The Southwest is a beautiful stark landscape of prairie and desert. The states of Arizona , New Mexico , Oklahoma , and Texas are considered the Southwest and are home to some of the world's great natural marvels, including the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns. The American West, home of rolling plains and the cowboy, is a symbol of the pioneering spirit of the United States. The West is diverse, ranging from endless wilderness to barren desert, coral reefs to Arctic tundra, Hollywood to Yellowstone.
The landscape varies across the large country from tropical beaches in Florida to peaks in the Rocky Mountains, from rolling prairie lands and barren deserts in the West to dense wilderness areas in the Northeast and Northwest. The wildlife is as diverse as the landscape. Mammals such as bison once roamed freely across the plains, but now live only in preserves.
Black bears , grizzlies , and polar bears are the largest carnivores. There are over 20, flower species and most came from Europe. There are more than areas which are protected and maintained by the National Park Service, and many other parks in each state. The bald eagle is the national bird and symbol of the United States and is a protected species. Citizens over the age of 18 years old vote to elect the President and Vice President of United States every four years.
The president lives in the White House in the capital city of Washington, D. There are two houses of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. There are senators, two from each of the 50 states and each serves a six-year term.
There are representatives who must be elected every two years. The Supreme Court is made up of nine justices who are picked by the president and must be approved by Congress. He was reelected for a second term in Advances in the past hundred years have established America as a world leader economically, militarily, and technologically. America has the largest coal reserves in the world. For centuries native peoples lived across the vast expanse that would become the United States.
Starting in the 16th century, settlers moved from Europe to the New World, established colonies, and displaced these native peoples.
Explorers arrived from Spain in at St. Augustine, Florida , and the British landed in to establish a colony in Roanoke, in present-day Virginia. In another British colony was established in what would become Jamestown, Virginia.
From there, the French founded Quebec in , then the Dutch started a colony in in present-day New York. Europeans continued to settle in the New World in ever-increasing numbers throughout the next couple of centuries. The settlers also brought diseases that the native peoples had not faced before, and these illnesses sometimes had horrible effects.
During this time, fights between the settlers and Native Americans erupted often, particularly as more people claimed land where the Native Americans lived. The U. But the government did not honor most of these treaties, and even sent military units to forcibly remove Native Americans from their lands. For example, in , President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which granted land west of the Mississippi River to Native American tribes who agreed to give up their lands. But this broke with other treaties he had signed with Native American tribes in the Southeast.
The removal was supposed to be voluntary, but Jackson used legal and military action to remove several tribes from their homelands and ended nearly 70 treaties during his presidency.
By the midth century, most Native American tribes had been wiped out or moved to live on much smaller portions of land in the Midwest.
In , colonists living in the New England area of the New World drafted the Declaration of Independence, a document that stated that the American colonies were tired of being ruled by Great Britain now called the United Kingdom. The US is also, with Lesotho, one of only two countries in the world that do not mandate paid maternity leave.
Despite the much-discussed need to bring jobs back to the US, there are plenty of jobs in the country. Employment is one of the parameters in which the US does better than many other advanced economies, with low unemployment, high employment, and low share of youth who are neither working nor studying.
The US also does remarkably well in employing immigrants. That the US needs better infrastructure is a bipartisan belief of late. As Barack Obama did before him, Donald Trump has highlighted the dire state of American transportation infrastructure, and promised massive investment in that respect.
The US is also one of the countries with the highest number of deaths resulting from car accidents. The US has the highest income inequality of all rich countries. Americans like their homes big—and they have them so. Each American has, on average, 2. Only Canadians, at 2. The US also has one of the highest ratios of childhood death by injury both intentional and unintentional. When it comes to democratic institution, the US has one of the lowest turnouts among high-income countries.
Correction: An earlier version of the story featured a chart that showed growth in GDP per person per hour, but mistakenly introduced as GDP per person per hour. By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. Skip to navigation Skip to content. Discover Membership. Dept of Homeland Security. National Archives. Smithsonian Institution. Read full profile. Image source, Getty Images.
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