Physical Features of the United States

The United States stretches across North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. It also includes Alaska in the far northwest and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific. Along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico lies a low, flat coastal plain. Farther inland rise the Appalachian Mountains, an old, worn-down range that runs from Maine to Alabama. West of them are the Interior Lowlands and the Great Plains, a huge, mostly flat area. The Mississippi River and its largest tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio, drain much of this land, forming one of the largest river systems in the world. The Rocky Mountains are younger and much higher. The main Continental Divide runs along them: most rivers east of it flow toward the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, while many rivers west of it, like the Colorado and the Columbia, flow toward the Pacific. Some western areas, like the Great Basin, drain to no ocean at all. The West also has plateaus, canyons, and deserts, including the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges near the Pacific coast. The Great Lakes hold about a fifth of the world's fresh surface water; four of the five are shared with Canada, while Lake Michigan lies entirely in the United States. The country's highest peak, Denali in Alaska, rises about 20,310 feet (6,190 meters).

This explanation is AI-generated and can occasionally be wrong. 🚩 Report