KG Kozinova

It isn´t so difficult to find the USA on the map. It is the fourth largest country in the world. It borders on Canada in the North and on Mexico on the South. In the beginning I should mention the most important and famous places of the United States of America. The capital of the USA is Washington DC. It can be found near the east coastline of America. There is the White house and the Capital – both the popular political symbols of America. But we can find there a lot of historical and technological museums as well.

Washington D.C. is the capital, but there is another city, which is – in my opinion – still more popular then Washington. It‘s called New York and it‘s one of the symbols of America: hamburgers, skyscrapes, chips, Coca-cola, Hollywood and New York. New York's center is the island of Manhattan – peculiar part of the city, because there are only tall skyscrapers and the streets are laid out in a strict „grid“ system. They are called Avenues and most of them have got numbers, not names. Only one street doesn‘t respect their system. It‘s Brodway – popular place of theatres, which stretches across the whole Manhattan from the South-west to the North-east. Every dramatic artist, every actor‘s dream is performing in Brodway. Popular Czech couple Voskovec&Werich performed there too.

New York is a city of skyscrapes, but not only – in the middle of Manhattan is large Central park with plenty of greenery, trees, lakes and so on. I mentioned Hollywood, among the symbols of America. Hollywood belongs to Los Angels, it‘s Los Angel‘s suburb. Hollywood can be found in California, in the Pacific Coast, and this part is famous as a center of films, film actors, directors, singers and so-called celebrities and also as a center of spectacular ceremonies, parties and so on.

And everyone, who likes night life and millions of dollars knows Las Vegas, „sin city“, the place, which is well known for a lot of casinos. You can win – but lose as well. Unfortunately, the second posibility is much more probable. Other big and famous cities are for example Chicago, capital of Illionis, by Lake Michigan, Detroit as a capital of state Michigan, Phoenix (Arizona), San Diego, Philadelphia by New York, Salt Lake City – there were Olympic games a few years ago, I don‘t know exactly, perhaps in 2002.

United States are country of enormous differences. We can find big and noisy cities there, but also wonderful nature, great lakes, forests, rivers, dramatic coast lines and mountains. There are several natural parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Yellowstone is the oldest national park in the world and it extends (streches) to Wyoming. Various canyons, fosil forests, geysers (hot springs) and waterfalls belong to it. There are lot of tourists in Yellowstone national park every year, And there are also various species of animals – they are, besides tourists, grizzly, elk, buffalo, coyote... And whole Yellowstone i protected by UNESCO, as well as the another national park – Yosemite.

Yosemite extends to Kalifornia and is famous for wonderful forms of rocks, glaciery Yosemit valey and the waterfal of the sama name – the third tallest waterfall in the world.

Additional fascinating part of nature is, of course, the Grand Canyon by the river Colorado in Arizona.Grand Canyon takes over 300 km and this place is very attractive for tourists, of course, especially for rich tourists... These three parks are in the West of USA, in the land of mountains and rocks. Eastern half of America is lower, there aren‘t any large mountains, but the five Great Lakes can be found on the border with Canada. The largest one is Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Huron, Ontario and Erie are the others... Only Lake Erie lies fully in the USA. And they are really great, for imaginatin – Lake Superior is as large as the whole Czech republic, maybe larger!

And something about rivers. The most popular and also the longest river is Mississippi, running to the South, to the Mexican bay. Mississippi meets Ohio, Missoui, Arkansas and Red River on its way. Another is Colorado – two times, in the West and also in the East, Snake River and - on the border with Mexico – Rio Grande.

And I can´t forget Alaska, a land, which is in the far North and it is the part of the USA. Alaska is a place of wildlife and ruthless natur, with bears in the deep forests. It is rich of minerals and it was dream place for Agronauts or gold diggers in the past.

Klára Zindulková, oktáva