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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 ...
Historically, the United States of America saw itself as a blossoming continental nation-state. Accordingly, the first governing body for the North American colonists was called the Continental Congress, [1] [2] which sought to receive delegates from across the British colonized areas of the continent, including the future Canadian provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia.
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 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 ...
Alarmed, the United States offered to buy New Orleans. Napoleon needed funds to wage another war with Great Britain, and he doubted that France could defend such a huge and distant territory. He therefore offered to sell all of Louisiana for $15 million. The United States completed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, doubling the size of the nation ...
The United States expropriated from Panama additional areas around the soon-to-be-built Madden Dam and annexed them to the Panama Canal Zone. [367] [375] Caribbean Sea: May 3, 1932 The United States adjusted the border at Punta Paitilla in the Canal Zone, returning a small amount of land to Panama. This was the site for a planned new American ...
In geology, a continent is defined by continental crust, which is a platform of metamorphic and igneous rocks, largely of granitic composition. Continental crust is less dense and much thicker than oceanic crust, which causes it to "float" higher than oceanic crust on the dense underlying mantle. This explains why the continents form high ...
The West Coast of the continental United States makes up part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of heavy tectonic and volcanic activity that is the source of 90% of the world's earthquakes. [28] The American Northwest sees the highest concentration of active volcanoes in the United States, in Washington , Oregon and northern California along ...