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Geography 101
click a state on the map above or the state link below to learn information
and facts about each state such as the capital, state nickname, major cities, the latest 2010 census population, the area of the state
in square miles and kilometers, mountain elevations, the geographic center of the state and more.
If you calculate total land area, the United States is the world's 3rd. largest country behind Russia and China.
There are 5 Great Lakes located in the north-central portion of the United States. Four of these Great Lakes
form part of the border with Canada. The Great Plains lie west of the Mississippi
River and east of the Rocky Mountains.
The United States has three major mountain ranges - The Appalachian Mountains, Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada
mountains. The lowest elevation point in the United States is Death Valley, Inyo County, California where
it is -282 feet below sea level while the highest elevation point is Mount McKinley, in Alaska which is 20,320
feet above sea level.
The total U.S. inland waterway including protected coastal routes is approximates 25,000 miles. Over half of the
25,000 miles has a minimum depth of 9 feet. The largest system of the U.S. inland waterway is based on the
Mississippi river which is navigable for about 1,800 miles from New Orleans to Minneapolis.
The Midwest and Great Plains area experiences frequent and severe thunderstorms and tornado outbreaks
during spring and summer with as many as 1,000 tornadoes occurring each year. The area of land from north Texas
north to Kansas and east into Tennessee is known as Tornado Alley. The American Northwest has the highest
concentration of active volcanoes in the United States, in Washington, Oregon and northern California along
the Cascade Mountains. California and southern Alaska are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes.
The total population of the USA from the 2010 census was 308,745,538 people.
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