用英文来介绍USA要从-where it is on the world map-the weather-the pop

用英文来介绍USA
要从-where it is on the world map
-the weather
-the population
-the countryside
-the biggest cities
-the oceans or seas around the country
-the people
-the religion
-the food

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and one federal district. The country is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie in central North America 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 the state of Hawaii is in the mid-Pacific. The United States also possesses fourteen territories, or insular areas, that are scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[6] Its national economy is the largest in the world, with a nominal 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$13 trillion.[3]
The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. Proclaiming themselves "states," they issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The rebellious states defeated Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.[7] A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments, was ratified in 1791. In the nineteenth century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. The American Civil War ended slavery in the United States and prevented a permanent split of the country. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed its status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The sole remaining superpower in the post–Cold War era, the United States is perceived by many as the dominant economic, political, cultural, and military force in the world.[8]
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the pretax median household income in 2005 was $46,326;[60] the two-year average ranged from $60,246 in New Jersey to $34,396 in Mississippi.[88] Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, these income levels are similar to those found in other postindustrial nations such as Norway ($61,294 [mean])[89] and the United Kingdom ($39,915).[90] Approximately 13 percent of Americans were below the federally designated poverty line.[60][61] The number of poor Americans, nearly 37 million, was actually 4 million more than in 2001, the bottom year of the most recent U.S. recession.[91] The United States was ranked eighth in the world in the UNDP's 2006 Human Development Report.[92] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations, covering a broad range of factors, ranked the U.S. next to last.[93]
Between 1967 and 2005, median household income rose 30.6 percent in constant dollars, largely due to the growing number of dual-earner households. In 2005, median income for nonelderly households declined for the fifth consecutive year.[91] Though the standard of living has improved for nearly all classes since the late 1970s,[94] income inequality has grown substantially.[95][96] The share of income received by the top 1 percent has risen considerably while the share of income of the bottom 90 percent has fallen, with the gap between the two groups being roughly as large in 2005 as in 1928.[97] According to the standard Gini index, income inequality in the United States is higher than in any European nation.[98] Some economists, such as Alan Greenspan, see rising income inequality as a cause for concern.[99]
While American social classes lack defined boundaries,[96] sociologists point to social class as a crucial societal variable. Occupation, educational attainment, and income are used as the main indicators of socioeconomic status.[100] Dennis Gilbert of Hamilton College has proposed a system, adapted by other sociologists,[101] with six social classes: an upper, or capitalist, class consisting of the wealthy and powerful (1%), an upper middle class consisting of highly educated professionals (15%), a middle class consisting of semiprofessionals and craftsmen (33%), a working class consisting of clerical and blue-collar workers who conduct highly routinized tasks (33%), and two lower classes—the working poor (13%) and a largely unemployed underclass (12%).[96] Where it was once common for middle-class households to employ domestic servants, many domestic tasks are now outsourced to the service industry.[102] Wealth is highly concentrated: The richest 10 percent of the adult population possesses 69.8 percent of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share of any democratic developed nation.[103] The top 1 percent possesses 33.4 percent of net wealth, including more than half of the total value in publicly traded stocks.[104] Though the American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, played a key role in attracting immigrants to the United States, particularly in the late 1800s,[105] some analysts find that the United States has relatively low social mobility compared to Western Europe and Canada.[106]
Language and religion
Main articles: Languages of the United States and Religion in the United States
Languages (2003)[143]
English (only) 216.8 million
Spanish, incl. Creole 19.7 million
Chinese 2.2 million
French, incl. Creole 1.9 million
Tagalog 1.3 million
Vietnamese 1.1 million
German 1.1 million
Although the United States has no official language at the federal level, English is the national language.
In 2003, about 215 million, or 82 percent of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by over 10 percent of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language.[143][144] Immigrants seeking naturalization must know English. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.[145] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.[146] Several insular territories also grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico. While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[147]

A church in the largely Protestant Bible BeltThe United States government does not audit Americans' religious beliefs.[148] In a private survey conducted in 2001, 76.7 percent of American adults identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4 percent in 1990. Protestant denominations accounted for 52 percent, while Roman Catholics, at 24.5 percent, were the largest individual denomination.[149] A different study describes white evangelicals, 26.3 percent of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;[150] evangelicals of all races are estimated at 30–35 percent.[151] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2001 was 3.7 percent, up from 3.3 percent in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.4 percent), Islam (0.5 percent), Buddhism (0.5 percent), Hinduism (0.4 percent), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3 percent). Between 1990 and 2001, the number of Muslims and Buddhists more than doubled. From 8.2 percent in 1990, 14.2 percent in 2001 described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion,[149] still significantly less than in other postindustrial countries such as Britain (44 percent) and Sweden (69 percent).[152]
Food and clothing
Main article: Cuisine of the United States

American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flagMainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important. Fried chicken, which combines Scottish and African American culinary traditions, is a national favorite. Iconic American dishes such as apple pie, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various European immigrants. So-called French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.[204] During the last two decades of the twentieth century, Americans' daily caloric intake rose 24 percent,[204] as the share from food consumed outside the home went from 18 to 32 percent.[205] Frequent dining at fast food outlets such as McDonald's is closely associated with what government researchers call the American "obesity epidemic."[206][205] The popularity of well-promoted diets such as the Atkins Nutritional Approach has sent sales of "carb-conscious" processed food soaring.[207]
Americans generally prefer coffee to tea, with more than half the adult population drinking at least one cup a day.[208] American liquors include bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, applejack, and Puerto Rican rum. The martini is the characteristic American cocktail.[209] The average American consumes 81.6 liters of beer per year.[210] American-style lagers, typified by the leading Budweiser brand, are light in body and flavor; Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch controls 50 percent of the national beer market.[211] In recent decades, wine production and consumption has increased substantially, with winemaking now a leading industry in California. In contrast to European traditions, wine is often drunk before meals, substituting for cocktails.[212] Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk (now often fat-reduced) ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[213][207] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9 percent of the average American's daily caloric intake, more than double the rate three decades ago.[206] Leading soft-drink producer Coca-Cola is the most recognized brand in the world, just ahead of McDonald's.[214]
Apart from professional business attire, U.S. fashions are eclectic and predominantly informal. While Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing, particularly those of recent immigrants, cowboy hats and boots and leather motorcycle jackets are emblematic of specifically American styles. Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss, a German immigrant in San Francisco, and adopted by many American teenagers a century later. They are now widely worn on every continent by people of all ages and social classes. Along with mass-marketed informal wear in general, blue jeans are arguably U.S. culture's primary contribution to global fashion.[215] The country is also home to the headquarters of many leading designer labels such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Labels such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Eckō cater to various niche markets.