The United States of America

The United States of America is a constitutional federal republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait, and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with more than 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world. The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they jointly issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union.

The USA is a highly developed industrial and agricultural country. The main industrial branches are aircraft, rocket, automobile, electronics, radio – engineering and others.

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic. It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though U.S. citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the United States Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document and as a social contract for the people of the United States. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local.

Vocabulary

Constitutional	Конституционный
Contiguous	Прилегающий
Border	Граничить
Archipelago	Архипелаг
Possess	Обладать, владеть
Insular	Островная
Scattered	Разбросанные
Area	Площадь
Jointly	Совместно
Issue	Издавать
Proclaim	Провозглашать
Independence	Независимость
Develop	Развивать
Agricultural	Сельскохозяйственный
Aircraft	Авиация
Rocket	Ракета
Fundamentally	Основная
supreme	Верховный

Questions

1. Where is the United States of America situated?

2. What countries does it border?

3. What is the territory of the US?

4. What is the population of the US?

5. Why is the USA called the “melting pot”?

6. How was the USA founded?

7. What are the main industrial branches of the US?

8. What is the political system of the USA?

9. How is the government regulated?

10. What are the three levels of government citizens are usually subject to?

Тopic 7