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The term mainland United States is sometimes used synonymously with continental United States, but technically refers only to those parts of states connected to the landmass of North America, thereby excluding not only Hawaii and overseas insular areas, but also islands which are part of continental states but separated from the mainland, such ...
The term "United States," when used in the geographic sense, refers to the contiguous United States (sometimes referred to as the Lower 48, including the District of Columbia not as a state), Alaska, Hawaii, the five insular territories of Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and minor outlying possessions. [1]
The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort.
The geographic center of the contiguous United States is mentioned in Neil Gaiman's American Gods as a neutral ground where the modern and the old gods can meet despite the war between them. In the 1969 Disney movie The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes , the final question of the college knowledge program is, "A small Midwest city is located exactly ...
This is a list of points in the United States that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location in the country. Also included are extreme points in elevation, extreme distances and other points of peculiar geographic interest.
The terms "contiguous United States" (48 adjoining states in the continent of North America which does not include Alaska) or "continental United States" (any U.S. state that is part of the North American continent which includes Alaska) are widely used instead, despite including adjacent islands on the continental shelf in both definitions. [3]
The physiographic regions of the contiguous United States comprise 8 divisions, 25 provinces, and 85 sections. [1] The system dates to Nevin Fenneman's report Physiographic Divisions of the United States, published in 1916. [2] [3] The map was updated and republished by the Association of American Geographers in 1928. [4]
The Continental Divide in North America in red and other drainage divides in North America The Continental Divide in Central America and South America. The Continental Divide of the Americas (also known as the Great Divide, the Western Divide or simply the Continental Divide; Spanish: Divisoria continental de las Américas, Gran Divisoria) is the principal, and largely mountainous ...