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The major means of intercity transportation is by automobile.
Motorists can travel over an interstate highway system of 705,449
kilometers, which feeds into another 6,242,115 kilometers of roads
and highways connecting virtually every city and town in the United
States. A trip by automobile from coast to coast takes five to six days.
America is a land of physical contrasts. The southern parts of
Florida, Texas, California and the entire state of Hawaii have warm
temperatures year round. Most of the United States is in the temperate
zone, with four distinct seasons and varying numbers of hot and cold
days each season, while the northern tier of states and Alaska have
extremely cold winters. The land varies from heavy forests covering
2,104 million hectares to barren deserts, from high-peaked mountains
(McKinley in Alaska rises to 6,194 meters) to deep canyons (Death
Valley in California is 1,064 meters below sea level).
The United States is also a land of bountiful rivers and lakes The
northern state of Minnesota, for example, is known as the land of
10,000 lakes. The broad Mississippi River system, of great historic
and economic importance to the United States, runs 5,969 kilometers
from Canada into the Gulf of Mexico - the world's third longest river
after the Nile and the Amazon. A canal south of Chicago joins one of
the tributaries of the Mississippi to the five Great Lakes - making it
the world's largest inland water transportation route and the biggest
body of fresh water in the world. The St. Lawrence Seaway, which the
United States shares with Canada, connects the Great Lakes with the
Atlantic Ocean, allowing seagoing vessels to travel 3,861 kilometers
inland, as far as Duluth, Minnesota, during the spring, summer and
fall shipping seasons.
America's early settlers were attracted by the fertile land along
the Atlantic coast in the Southeast, and inland beyond the eastern
Appalachian Mountains. As America expanded westward, so did its
farmers and ranchers, cultivating the grasslands of the Great Plains,
and finally the fertile valleys of the Pacific coast. Today, with 1,214
million hectares under cultivation, American farmers plant spring
wheat on the cold western Plains; raise corn, wheat and fine beef
cattle in the Midwest, and rice in the damp heat of Louisiana. Florida
and California are famous for their vegetable and fruit production, and
the cool, rainy Northwestern states are known for apples, pears,
berries and vegetables.
Underground, a wealth of minerals provides a solid base for
American industry. History has glamorized the gold rushes to