The US landscape can be roughly divided into three regions. From north to south run the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Rocky Mountains with the coastal mountains in the west. In between, the Mississippi-Missouri plains spread out.
In front of the Appalachians is the 200 km wide Atlantic coastal plain with the Florida peninsula, which is made up of sand and gravel. The bays reaching deep into the land, the sandy beaches and marshy lowlands were created by the sea.
The more than 2,000 m high Appalachian Mountains formed a basis for the development of heavy industry for a long time due to their coal deposits. Today the wooded mountainous country is a popular local recreation area for city dwellers from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or Washington. United States is a country located in North America according to PHARMACYLIB.COM.
The vast Mississippi plains, made up of sand and clay deposits, lie in a geological subsidence zone. The higher plateaus and plateaus consist of horizontally stored limestones, sandstones and gray to red colored clay stones. Rivers that flow inland from the Rocky Mountains have cut up the plateaus and created fantastic landscapes such as the Badlands or the “gardens of God” near Denver.
Traces of the Ice Age can be found almost 1,000 km around the Great Lakes. The basins of the Great Lakes were carved out by glaciers, with the Upper Lake reaching a depth of 221 m below sea level. The ice that had advanced south from the Labrador area in Canada towards the Mississippi has built terminal moraine hills around the Great Lakes, and the meltwater has created plains on which a wide fertile loess belt stretching from Iowa to Indiana has formed.
The western half of the country is mountainous. The high mountains of the Rocky Mountains rise above 4,000 m, followed by high basins and high plateaus with deep gorges, such as the Grand Canyon or the Bryce Canyon. Near the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada rises again with a height of over 4,000 m. This high mountain range is bounded by deeply broken trenches such as the California Long Valley and the Valley of Death, which lies up to 85.95 m below sea level.
On the western edge, the American continent has broken into many individual blocks. The fault lines of the St. Andrew’s Trench run through the coastal mountains between San Francisco and Los Angelesthat caused the 1906 San Francisco and 1971 Los Angeles earthquakes. Every day, the movements of the continent parts cause earthquakes, which are usually not felt. After that it is questionable how long the next big earthquake will be waiting. Numerous volcanic cones have formed along the fault lines, including the still active Mount St. Helens in Washington State and the volcanic landscapes in Wyoming’s Yellowstone Park. The many earthquakes and volcanic phenomena indicate the geologically young age of the mountains, which have existed for 60 million years.
Alaska, the northernmost part of the USA in the sub-polar region between the 60th and 70th parallel, shows a landscape structure similar to that of the mountainous west of the USA. The Alaska range, which rises up to 6,194 m and is volcanically very active, runs along the Pacific coast. The Yukon Basin connects to the north, bounded by the 2,749 m high Brooks range. The transition to the Arctic Ocean is formed by the oil-bearing coastal plain, which is up to 250 km wide.
USA – important addresses
Visit USA Committee Germany eV Germany (Association of the Tourist Offices of the individual US states): mainoffice business center
Mainzer Landstrasse 176, 60327 Frankfurt / M
Telephone: (07000) 396 8411 Fax: (07000) 101 2714
email: info @ vusa-germany. de
Opening times for telephone inquiries: Mon – Fri 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Travel Industry Association of America: 1100 New York Avenue, NW,
Suite 450, US-Washington, DC 20005-3934
Telephone: (202) 408 8422, Fax: (202) 408 1255
email: feedback@tia.org
Embassy of the USA in Germany : Mr. John Monroe Koenig, Minister Counselor (Chargé d’affaires ai),
Pariser Platz 2, D-10117 Berlin
Telephone: (030) 238 5174, Fax: (030) 8305 2050
Opening times: Mon – Fri 8.30 a.m. – 5.30 p.m.
Consular section of the US Embassy in Germany : Clayallee 170,
14195 Berlin
Telephone: (0900) 185 0055 (1.86 euros / min, Mon – Fri 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m., general information, form orders and appointments), Fax: (030) 831 4926 or (0900) 185 0058
A branch office of The US embassy is in Bonn (phone: (0228) 329 2682).
The USA maintains consulates general (with visa issuance) in
Frankfurt / M (phone: (069) 75350) and
Munich (phone: (089) 28880).
Consulates General of the USA (without issuing a visa) are located in
Düsseldorf (phone: (0211) 788 8927),
Leipzig (phone: (0341) 213 8410) and
Hamburg (Tel: (040) 411 7100)
There is a consular agency for the USA in Bremen (phone: (0421) 301 5860).
Embassy of the USA in Austria : Boltzmanngasse 16,
1090 Vienna
Telephone: (01) 31 3390, Fax: (01) 310 0682
email: embassy@usembassy.at
Opening times: Mon – Fri 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Consular section of the US Embassy in Austria : Parkring 12a,
1010 Vienna
Telephone: (01) 31339 7591 (information about visas), (0900) 51 0300 (2.16 Euro / min, Mon – Fri 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.), Fax: (01) 512 5835
email: ConsulateVienna @ state. gov
opening times Mon – Fri 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. (by prior arrangement, but not open to the public).
Embassy of the USA in Switzerland: Jubiläumsstrasse 93,
3005 Bern
Telephone: (031) 357 7011, Fax: (031) 357 7344
Opening times: Mon – Fri 9 a.m. – 12.30 p.m. and 1.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. (telephone questions).
Consular section of the US Embassy in Switzerland : Jubiläumsstrasse 95,
3005 Bern
Telephone: (0900) 87 8472 (CHF 2.50 / min, Mon – Fri 8.30 a.m. – 5.30 p.m.), Fax: (031) 357 7398
Opening times: Mon – Fri 9.00 a.m. – 11.30 a.m. (by prior arrangement)
The USA has consular agencies in Zurich and Geneva.
Embassy of Germany in the USA : Dr. Klaus Scharioth, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary,
4645 Reservoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20007-1998
Telephone: (001202) 298 4000, Fax: (001202) 298 4249, 333 2653
email: info@washington.diplo.de
Pots address: Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 4645 Reservoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20007-1998, USA
Embassy of Austria in the USA: 3524 International Court, NW,
Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: (001 202) 895 67 00, Fax: (001 202) 895 67 73
email: washington-ob@bmaa.gv.at
Embassy of Switzerland in the USA: 2900 Cathedral Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20008-3499
Telephone: (001202) 745 79 00, Fax: (001202) 387 25 64
email: vertretung@was.rep.admin.ch
