The picture is from Visual China, Chicago, USA, by Lake Michigan, this article is fromWeChat public account: Earth Knowledge Bureau (ID: diqiuzhishiju)< / span> , author: Sue that day, drawing: Sun green, proofreading: cat Stewart, editor: Yakult
If you ask which country in the world can be called a heaven, many people think of the United States first. Compared with China’s 12% plain terrain, the American plains occupy 50% of its territory, and the conditions are really superior.
Central US (upper) and Henan (lower) at the same scale
One place is wide and people are sparse, one is narrow and people are thick
(Image: google map)▼
The Great Plains region of the United States can be roughly divided into three parts: the Great Mississippi River Plain from the Rocky Mountains to the East to the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Lakes along the Lake Plain in the northeast, and the Appalachian Mountains to Eastern coastal plain.
Although there are Appalachian Mountains in the east, they are gentler
Most of the East of the Rocky Mountains is a vast plain
(base image: shutterstock@Anton Shahrai)▼
But when the United States just got this piece of land in the early days, it faced a problem, that is, a severe split between east and west. The presence of the Appalachian Mountains and western Florida in the south hindered the initial independence of the 13 eastern states from entering the vast land of the west. The Great Lakes region and the Mississippi River Basin are also not connected. The agricultural products in the west and the industrial manufactured products in the east are at the stage of self-production and self-sale.
So, opening up the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River channels has become a key measure for the United States to upgrade its geopolitical conditions.
Integrating a continent
The Great Lakes, composed of five lakes in North America, are the largest freshwater in the world, so the Great Lakes are known as the “North American Mediterranean”. The area along the Great Lakes is therefore called the “third coast” of the United States after the east and west coasts. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and other cities are located here. Today’s Great Lakes region has a population of one-sixth of the United States and is the most important industrial area in the entire Western Hemisphere.
The Great Lakes are on both sides of the United States and CanadaVital
The Great Lakes are connected to the St. Lawrence River in Canada (the United States also accounts for a part)
Naturally, the United States also hopes that the Great Lakes can be connected to the East Coast and the Mississippi River
(Landscape View)▼
The Greater Mississippi River Basin, which covers an area of about 3 million square kilometers, covers most of the arable land in the United States. Unlike most large river basins in the Old Continent, the Mississippi River Basin has flat terrain, large river flow, and slow flow. Through the Mississippi River system, it can penetrate into all corners of the central United States.
True, Greater Mississippi…
(Landscape View)▼
Due to the dense river network, any large farmland in the central United States will not be more than 200 kilometers away from the shipping channel. The ubiquitous inland ports have maximized the production potential of this third of the United States.
St. Louis City-Along the Mississippi River
Its role is equivalent to the Yangtze River in China
(Image: google map)▼
The gentle large river basin is very valuable geographically, greatly reducing the difficulty of the early mainland government’s political integration of the region. Geographical tendencies are inevitable, but by this time the aboriginal rebels have been slaughtered and the remaining Indians have been driven to the reservation, and the internal pressure of white immigrants is resolved by the expansion of the west.
Indians can only push towards the more arid and barren wilderness in the west
But white people also follow one after another, then escape from the west to the west…
(Image: shutterstock@Everett Historical)▼
Crossing the Appalachian Mountains eastward from the Greater Mississippi River Basin is the independent land of the United States. Many well-known cities on the East Coast are located here, such as Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.There are more ports along the western coast than the rest of the entire Western Hemisphere.
For Europeans who were already narrow and crowded at the time
If you have nothing, the United States is a real lighthouse
(Image: shutterstock@Everett Historical)▼
In 1803, the United States acquired large areas of land west of the Mississippi River through the purchase of Louisiana. In 1810, the Republic of West Florida declared its independence. A few months later, the Stars and Stripes rose here, and since then, all parts of the Mississippi River Basin have been incorporated into US territory.
After the East Coast, the Great Lakes region, and the Greater Mississippi River Basin have become US territories, the United States theoretically has the potential to grow into a superpower, but it still has shortcomings.
Although I bought unusually large land
But Americans still lack awareness of the Midwest, and the map is rough
Interested readers can take a closer look at the following
Can you find the Great Lakes and Mississippi River?
(1803 map, picture: shutterstock@Everett Historical)▼