The United States of America

The United States of America or the USA is a large country. Its area is only a little smaller than the area of Europe. As to population, it is the fourth largest country in the world. About 250 million people live there.
Once the United States of America was an English colony. In the War of Independence (1776—1783) she freed herself from British sovereignty and became independent. At that time she consisted of 13 states, which stretched from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi. For two and a half centuries the USA extended her territory to the Pacific Ocean. Now the USA consists of 50 states.
The flag of the United States is called 'Stars and Stripes'. The 50 stars — white on a blue field represent the 50 states and the 13 stripes represent 13 original English colonies, which in 1776 became free and independent of England.
The first colonists from England established a home in regions covered with thick forest against which they had to fight as hard as against the long and cold winters and storms in the northern parts. Very often they were short of clothes and other things necessary for life. When the news of rich soils behind the mountains came, many farmers decided to leave their homes. The first westward travel to make a new home there began.
Great parts of the land the cultivation of which had taken tens of years were deserted.
The coastal states changed their character when the coalfields in Pennsylvania and iron ore in the Appalachians were found. Many people left agriculture for the quickly growing industrial towns. Besides, the North-East is the main area of the industries which produce textiles of any kind, metal goods, rubber products, motor-cars, machinery and others.
Agriculture and cattle-breeding are carried out in the Middle West which comprises the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio Basin and Lake District. This region of monocultural farms, especially of wheat and maize, and extended meadows is called the 'Corn Belt'. Besides wheat and maize the Corn Belt farmers grow oats.
What does the Corn Belt farmer do with his crops? He sells the wheat to people. Maize and most of the oats and corn are fed to animals in the states where they are grown. So the Corn Belt farmers usually fatten cattle, produce milk or grow pigs. The centre of the meat industry is Chicago.
One single product — cotton unites one sixth of the United States into a region called the 'Cotton Belt'. It stretches all over the Southern States from Virginia to Texas. Although sugar-beet and rice are grown there as well, about half of the cultivated land is planted to cotton. So important is this main product that the prosperity of the Cotton Belt depends on cotton.
West of the Rocky Mountains we find the State of California. It is full of contrasts. In San Francisco you would like to wear your overcoat sometimes. The north-western part of California has a very pleasant climate. The south-eastern part of the state has miles of light brown sand dunes like those of the Sahara.
Go over to the mountains to the west and you come into the garden and fruit country which attracted a lot of people since the gold rush in 1848. About 44 years later oil was found there. And again people came, but few of them found the riches they were looking for, as it had been by those who had come in the twenties of this century when they were drawn from their Oklahoma or Texas homes.
You know that the capital of the United States is Washington. It was named in honour of the first President whose name was George Washington. The population of Washington is over 3 million. The most important cities of the USA are: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and others.