The United
States has an area of 9372571 square kilometers. The country excluding Alaska
and Hawaii, can subdivided into seven major land regions. These regions are;
The Appalachian highlands, the coastal lowlands, the interior plains, the
Ozark-Ouachita highlands, the rocky mountains, the western plateaus basins and
ranges and the pacific ranges and lowlands.
The Appalachian
highlands.
Extended from the northern tip of Maine southwestward to Alabama. This ragged
region has many mountain ranges.
The white mountains and the green mountains of
northern new England are old mountains, won down but craggy in some places.
Southern New England consists mostly of hilly land. New England’s chief river
is the Connecticut. The Adirondack upland of northern New York includes
mountains and many beautiful lakes.
The coastal
lowlands.
Extended from southern Maine across the eastern and southern United States to eastern
Texas. Forests of hickory, oak, pine and other trees are common throughout the
lowlands. The region has three subdivisions; the piedmont, the Atlantic coastal
plain and the gulf coastal plain.
The interior
plains.
Occupy a huge expanse of land that stretches from the Appalachian highlands in
the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. Glaciers covered much of the
region during the ice age. They stripped the topsoil from parts of Michigan,Minnesota and Wisconsin and carved out thousands of lakes, today much of this
area is heavily forested. Further, south in parts of Illinois, in Indiana, lowa
and Ohio, the glaciers flattered the land and deposited rich soil ideal for
growing crops. The plains slope gradually upward from east to west and get
progressively drier.
The Ozark-Ouachita
highlands. Rise
up between the interior plains and coastal lowlands. The highlands form a
scenic landscape in southern Missouri, northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.
The region is named for the Ozark Plateau and the Ouachita mountains. Rivers
and streams have cut deep gorges through the rugged highland terrain. The
highlands include forested hills, artificial lakes and many underground caves
and gushing springs.
The Rocky Mountains. Form the largest mountain
system in North America. They extend from northern Alaska, through Canada and
western United States to northern New Mexico.