Disclaimer : All efforts have been made to make this image accurate. However Compare Infobase Limited,its directors and employees do not own any responsibility for the correctness or authenticity of the same.
|
More Maps you may want to look at |
The
United States location in the mid-latitude region of the North American landmass flanked by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on either side and its vast territorial extension lends it great physical diversity and variety of landscape. Mountains, plateaus, flat lowlands,
deserts, coastal plains, rivers and lakes mark the varied physical topography of the United States.
One of the most striking physical regions of the United States is the interior of the country, which is a vast sprawling lowland that extends from the Gulf of Mexico in the southeast to the Canadian Shield in the north and then on to Alaska. This vast expanse of flat land and gently rolling hills may be further sub-divided into three different physical sub-regions -the
Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains, the
Great Plains, and the
Canadian Shield. The Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains runs north from the border with Mexico along the east coast of the United States and reaches the margins of New England. These coastal lowlands extend well out beneath the ocean to form the continental shelf which at places extends as much as 400 km beyond the coastline. The Canadian Shield, which is to the north and northeast of the interior Great Plains, is a region made up of hard ancient crystalline rocks that have undergone massive continental glaciations. The interior lowland and the Great Plains are however characterized by flat sedimentary deposits with no great topographical variation. This region forms the agricultural core of the United States and is largely drained by the
Mississippi river and its tributaries. The Great Plains and the interior lowlands are separated from the coastal plains and the Atlantic seaboard of America by the
Appalachians, which are a largely unbroken highland chain that are eroded remnants of a much higher mountain system.
Beyond the western border of the interior lowlands
lies the mighty
Cordillera System, which constitutes much of Western United States and occupies one-third of the country's physical territory. The Great Cordillera region is a land of mountains and dissected plateaus and is therefore marked by great and sudden changes in elevation. On the eastern margins of the Cordillera region lie the
Rocky Mountains, which constitute a broken chain of high mountains that extend from the state of New Mexico up to the border with Canada. The western margins of the Cordillera are formed by the high and rugged mountains and inland valleys of the
Pacific coastal chain that rises abruptly from the sea. In between these two high mountain ranges lie a series of highly dissected intermontane plateaus and isolated ranges. Prominent among these plateaus is the
Colorado Plateau, which is a region, constituted by thick beds of sedimentary deposits and marked by spectacular canyons and sandy deserts.
View mapsofworld for more information on United States Physical Map.
