1. United States of America

2. Location: North America

3. Geography At 9.83 million km 2 and with over 308 million people, the United States is the third largest country, both by land area and population. Its geography varies a lot: There are meadows and mountains, prairies and rivers, deserts and forests, volcanoes and beaches.

5. Climate The United States includes most climate types. The climate varies along with the geography, from tropical (hot and wet in summer, warm and dry in winter) in Florida to subarctic or polar (cold all year) in Alaska. Large parts of the country have warm summers and cold winters. Some parts of the United States, like parts of California, have Mediterranean climate.

6. Climate Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country as well.

7. Environment The U.S. ecology is considered “mega diverse“ – there are tens of thousands of different plant and animal species. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.

8. Grand Canyon, Arizona

9. Death Valley, California

10. Arches National Park, Utah

11. Yosemite National Park, California

12. Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii

13. History Native Americans (probably of Asian decent) have lived in Northern America for thousands of years. After Europeans came, millions of Native Americans died in epidemics of imported diseases. They also lost their land.

14. Europeans In 1492, Christopher Columbus reached America. The first successful English settlements were Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. Although the United States was settled mostly by the English, people from France, Spain, and the Netherlands also settled in parts of the United States.

15. The First Colonies By 1733, there were 13 British colonies. All legalized the African slave trade. They had a population of 2.6 million in 1770 (about one-third that of Britain); nearly one in five Americans was a black slaves. Though subject to British taxation, the American colonists had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.