Ch8-1-geography-and-people.ppt

1、The United States of America,Geography and people,The Capitol Hill,Geographical Features,The US is bordered by Canada on the north, Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. The total area: 9.5 million square kilometers, fourth larg

2、est country after Russia, Canada and China. 50 states and a federal district of Columbia, which is the seat of the federal government. In 1959, Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states.,Alaska is the largest in area and Rhode Island（罗得岛州）the smallest of all the 50 states. On the mainland Te

3、xas is the largest state. Texas is larger than France and Alaska is twice as big as Texas.,Three distinct areas,The eastern part The western part Great Plains,The Great Plain,Niagara Falls Mississippi River, the father of waters,Six regions,New England The Mid-Atlantic States The South The Midwest T

4、he Southwest The West.,New England,All 6 states Longest immigration history Harvard, Yale, MIT,Climate,The 50-centimeter rainfall line between the humid east and dry west. One of the most important geographic boundaries in the United States It runs north and south almost through the middle of the co

5、untry. East : farming is relatively easy, and the population is relatively large. West : man-made irrigation systems, dry-farming, grazing, and fewer people.,Cities:,New York Washington San Francisco Los Angeles Chicago,New York,New York is the commercial and financial center. It includes three isla

6、nds, Manhattan Island, Long Island and Staten Island at the mouth of Hudson River. New York is composed of five boroughs which include Manhattan, Brooklyn (布鲁克林区), the Bronx (布朗克斯区), Staten Island and Queens (昆斯区). Manhattan is not only a financial but also an entertainment center, and you will find

7、 Broadway, Times Square, Wall Street, Fifth Avenue and Central Park here. The headquarters of the United Nations is also located in New York and the Statue of Liberty standing at the gate of New York Harbor is the symbol of America.,The nations gateway to immigration From upper left: Manhattan south

8、 of Rockefeller Center, the Brooklyn Bridge, United Nations Headquarters, the Statue of Liberty, and Times Square,Washington,Washington D.C belongs to no state, and is governed directly by the federal government. Washington is the headquarters of all the branches of the American federal system. Wash

9、ington Monument the Lincoln Memorial the Jefferson Memorial the Kennedy Center the Library of Congress,Top left: Georgetown University; top right: U.S. Capitol; middle: Washington Monument; bottom left: African American Civil War Memorial; bottom right: National Shrine,San Francisco and Los Angeles,

10、The Golden Gate Bridge is a spectacular scene for visitors. Chinatown in San Francisco is the largest Chinese settlement in the United States. Los Angeles is the second largest city in America. It has become an important electronic center. Hollywood located in Los Angeles is regarded as the heart of

11、 worlds motion picture industry. The world famous Disneyland here attracts millions of tourists every year.,Los Angeles Images, from top, left to right: Downtown Los Angeles in winter, Venice, Los Angeles, California, Griffith Observatory, Hollywood Sign,San Francisco,Chicago,Chicago, the Windy City

12、, is the nations third largest city. Founded in the early 1800s, Chicago served as the main connection between the eastern coast cities and the West. The city is now the largest industrial city in the country where both heavy and light industries are highly developed. It is also a cultural center, f

13、or it has one of the worlds best collections of modem architecture, such as the 110-story Sears Tower (西尔斯大厦) and the Art Institute of Chicago.,From top left: Chicago Theatre, the Willis (formerly Sears Tower), the University of Chicago, the skyline from the Museum Campus, Navy Pier, the Field Museu

14、m, and Crown Fountain in Millennium Park,People,Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era. Historically, the country has been dominated by a settler society of religiously and ethnically diverse Whites. The heaviest burdens of racism in the country have historically f

15、allen upon Native Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans, American Jews, Irish Americans and some other immigrant groups and their descendants (the definition of White has changed over time; many European groups, such as Irish and Italians, were not considered White when they

16、 first immigrated to the United States, and were victims of racial discrimination at that time). White Americans occasionally do experience racial discrimination; it is disputed whether this is properly termed racism, and, in general, since other groups have less economic and social power, it is unc

17、ommon that such discrimination has the power to seriously harm Whites.,Major racially structured institutions include slavery, Indian reservations, segregation, residential schools (for Native Americans), internment camps, and affirmative action. Racial stratification has occurred in employment, hou

18、sing, education and government. Formal racial discrimination was largely banned in the mid-20th century, and it came to be perceived as socially unacceptable and/or morally repugnant as well, yet racial politics remain a major phenomenon.,People,The United States is the third most populous nation in

19、 the world, ranking behind China and India. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (美国人口普查局), America reached a milestone on October 17, 2006, with its population hitting 300 million. White people constitute about 74.7%, Blacks 12.1%, Asians 4.3%, Native Americans 0.8%, Native Hawaiians and other Pacif

20、ic Islanders 0.1%, mixed-race people 1.9% and others 6%.,The distribution of the population in the U.S. is rather uneven. The most densely populated region is the northeastern part of the country. The region takes up about one quarter of the total land area, but about half of the population is livin

21、g there. The Great Plains are an area with a comparatively small population. The South has a population of almost 57.5 million people. The West is not densely populated, except for some metropolitan centers like Los Angeles and San Francisco. At present the West has about 20% of the nations populati

22、on but is expected to grow faster than any other region in America.,Nation of immigrates,History (1) Indians from Bering Strait 2.4 millions Western Movement Reservations (2) The majority of American people are descendants of the European immigrants. It is not easy to ascertain the exact time when t

23、heir ancestors first came to settle. However, modern Americans look back to their Pilgrim Fathers, a group of Puritans who came from England in 1620, as a symbol of their origins in this new country.,(3) African American 8 millions bought in as slaves from 1620 to 1820 Today about 12 % of Americas p

24、opulation is black. Many African Americans live in the South and in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.,Civil Rights marchers at the Lincoln Memorial,(4) After the early periods of settlement, the first sharp increase in immigration took place in the 1830s and 1840s, bringing northern Europeans

25、 and particularly Irish craftsmen displaced by the dreadful poverty of the Great Famine. In the 1880s, another tremendous tide of immigration appeared, this time largely from southern and eastern Europe.,Chinese immigration,In the early 19th century, laws limited Asian immigration. Asians in the Uni

26、ted States such as Chinese and Japanese who had come to California met with widespread discrimination. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments (移民与国籍法修订案) gave an equal chance to all foreigners seeking entry to the United States regardless of where they came from. In the 1980s, almos

27、t half of all immigrants were Asians. Many settled in California, Hawaii, New York and Texas. Among them, the Chinese Americans have proved to be industrious, intelligent and doing fine today.,A Sinophobic cartoon called Yellow terror appearing in the United States in 1899,An Assyrian church vandali

28、zed in Detroit (2007). Assyrians, although not Arabs and mostly Christians, often face backlash in the US for their Middle Eastern background,A man holding a sign that reads deport all Iranians and get the hell out of my country during a protest of the Iran hostage crisis in Washington, D.C. in 1979

29、.,Racial Assimilation,The dominant American culture is English-speaking, western European, Protestant, and middle-class in character. The first immigrants formed the lands basic cultural values as freedom, equality and desire to work hard for a higher standard of living.,In its early years the United States