunzas territories. Those areas included the Raskam Valley, north of the Shaksgam Valley, in 1889 the first expedition to the Shaksgam Valley by a European was undertaken by Francis Younghusband. In March 1899 the British proposed, in a formal Note from Sir Claude MacDonald to China, the Note proposed that China should relinquish its claims to suzerainty over Hunza, and in return Hunza should relinquish its claims to most of the Taghdumbash and Raskam districts. The Chinese did not respond to the Note, and the British took that as acquiescence. The Macdonald line was modified in 1905 to include in India a small area east of the Shimshal Pass, to put the border on the Oprang Jilga River and this followed a line proposed by Sir John Ardagh in a Memorandum of 1897. That border included the Mir of Hunzas claim over the Raskam Valley, however, British administration never extended north of the Karakoram watershed. From 1899 until the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, by 1959, however, Chinese maps were published showing large areas west and south of the Macdonald line in China. That year, the Government of Pakistan announced its willingness to consult on the boundary question, from 1947 India claimed sovereignty over the entire area of the pre-1947 independent state of Jammu and Kashmir, and therefore maintained that Pakistan and China did not share a common border. The aforesaid Gazetteer states in pages 520 and 364 that “The eastern range forms the boundary of Khotan”. It describes Khotan as “ A province of the Chinese Empire lying to the north of the Eastern Kuenlun range, in 1959 the Pakistani government became concerned over Chinese maps that showed areas the Pakistanis considered their own as part of China. In 1961 Ayub Khan sent a note to China, there was no reply. It is thought that the Chinese might not have been motivated to negotiate with Pakistan because of Pakistans relations with India, According to Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, The agreement resulted in the surrendering of 13,000 square miles of territory. According to Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, According to the survey of Pakistan maps, even published in 1962. If one goes by these maps, Pakistan has obviously surrendered over 13,000 square miles of territory, after Pakistan voted to grant China a seat in the United Nations, the Chinese withdrew the disputed maps in January 1962, agreeing to enter border talks in March
Trans-Karakoram Tract
–
Map of J&K with Trans-Karakoram Tract highlighted
Trans-Karakoram Tract
–
Shakshgam Valley
Trans-Karakoram Tract
–
Broad Peak lies on the border of the Tract
25.
Deciduous
–
In a more general sense, deciduous means the dropping of a part that is no longer needed or falling away after its purpose is finished. In plants it is the result of natural processes, in botany and horticulture, deciduous plants, including trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. In some cases leaf loss coincides with winter—namely in temperate or polar climates, in other parts of the world, including tropical, subtropical, and arid regions, plants lose their leaves during the dry season or other seasons, depending on variations in rainfall. The converse of deciduous is coniferous, where foliage is shed on a different schedule from deciduous trees, plants that are intermediate may be called semi-deciduous, they lose old foliage as new growth begins. Other plants are semi-evergreen and lose their leaves before the growing season. Many deciduous plants flower during the period when they are leafless, the absence of leaves improves wind transmission of pollen for wind-pollinated plants and increases the visibility of the flowers to insects in insect-pollinated plants. This strategy is not without risks, as the flowers can be damaged by frost or, in dry season regions, leaf drop or abscission involves complex physiological signals and changes within plants. The process of photosynthesis steadily degrades the supply of chlorophylls in foliage, the brightest leaf colors are produced when days grow short and nights are cool, but remain above freezing. These other pigments include carotenoids that are yellow, brown, anthocyanin pigments produce red and purple colors, though they are not always present in the leaves. Rather, they are produced in the foliage in late summer, parts of the world that have showy displays of bright autumn colors are limited to locations where days become short and nights are cool. In other parts of the world, the leaves of deciduous trees simply fall off without turning the bright colors produced from the accumulation of anthocyanin pigments, the beginnings of leaf drop starts when an abscission layer is formed between the leaf petiole and the stem. This layer is formed in the spring during active new growth of the leaf, the cells are sensitive to a plant hormone called auxin that is produced by the leaf and other parts of the plant. The elongation of cells break the connection between the different cell layers, allowing the leaf to break away from the plant. It also forms a layer that seals the break, so the plant does not lose sap, in the spring, these proteins are used as a nitrogen source during the growth of new leaves or flowers. Plants with deciduous foliage have advantages and disadvantages compared to plants with evergreen foliage, evergreens suffer greater water loss during the winter and they also can experience greater predation pressure, especially when small. Losing leaves in winter may reduce damage from insects, repairing leaves, removing leaves also reduces cavitation which can damage xylem vessels in plants. This then allows deciduous plants to have xylem vessels with larger diameters, the deciduous characteristic has developed repeatedly among woody plants. Trees include maple, many oaks and nothofagus, elm, aspen, Deciduous shrubs include honeysuckle, viburnum, and many others
Deciduous
–
Deciduous forest in autumn
Deciduous
–
Deciduous forest in winter
Deciduous
–
Mixed deciduous forest in spring
Deciduous
–
Like many deciduous plants,
Forsythia flowers during the leafless season
26.
Grassland
–
Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses, however sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica, grasslands are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. For example, there are five terrestrial ecoregion classifications of the grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. Grassland vegetation can vary in height from short, as in chalk grassland, to quite tall, as in the case of North American tallgrass prairie, South American grasslands. Woody plants, shrubs or trees, may occur on some grasslands – forming savannas, scrubby grassland or semi-wooded grassland, as flowering plants and trees, grasses grow in great concentrations in climates where annual rainfall ranges between 500 and 900 mm. The root systems of perennial grasses and forbs form complex mats that hold the soil in place, graminoids are among the most versatile life forms. Existing forest biomes declined, and grasslands became much more widespread, following the Pleistocene ice ages, grasslands expanded in range in the hotter, drier climates, and began to become the dominant land feature worldwide. Grasslands often occur in areas with annual precipitation between 600 mm and 1,500 mm and average annual temperatures ranges from −5 and 20 °C. However, some occur in colder and hotter climatic conditions. Grassland can exist in habitats that are disturbed by grazing or fire. Grasslands dominated by unsown wild-plant communities can be called natural or semi-natural habitats. The majority of grasslands in temperate climates are semi-natural and these grasslands contain many species of wild plants – grasses, sedges, rushes and herbs –25 or more species per square metre is not unusual. Chalk downlands in England can support over 40 species per square metre, in many parts of the world, few examples have escaped agricultural improvement. For example, original North American prairie grasslands or lowland wildflower meadows in the UK are now rare and their associated wild flora equally threatened. Some of the worlds largest expanses of grassland are found in African savanna, grasslands may occur naturally or as the result of human activity. Grasslands created and maintained by human activity are called anthropogenic grasslands, hunting peoples around the world often set regular fires to maintain and extend grasslands, and prevent fire-intolerant trees and shrubs from taking hold. The tallgrass prairies in the U. S. Midwest may have been extended eastward into Illinois, Indiana, much grassland in northwest Europe developed after the Neolithic Period, when people gradually cleared the forest to create areas for raising their livestock. Grassland types by Schimper, meadow steppe savannah Grassland types by Ellenberg & Mueller-Dombois, terrestrial herbaceous communities A. Savannas and related grasslands B
Grassland
–
Grassland in
Magallanes Region,
Patagonia, Chile
Grassland
–
Grassland in the
Antelope Valley,
California
Grassland
–
The
Konza tallgrass prairie in the
Flint Hills of northeastern
Kansas
Grassland
–
A grassland in the
Philippines
27.
Prairie
–
Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay as well as the steppes of Eurasia. Lands typically referred to as prairie tend to be in North America, the Central Valley of California is also a prairie. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prairie is the French word for meadow, but the ultimate root is the Latin pratum. The formation of the North American Prairies started with the upwelling of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta, the mountains created a rain shadow that resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind, creating an environment in which most tree species will not tolerate. The parent material of most prairie soil was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago, the glaciers expanding southward scraped the landscape, picking up geologic material and leveling the terrain. As the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, it deposited this material in the form of till, wind based loess deposits also form an important parent material for prairie soils. Tallgrass Prairie evolved over tens of thousands of years with the disturbances of grazing, native ungulates such as bison, elk, and white-tailed deer, roamed the expansive, diverse, plentiful grassland before European colonization of the Americas. For 10, 000-20,000 years native people used fire annually as a tool to assist in hunting, transportation, evidence of ignition sources of fire in the tallgrass prairie are overwhelmingly human as opposed to lightning. Humans, and grazing animals, were participants in the process of prairie formation. Fire has the effect on prairies of removing trees, clearing dead plant matter, fire kills the vascular tissue of trees, but not prairie, as up to 75% of the total plant biomass is below the soil surface and will re-grow from its deep roots. Without disturbance, trees will encroach on a grassland, cast shade, Prairie and widely spaced oak trees evolved to coexist in the oak savanna ecosystem. In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains, the grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to soil erosion. The root systems of native prairie grasses firmly held the soil in place to prevent run-off of soil, when the plant died, the fungi, bacteria returned its nutrients to the soil. These deep roots also helped native prairie plants reach water in even the driest conditions, the native grasses suffered much less damage from dry conditions than the farm crops currently grown. Prairie in North America is usually split into three groups, wet, mesic, and dry and they are generally characterized by tallgrass prairie, mixed, or shortgrass prairie, depending on the quality of soil and rainfall. In wet prairies the soil is very moist, including during most of the growing season. The resulting stagnant water is conducive to the formation of bogs, wet prairies have excellent farming soil. The average precipitation amount is 10-30 inches a year, mesic prairie /ˈmiːzɪk/ has good drainage, but good soil during the growing season
Prairie
–
Prairie,
Badlands National Park,
South Dakota, USA, is in the mixed grasslands region containing some species of
tall grass and some of
short grass
Prairie
–
Tallgrass prairie flora (
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie)
Prairie
–
Prairie grasses
Prairie
–
Prairie Homestead, Milepost 213 on I-29, South Dakota (May 2010).
28.
Boreal forest
–
Taiga also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches. The taiga is the worlds largest biome apart from the oceans, in North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States, where it is known as the Northwoods or North woods. However, the tree species, the length of the growing season. Hoffman discusses the origin of this use in North America. Although at high elevations taiga grades into alpine tundra through Krummholz, it is not an alpine biome only like subalpine forest, Taiga is the worlds largest land biome, and makes up 29% of the worlds forest cover, the largest areas are located in Russia and Canada. The taiga is the terrestrial biome with the lowest annual average temperatures after the tundra, extreme winter minimums in the northern taiga are typically lower than those of the tundra. The lowest reliably recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were recorded in the taiga of northeastern Russia, the taiga or boreal forest has a subarctic climate with very large temperature range between seasons, but the long and cold winter is the dominant feature. This climate is classified as Dfc, Dwc, Dsc, Dfd and Dwd in the Köppen climate classification scheme, meaning that the summer lasts 1–3 months. In Siberian taiga the average temperature of the coldest month is between −6 °C and −50 °C, the mean annual temperature generally varies from -5 °C to 5 °C, but there are taiga areas in eastern Siberia and interior Alaska-Yukon where the mean annual reaches down to -10 °C. According to some sources, the boreal forest grades into a mixed forest when mean annual temperature reaches about 3 °C. The winters, with temperatures below freezing, last five to seven months. Temperatures vary from −54 °C to 30 °C throughout the whole year, the summers, while short, are generally warm and humid. In much of the taiga, -20 °C would be a winter day temperature and 18 °C an average summer day. In Canada, Scandinavia and Finland, the season is often estimated by using the period of the year when the 24-hour average temperature is +5 °C or more. For the Taiga Plains in Canada, growing season varies from 80 to 150 days, some sources claim 130 days growing season as typical for the taiga. Other sources mention that 50–100 frost-free days are characteristic, data for locations in southwest Yukon gives 80–120 frost-free days. The closed canopy boreal forest in Kenozersky National Park near Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk Province, Russia, the longest growing season is found in the smaller areas with oceanic influences, in coastal areas of Scandinavia and Finland, the growing season of the closed boreal forest can be 145–180 days. High latitudes mean that the sun not rise far above the horizon
Boreal forest
–
Jack London Lake at Kolyma, Russia
Boreal forest
–
White spruce taiga, Denali Highway, Alaska Range, Alaska
Boreal forest
–
The taiga in the river valley near
Verkhoyansk,
Russia, at 67°N, must deal with the coldest winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere, but the extreme continentality of the climate gives an average daily high of 22 °C (72 °F) in July.
Boreal forest
–
Boreal forest near Shovel Point in
Tettegouche State Park, along the northern shore of Lake Superior in
Minnesota.
29.
Rocky Mountains
–
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 from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges, the Rocky Mountains were initially formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began to slide underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks, at the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range. The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, the Rocky Mountains are commonly defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The United States definition of the Rockies includes the Cabinet and Salish Mountains of Idaho and their counterparts north of the Kootenai River, the Columbia Mountains, are considered a separate system in Canada, lying to the west of the huge Rocky Mountain Trench. This runs the length of British Columbia from its beginnings in the middle Flathead River valley in western Montana to the bank of the Liard River. The Rockies vary in width from 70 to 300 miles, also west of the Rocky Mountain Trench, farther north and facing the Muskwa Range across the trench, are the Stikine Ranges and Omineca Mountains of the Interior Mountains system of British Columbia. A small area east of Prince George, British Columbia on the side of the Trench. In Canada geographers define three main groups of ranges, the Continental Ranges, Hart Ranges and Muskwa Ranges, the Muskwa and Hart Ranges together comprise what is known as the Northern Rockies. The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these sub-ranges from distinct ranges further to the west, most prominent among which are the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range and Coast Mountains. The Rocky Mountain System within the United States is a United States physiographic region, the Rocky Mountains are notable for containing the highest peaks in central North America. The ranges highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 14,440 feet above sea level, Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 12,972 feet, is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains, triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park is so named because water that falls on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific, but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, see Rivers of the Rocky Mountains for a list of rivers. Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer, however, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The 40-year statewide increases in range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah
Rocky Mountains
–
Moraine Lake, and the
Valley of the Ten Peaks,
Banff National Park,
Alberta,
Canada
Rocky Mountains
–
The Front Range of the Rocky Mountains near
Denver, Colorado
Rocky Mountains
–
The
Tetons are a rugged subrange in Wyoming
Rocky Mountains
–
Mount Robson in
British Columbia.
30.
Desert
–
A desert is a barren area of land where little precipitation occurs and consequently living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation, about one third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the regions where little precipitation occurs. Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation falls, by the temperature that prevails. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks which consequently break in pieces, although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter and the resulting fragments and this picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface, rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes, other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements and little further erosion takes place, other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate, there may be underground sources of water in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur, plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day and they tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods and they then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, the cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara
Desert
–
Valle de la Luna (« Valley of the Moon ») in the
Atacama Desert of
Chile, the world's driest hot desert
Desert
–
Sand dunes in the
Rub' al Khali ("Empty quarter") of
Saudi Arabia
Desert
–
Cold desert: snow surface at Dome C Station, Antarctica
Desert
–
The
Agasthiyamalai hills cut off
Tirunelveli in
India from the
monsoons, creating a
rainshadow region.
