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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
United States: Geography
</title>
<article><hdr>The World Factbook 1993: United States
Geography</hdr><body>
<p>Location: North America, between Canada and Mexico
</p>
<list>
<l>Area:</l>
<l> total area: 9,372,610 km2</l>
<l> land area: 9,166,600 km2</l>
</list>
<p> comparative area: about half the size of Russia; about
three-tenths the size of Africa; about one-half the size of
South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly smaller
than China; about two and one-half times the size of Western
Europe
</p>
<p>note: includes only the 50 states and District of Columbia
</p>
<p>Land boundaries: total 12,248 km, Canada 8,893 km (including
2,477 km with Alaska), Cuba 29 km (US naval base at Guantanamo),
Mexico 3,326 km
</p>
<p>Coastline: 19,924 km
</p>
<list>
<l>Maritime claims:</l>
<l> contiguous zone: 24 nm</l>
<l> continental shelf: 200 m or depth of exploitation</l>
<l> exclusive economic zone: 200 nm</l>
<l> territorial sea: 12 nm</l>
</list>
<p>International disputes: maritime boundary disputes with Canada
(Dixon Entrance, Beaufort Sea, Strait of Juan de Fuca); US Naval
Base at Guantanamo is leased from Cuba and only mutual agreement
or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease; Haiti
claims Navassa Island; US has made no territorial claim in
Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not
recognize the claims of any other nation; Republic of Marshall
Islands claims Wake Island
</p>
<p>Climate: mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida
and arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the
Mississippi River and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest;
low winter temperatures in the northwest are ameliorated
occasionally in January and February by warm chinook winds from
the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
</p>
<p>Terrain: vast central plain, mountains in west, hills and low
mountains in east; rugged mountains and broad river valleys in
Alaska; rugged, volcanic topography in Hawaii
</p>
<p>Natural resources: coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates,
uranium, bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, potash, silver,
tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, timber
</p>
<list>
<l>Land use:</l>
<l> arable land: 20%</l>
<l> permanent crops: 0%</l>
<l> meadows and pastures: 26%</l>
<l> forest and woodland: 29%</l>
<l> other: 25%</l>
</list>
<p>Irrigated land: 181,020 km2 (1989 est.)
</p>
<p>Environment: pollution control measures improving air and
water quality; agricultural fertilizer and pesticide pollution;
management of sparse natural water resources in west;
desertification; tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquake activity
around Pacific Basin; permafrost in northern Alaska is a major
impediment to development
</p>
<p>Note: world's fourth-largest country (after Russia, Canada,
and China)
</p></body></article></text>