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UNITED STATES
The United States
is a federation of 50 states: 48 of them are situated in the “mainland” which a
territory that lies between Canada
and Mexico and between the
Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. The two states
that are not in the mainland are Alaska and
the Hawaii Islands:
Alaska lies north-west of Canada and the Hawaii
Islands lie in the Pacific
Ocean. The USA
also includes some islands in the Caribbean sea and in the Pacific
Ocean.
The United
States is a very vast country, in fact it
extends over four Time Zones: Eastern, central Mountain and Pacific. If you cross
a Time Zone travelling westwards, you have to put your watch back by one
hour if you travel east, you must put
your watch forward one hour. There is also a difference of six hours between
the Atlantic coast of the USA
and Italy.
In the United States
there are two principal mountain chains: the Rocky mountains, called Rockies,
and the Appalachians. The Rockies are situated
in the western part of the country and they are taller than the Appalachians
that lie in eastern part of the USA.
Of the many rivers flowing through the U.S.,
the Mississippi is the longest; it rises in Minnesota and it flows into the Gulf
of Mexico forming a large delta. The Rio
Grande separates the United States
from Mexico.
The Colorado river flows through the Grand Canyon and the Hudson river flows
through New York.
Five very big lakes are situated along the border with
Canada; they are Lake
Superior, Lake Ontario,
Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Huron. Between Lake Erie and Lake
Ontario flows the Niagara river that
forms the famous Niagara falls.
In Utah there is the Great Salt Lake which is very salty and in summer it
becomes a salty desert.
The lowest pointing the U.S. is Death Valley, about 94 m below the sea level. It
is also the hottest point, with a record temperature of +51°.
AMERICAN ENGLISH vs BRITISH ENGLISH
There
are a lot of varieties of English in the world. The most popular
are British English and American English. They present differences in
vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar. For example American people say
"cookie", but the British ones say "biscuit". in British English you
say "I want to..." but in American English you say "I wanna...".
Finally, British people write "centre" and American people write
"center".
NEW YORK 
New York
is an enormous city of nearly 8 million inhabitants. It is formed by five
districts, called boroughs: Richmond, Brooklyn,
Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan. The most
important borough is Manhattan.
Manhattan is an island lying between the
estuaries of two rivers, the Hudson and the East River. The story of Manhattan
is interesting: in 1626 a
Dutchman bought the island from the Indians for $24 and founded a town which he
called New Amsterdam. Manhattan
was a Dutch colony for 50 years, then the British took it and changed the name
of the town: they called it New York,
in honor of the Duke of York, the King’s brother. Manhattan
has many quarters, like Chinatown, the Chinese quarter, or Harlem,
the black district, or Little Italy, where many descendants of Italian
immigrants live. The heart of the city is the central section of the island
where there is a l a large park, called Central Park.
Central Park is 4km long and 800 m wide New Yorkers go
cycling, horseback riding, swimming or jogging in it. Parallel to Central Park there are some of the most famous streets in
the world, like Broadway, the streets of the theatres and entertainment.
Broadway is also the longest city street in the world: it’s 64 km long! One of the
most famous monuments of the U.S.
is in New York:
the Statue of Liberty. It is situated on a small island at the entrance of New
York’s harbour. The Statue of liberty (also called miss Liberty) was built in
France in 1887 and donated to the U.S. as a symbol of the friendship between
the two countries.
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