Geo&Cult2 - Final Booklet

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA
INGLESA II
Prof. Jess Centeno

Camargo
INSTITUCIN: IES del Atuel

CARRERA: Profesorado de Ingls
ASIGNATURA: ESTUDIOS: Geografa y Cultura Inglesa II
do
CURSO: 2 ao
PROFESOR: Jess Centeno Camargo
RGIMEN DE CURSADO: Cuatrimestral
ESTRUCTURA DE LA ASIGNATURA: Mdulo
CARGA HORARIA TOTAL: 4hs
PROGRAMA
FUNDAMENTACIN
En esta unidad curricular se abordan en forma integrada los aspectos, conceptos y realidades que
hacen a la cultura y geografa de los Estados Unidos de Amrica y otros pases de habla inglesa
como Australia, Canad, Nueva Zelanda. Mediante material genuino, los alumnos, futuros
docente, se enriquecen y familiarizan con la cultura de la lengua que aspiran a ensear.
Los contenidos se analizan y estudian dentro de un marco global, comparando la inferencia que
dicha cultura tiene en la realidad mundial contempornea. Estos contenidos estn trabajados en
forma transversal, simultnea e integrada con los contenidos conceptuales propios de la lengua
inglesa. Asimismo, los contenidos propios de la asignatura se comparan y estudian teniendo en
cuenta la importancia del conocimiento de la cultura cuya lengua se pretende ensear.
ESPECTATIVAS DE LOGRO
Conocer los aspectos de las culturas de origen de la lengua inglesa y de la nueva cultura global
Apreciar las pautas culturales como diferentes y respetar la diversidad
Establecer una comparacin de aspectos culturales de la lengua extranjera con la propia
Lograr una competencia intercultural que permita contar con criterios de contextualizacin
pertinentes
Integrar los objetivos especficos de la materia con los generales de la carrera a fin de lograr un
dominio integral de la lengua extranjera.
CONTENIDOS CONCEPTUALES
1.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: General features

Geography Handout
1.1.
History
1.2.
The American People
1.3.
The Political System and Economy
1.4.
Religion and family
1.5.
The Educational System
1.6.
Culture, Leisure and Entertainment
1.7.
Celebrations
Constitution Handout
History Handout
2. US REGIONS
3. WebQuests and Oral presentations:
Northeast Region
South East Region
Midwest Region
Southwest Region
The West Region
3.1.
New England, New York and the Mid-Atlantic Region
3.2.
The South
3.3.
The Midwest
3.4.
The Southwest
3.5.
The Rocky Mountain Region
3.6.
The Pacific Northwest and Alaska
3.7.
California and Hawaii
US Region Chart
4.
CANADA
4.1.
History
Spotlight on the USA
INSTITUCIN: IES del Atuel

CARRERA: Profesorado de Ingls
ASIGNATURA: ESTUDIOS: Geografa y Cultura Inglesa II
do
CURSO: 2 ao
PROFESOR: Jess Centeno Camargo
RGIMEN DE CURSADO: Cuatrimestral
ESTRUCTURA DE LA ASIGNATURA: Mdulo
CARGA HORARIA TOTAL: 4hs
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
4.5.
4.6.
Geography
Government and politics
Economy
Demographics
Culture
Handout 3
Chart and maps
5.
AUSTRALIA
5.1.
History
5.2.
Politics
5.3.
States and territories
5.4.
Environment
5.5.
Economy
5.6.
Demography
5.7.
Culture
Chart and maps
6.
NEW ZEALAND
6.1.
History
6.2.
Politics
6.3.
States and territories
6.4.
Environment
6.5.
Economy
6.6.
Demography
6.7.
Culture
Chart and maps
Bibliografa
Randee Falk,Spotlight on the USA, Oxford American English, 1993
Ani Hawkinson and Raymon C. Clark, Living in the United States, Pro Lingua, 2006
McDougal Littell, American History, 2008.
G. K. Chesterton, Mi vision de Estados Unidos, Losada, 2010
National Gepgraphic Society, An Outline of the American Geography, United States

Information Agency.
Webliografa
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA ON LINE. http://www.britannica.com/
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/mapping/interactive-map/
WIKIPEDIA. http://www.wikipedia.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand
9-011 IES DEL ATUEL

TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE
GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA
INGLESA II
In God We Trust
Prof. Jess Centeno Camargo
GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II

Map-Maker Assignment
Hello everyone! In this assignment you will work with just one resource which is available in the
National Geographic website. So, ready steady GO!
1.
Go to:
2.
Select a state of the USA: ___________________________________
3.
Exploring the tools
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/mapping/interactive-map/
a. Go to the state you have selected. For example: Iowa

b. In THEMES (A), select the gray one (B) in order to identify easily the colors with the
information that you need.
c. Start analyzing the different points in A1 so as to complete THE CHART (See the last page of
this handout) with the information about the state you have chosen.
4.
Keep exploring the drawing tools (C). In there, you will have the option to label (D) paramount
information in your map among other tools such as: drawing straight and free form lines,
polygons, etc.

5.
The website also offers a variety of markers (E) that you will use to illustrate your map.
6.
Just drag and drop (F) the markers onto the map and thats it!
7.
Add accurate information in the map of the state you have chosen. You may check details from an
encyclopedia. The more, the merrier!
8.
Finally, send the map to your teachers e-mail (G): jes_centeno@hotmail.com
9.
The dead-line is on:____________________________
10.
THE CHART. Complete the chart with the information that you observe using the MapMaker.
Write sentences!

Students name: ___________________________________
State of
Ocean Surface
Currents
Ocean Chlorophyll
Physical SystemWater
Sea TemperatureSummer
Sea TemperatureWinter
Earthquakes
Volcanic Eruptions
Physical SystemLand
Plate Tectonic
Surface Elevations
Climate Zone
Physical SystemClimate
Precipitations/Rainfall
__________________________________

Temp.-Summer
Temp.-Winter
Density
Human SystemsPopulation and

Culture
Major Religions
Language Diversity
Human SystemsPolitical and

Economic
Global Time Zone
Lights at night
Environment and
Society
Human Footprints
Land Cover
Comments about the use of the e-tool (this is compulsory):________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Geografa y Cultura Inglesa 2
I Walk Across America

Students name: _________________________
Guys, welcome to your first assignment!

Were gonna go on a journey around the Statesa fun
getaway from college? Well, in fa t its a virtual
extended travel in the shoes of a guy (whose name is
Ritchie ).
Please, watch the YouTube video by clicking the
following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md6Zdthun44
Then, mark in the map the possible tour round Ritchie does. Draw a line and label the cities
or places that you recognize. Some hints! He starts in NY and finishes in CA going from East to
West.
Finally,
write a essay des
ri ing Rit hies itinerary. Consider the relief, weather, landmarks
and some other features in the video that make his tour a great experience to tell and share.
Use between 280 and 320 words.
Print this file before the deadline (
@ PM), Break a leg!!!!
GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA
Name __________________________________________________________ Date __________________________
Bill of Rights
2000 - 2004 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
www.TeacherVision.com
Page 8
Edited by Foxit Reader

Copyright(C) by Foxit Corporation,2005-2009
For Evaluation Only.
See this Youtube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Wwio6E7Fw
United States
United States of America
Flag
Great Seal
Motto: In God We Trust (official)

E Pluribus Unum (traditional)
(Latin: Out of Many, One)
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled
The United States of America (also called the United States, the
States, the U.S., the U.S.A., and America) is a federal constitutional
republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is
mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous
states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the
Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and
Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the
continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the
Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the midPacific. The country also possesses several territories in the
Caribbean and Pacific.
Banner"
Washington, D.C.
Capital
3853N 7701W
Largest city
New York City
Official language(s)
None at federal level
National language
English (de facto)
Demonym
American
Government
Federal presidential
constitutional republic
President
Barack Obama (D)
Vice President
Joe Biden (D)
Speaker of the House
John Boehner (R)
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Congress
Legislature
Upper House
Senate
Lower House
House of
Representatives
Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain

Declared
July 4, 1776
Recognized September 3, 1783

Current
June 21, 1788
constitution
Area
Total
9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th)

3,794,101 sq mi
Water (%)
6.76
Population
2010 census 308,745,538 (3rd)
Density
33.7/km2
87.4/sq mi
GDP (PPP)
2010 estimate
Total
$14.780 trillion (1st)
Per capita
$47,123[3] (6th)
GDP (nominal)
2010 estimate
Total
$14.780 trillion[3] (1st)
Per capita
$47,132[3] (9th)
Gini (2007)
HDI (2010)
45.0[1] (39th)
0.902[4] (very high) (4th)
Currency
United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone
(UTC5 to 10)
Summer (DST)
(UTC4 to 10)
Date formats
m/d/yy (AD)
Drives on the
right
Internet TLD
.us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code
+1
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 310
million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest
country by total area, and the third largest both by land area and
population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and
multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from
many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national
economy, with an estimated 2010 GDP of $14.780 trillion (23% of
nominal global GDP and 20% of global GDP at purchasing-power
parity).
Indigenous peoples of Asian origin have inhabited what is now the
mainland United States for many thousands of years. This Native
American population was greatly reduced by disease and warfare
after European contact. The United States was founded by thirteen
British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4,
1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which
proclaimed their right to self-determination and their establishment
of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated the British
Empire in the American Revolution, the first successful colonial war
of independence. The current United States Constitution was
adopted on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year
made the states part of a single republic with a strong central
government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional
amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and
freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
Through the 19th century, the United States displaced native tribes,
acquired the Louisiana territory from France, Florida from Spain,
part of the Oregon Country from the United Kingdom, Alta
California and New Mexico from Mexico, Alaska from Russia, and
annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii.
Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over the
expansion of the institution of slavery and states' rights provoked the
Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent
split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United
States. By the 1870s, its national economy was the world's largest.
The SpanishAmerican War and World War I confirmed the
country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II
as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member
of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War
and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the
sole superpower. The country accounts for 41% of global military
spending, and it is a leading economic, political, and cultural force
in the world.

Contents
1 Etymology
2 Geography and environment
o 2.1 Political divisions
3 History
o 3.1 Native American and European settlement
o 3.2 Independence and expansion
o 3.3 Civil War and industrialization
o 3.4 World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
o 3.5 Cold War and protest politics
o 3.6 Contemporary era
4 Government, elections, and politics
o 4.1 Parties and ideology
5 Foreign relations and military
6 Economy
o 6.1 Income and human development
7 Infrastructure
o 7.1 Science and technology
o 7.2 Transportation
o 7.3 Energy
o 7.4 Education
o 7.5 Health
8 Crime and law enforcement
9 Demographics
o 9.1 Language
o 9.2 Religion
o 9.3 Family structure
10 Culture
o 10.1 Popular media
o 10.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts
o 10.3 Food
o 10.4 Sports
o 10.5 Measurement systems
11 See also
12 References
13 External links
1. Etymology
In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemller produced a world map on which he named the
lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.
The former British colonies first used the country's modern name in the 1776 Declaration of
Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America". On November 15,
1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile
of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The Franco-American treaties of 1778
used "United States of North America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was used on
the country's bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since.
The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include the "U.S.", the "USA",
and "America". Colloquial names include the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States".
"Columbia", a once popular name for the United States, derives from Christopher Columbus; it appears
in the name "District of Columbia".
The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an "American". Although "United
States" is the official appositional term, "American" and "U.S." are more commonly used to refer to the
country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to
people not connected to the United States.
The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plurale.g., "the United States are"including in
the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to
treat it as singulare.g., "the United States is"after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is
now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".
2. Geography and environment

The land area of the contiguous United States is approximately 1,900 million acres (7,700,000 km2).
Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 365 million acres
(1,480,000 km2). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America,
has just over 4 million acres (16,000 km2). The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation
by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above or below China. The
ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the
total size of the United States is measured: calculations range from 3,676,486 square miles (9,522,055
km2) to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091 km2) to 3,794,101 square miles (9,826,676 km2). Including
only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia
and China, just ahead of Canada.
Satellite image showing topography of the contiguous United States
The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further

inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont.
The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from
the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The
MississippiMissouri River, the world's fourth longest river
system, runs mainly northsouth through the heart of the
country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region
in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south
across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are
the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges
run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the tallest peak in
the country and in North America. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and
Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone
National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.
The bald eagle, national bird of the United States since 1782
The United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate
types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in
the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is
Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the
Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the
Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and
southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme weather is not uncommonthe states
bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within
the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.
The U.S. ecology is considered "megadiverse": about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the
contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii,
few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to more than 400 mammal, 750 bird,
and 500 reptile and amphibian species. About 91,000 insect species have been described. The
Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which
are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and
hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas. Altogether, the government
owns 28.8% of the country's land area. Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas
drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is used for military purposes.
Political divisions
The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the
thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Early in the country's history, three new states were
organized on territory separated from the claims of the existing states: Kentucky from Virginia;
Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. Most of the other states have been

carved from territories obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions
comprises Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the union.
During the American Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state
Hawaiiachieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The states do not have the right to secede from the
union.
The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of
the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located;
and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The United States
also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the
Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in
the major territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S. citizenship. American citizens residing
in the territories have many of the same rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states;
however, they are generally exempt from federal income tax, may not vote for president, and have only
nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress.
3. History
Native American and European settlement
The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, are believed to have migrated
from Asia, beginning between 12,000 and 40,000 years ago. Some, such as the pre-Columbian
Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies.
After Europeans began settling the Americas, many millions of indigenous Americans died from
epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.
The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as

depicted in William Halsall's The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, 1882
In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract

to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making
first contact with the indigenous people. On April 2, 1513, Spanish
conquistador Juan Ponce de Len landed on what he called "La Florida"the first documented
European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland. Spanish settlements in the region were
followed by ones in the present-day southwestern United States that drew thousands through Mexico.
French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually
claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English
settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620.
The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New
England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American
Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies. Beginning in 1614, the
Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was
renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servantssome
two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680. By the turn of the 18th century, African
slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and
the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of
America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a
growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating
support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates,
and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the
1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In
the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone
population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans
(popularly known as "American Indians"), who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a
population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were
black slaves. Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the
Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 181718
Tensions between American colonials and the British during the

revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American
Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 to 1781. On June 14, 1775, the
Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a
Continental Army under the command of George Washington.
Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights", the
Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4,
1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of
Confederation established a weak confederal government that operated until 1789.

After the British defeat by American forces assisted by the French and Spanish, Great Britain
recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory
west to the Mississippi River. Those wishing to establish a strong national government with powers of
taxation organized a constitutional convention in 1787. The United States Constitution was ratified in
1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and presidentGeorge
Washingtontook office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal
freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.
Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the African slave trade
only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states
of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution". The Second Great Awakening, beginning about
1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.
Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars. The Louisiana
Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the
nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw,
strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and
other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal
policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in
1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time. The 1846 Oregon Treaty with
Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the MexicanAmerican War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American
Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 184849 further spurred western migration. New railways
made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century,
up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the
railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential
blow to many native cultures.
Civil War and industrialization

Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863
Tensions between slave and free states mounted with

arguments over the relationship between the state and federal
governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of
slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the
largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in
1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their
secessionwhich the federal government maintained was illegaland formed the Confederate States
of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the Civil War began and four more slave
states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared slaves in the
Confederacy to be free. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution
ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, made them
citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal
power. The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000
soldiers.
After the war, the assassination of Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at
reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The
resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction;
Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an
unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's
industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed
American culture. National infrastructure development spurred economic growth. The 1867 Alaska
Purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee Massacre in
1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the
Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the United States
annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the SpanishAmerican War the same year demonstrated
that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the

Philippines. The Philippines gained independence a half-century later;
Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.
Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York Harbor, 1902
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral.
Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many
opposed intervention. In 1917, the United States joined the Allies, helping to
turn the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, the Senate did not
ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The
country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism. In 1920,
the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage.
The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the
Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the
New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The Dust Bowl of
the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a
new wave of western migration.
Soldiers of the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division landing in Normandy on D-Day,
June 6, 1944
The United States, effectively neutral during World War II's early stages
after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began
supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941,
the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the
Allies against the Axis powers as well as the internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands.
Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial capacity. Among the major
combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richerindeed, far richerinstead of
poorer because of the war. Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of
international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs.
As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the
United Nations Charter, which became active after the war. The United States, having developed the
first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan
surrendered on September 2, ending the war.
Cold War and protest politics

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963
The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II
during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO
and the Warsaw Pact, respectively. While they engaged in proxy wars and
developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military
conflict. Resisting leftist land and income redistribution projects around the
world, the United States often supported authoritarian governments. American
troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 195053. The House Un-American
Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator
Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.
The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the United
States to be first to land "a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown
with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing
civil rights movement, symbolized and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and
James Bevel, used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's
assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under

President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in
Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew,
fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria
Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for
women.
As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, to avoid
being impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by
Vice President Gerald Ford. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by
stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a
rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His
second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the
Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War.
Contemporary era
Under President George H. W. Bush, the United States took a lead role in the UNsanctioned Gulf War.
The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. historyfrom March 1991 to March 2001
encompassed the Bill Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble. A civil lawsuit and sex scandal
led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of
the closest in American history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decisionGeorge W. Bush, son
of George H. W. Bush, became president.
The World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade
Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C.,
killing nearly three thousand people. In response, the Bush
administration launched the global War on Terror. In October 2001,
U.S. forces led an invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban
government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue
to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press
for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds. Lacking the
support of NATO or an explicit UN mandate for military intervention,
Bush organized a Coalition of the Willing; coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, removing dictator
Saddam Hussein. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the Gulf Coast,
devastating New Orleans. On November 4, 2008, amid a global economic recession the first African
American president, Barack Obama, was elected. In 2010, major health care and financial system
reforms were enacted. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that year became the
largest peacetime oil disaster in history.
4. Government, elections, and politics

The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses
the United States Congress.
The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is
a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in
which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by
[51]
law".
The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S.
Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. In the American federalist system,
citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local
government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all
cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no
proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.
10
The south faade of the White House, home and

workplace of the U.S. president.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the

Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal
law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of
the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which
it can remove sitting members of the government.
Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills
before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval)
and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the
president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.
The west front of the United States Supreme Court

Building.
The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each
representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House
seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth
year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of
one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. The Senate has 100
members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate
seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to
the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral
college system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme Court, led by the
Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion; Nebraska uniquely has a unicameral
legislature. The governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and
cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by
popular vote.
All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review, and any law ruled in violation of
the Constitution is voided. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and
responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One
protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury
trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the
states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make
up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual
rights.
Parties and ideology

Barack Obama taking the presidential oath of office from U.S. Chief Justice John
Roberts, January 20, 2009
The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history.
For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose
the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general
election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in
1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one
third-party presidential candidateformer president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in
1912has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.
11

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or "conservative" and
the Democratic Party is considered center-left or "liberal". The states of the Northeast and West Coast
and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the
South and parts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.
The winner of the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president. The
2010 midterm elections saw the Republican Party take control of the House and make gains in the
Senate, where the Democrats retain the majority. In the 112th United States Congress, the Senate
comprises 51 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans; the
House comprises 242 Republicans and 193 Democrats. There are 29 Republican and 20 Democratic
state governors, as well as one independent.
5. Foreign relations and military

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, May 2010
The United States exercises global economic, political, and
military influence. It is a permanent member of the United
Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United
Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the G8, G20, and
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have consulates around the
country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North
Korea, Bhutan, Libya, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with
the United States.
The United States has a "special relationship" with the United Kingdomand strong ties with Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and several European countries. It
works closely with fellow NATO members on military and security issues and with its neighbors
through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North
American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4
billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large gross
national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among twenty-two donor
states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier
The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed

forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed
forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the
Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In
2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The Reserves and National Guard
brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about
700,000 civilians, not including contractors.
Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service
System. American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the
Navy's eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic
and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments
greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. The extent of this global military
presence has prompted some scholars to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases".
Total U.S. military spending in 2008, more than $600 billion, was over 41% of global military spending
and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. The per capita
spending of $1,967 was about nine times the world average; at 4% of GDP, the rate was the second-
12

highest among the top fifteen military spenders, after Saudi Arabia. The proposed base Department of
Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, is a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion is
proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of September 2010, the United States
is scheduled to have 96,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan, and 50,000 to Iraq. As of July 25, 2011, the
United States had suffered 4,474 military fatalities during the Iraq War, and 1,680 during the War in
Afghanistan.
6. Economy
Unemployment
GDP growth
CPI inflation
Poverty
Public debt
Household net worth
Economic indicators
9.2% (June 2011)
1.8% (1Q 2011), 2.9% (2009 2010)
3.6% (June 2010 June 2011)
14.3% (2009)
$14.34 trillion (July 21, 2011)
$58.1 trillion (1Q 2011)
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a
well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. According to the International Monetary Fund, the
U.S. GDP of $14.780 trillion constitutes 23% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and
over 20% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP). Though larger than any other
nation's, its national GDP is about 5% smaller than the GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2008. The
country ranks ninth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP. The
U.S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency.
The United States is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter, though exports per capita
are relatively low. In 2008, the total U.S. trade deficit was $696 billion. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan,
and Germany are its top trading partners. In 2007, vehicles constituted both the leading import and
leading export commodity. China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt. The United States
ranks fourth in the Global Competitiveness Report.
Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest
bourse by dollar volume
In 2009, the private sector was estimated to constitute 55.3% of

the economy, with federal government activity accounting for
24.1% and state and local government activity (including
federal transfers) the remaining 20.6%. While its economy has
reached a postindustrial level of development and its service
sector constitutes 67.8% of GDP, the United States remains an
industrial power. The leading business field by gross business
receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing. Chemical products are the
leading manufacturing field. The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well
as its largest importer. It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as
liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,[78]
the United States is the world's top producer of corn and soybeans. Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the
two most recognized brands in the world.
In August 2010, the American labor force comprised 154.1 million people. With 21.2 million people,
government is the leading field of employment. The largest private employment sector is health care and
social assistance, with 16.4 million people. About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in
Western Europe. The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.
In 2009, the United States had the third highest labor productivity per person in the world, behind
Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the
Netherlands. Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income tax rates are generally higher,
while labor and, particularly, consumption tax rates are lower.
13
Income and human development

A middle-class single-family home in suburban Salinas, California
According to the United States Census Bureau, the pretax median

household income in 2007 was $49,777. The median ranged from
$65,469 among Asian American households to $32,584 among
African American households. Using purchasing power parity
exchange rates, the overall median is similar to the most affluent
cluster of developed nations. After declining sharply during the
middle of the 20th century, poverty rates have plateaued since the
early 1970s, with 1115% of Americans below the poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at least
one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75. In 2009, 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty.
The U.S. welfare state is one of the least extensive in the developed world, reducing both relative
poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations, though combined
private and public social expenditures per capita are relatively high. While the American welfare state
effectively reduces poverty among the elderly, it provides relatively little assistance to the young. A
2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the United
States next to last.
Between 1947 and 1979, real median income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor
Americans rising faster than those of the rich. Since 1980, the United States has witnessed strong
increases in productivity, low unemployment, and low inflation. However, income gains since 1980
have been slower than in previous decades, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic
insecurity. Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980, largely owing to more
dual-earner households, the closing of the gender gap, and longer work hours, but growth has been
slower and strongly tilted toward the very top (see graph). Consequently, the share of income of the top
1%21.8% of total reported income in 2005has more than doubled since 1980, leaving the United
States with the greatest income inequality among developed nations. The top 1% pays 27.6% of all
federal taxes, while the top 10% pays 54.7% Wealth, like income, is highly concentrated: The richest
10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest
share among developed nations. The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth. In 2010 the United Nations
Development Programme ranked the United States 12th among 139 countries on its inequality-adjusted
human development index (IHDI), eight places lower than in the standard HDI.
7. Infrastructure
Science and technology
A photograph from Apollo 11 of Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon
The United States has been a leader in scientific research and

technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander
Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas
Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light
bulb, and the first viable movie camera. Nikola Tesla pioneered
alternating current, the AC motor, and radio. In the early 20th century,
the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford
popularized the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the
first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.
The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico
Fermi, to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed
nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry,
materials science, and computers. IBM, Apple Computer, and Microsoft refined and popularized the
personal computer. The United States largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet.
Today, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector. The United States
leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor. Americans possess high levels of
14

technological consumer goods,[110] and almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet access.
The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food, representing half of the
world's biotech crops.
Transportation
The Interstate Highway System, which extends 46,876 miles (75,440
km)
Personal transportation in the United States is dominated by

automobiles, which operate on a network of 13 million roads,
including the world's longest highway system. The world's
second largest automobile market, the United States has the
highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with
765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans. About 40% of personal
vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks. The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and
nondrivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).
Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips, ranking last in a survey of 17 countries. While
transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel. Light rail development
has increased in recent years but has not reached the levels of countries such as Japan. Bicycle usage is
minimal for commuting to work and is more common for recreation.
The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while
most major airports are publicly owned. The four largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are
American; Southwest Airlines is number one. Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen
are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Energy
The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is
7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, the 10th highest rate in the world. In 2005, 40% of this energy came
from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear
power and renewable energy sources. The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part
due to public perception in the wake of a 1979 accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear
plants were filed. The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.
Education
Harvard University, the country's oldest institution of higher learning

and its first corporation, is one of the most prestigious universities in
the world.[131]
American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States
Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to
attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen
(generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to
leave school at sixteen or seventeen. About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian
private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.
The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education. According
to prominent international rankings, 13 or 15 American colleges and universities are ranked among the
top 20 in the world. There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission
policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6%
graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6%
15

earned graduate degrees. The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.The United Nations assigns the
United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.
Health
The United States life expectancy of 78.3 years at birth is ranked 36th among 194 United Nations
member states; while above the world average, it falls short of the overall figure in Western Europe.
Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements elsewhere have contributed to lowering
the country's rank in life expectancy from 1987 to 2007, from 11th to 42nd in the world. The infant
mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand places the United States 42nd out of 221 countries, above average
but behind all of Western Europe. Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an
additional third is overweight; the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than
doubled in the last quarter-century. Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health
care professionals.
The Texas Medical Center in Houston, the world's largest medical
center[145]
The U.S. health care system far outspends any other nation's,
measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.
The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health care
system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall
performance.
Health care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts, and is not
universal as in all other developed countries. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health
expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments
paid for 44%. In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million
more than in 2001. The main cause of this rise is the drop in the number of Americans with employersponsored health insurance. The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political
issue. A 2009 study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with nearly 45,000 deaths a year. In
2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance. Federal legislation
passed in early 2010 will create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014.
8. Crime and law enforcement

Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's
departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in
almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal
trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as certain appeals from the state systems.
Federal law prohibits a variety of drugs, although states sometimes pass laws in conflict with federal
regulations. The smoking age is generally 18 and the drinking age is generally 21.
Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly
high levels of gun violence and homicide. There were 5.0 murders per 100,000 persons in 2009, 10.4%
fewer than in 2000. Gun ownership rights are the subject of contentious political debate.
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and total prison population in the
world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100
adults. The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure, and over three times the figure in Poland,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest
rate. African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the
rate of Hispanic males. The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to sentencing and drug
policies.
Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the United
States for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-four states. Since 1976, when the U.S.
Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been more than
16

1,000 executions. In 2010, the country had the fifth highest number of executions in the world,
following China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen. In 2007, New Jersey became the first state to
legislatively abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision, followed by New Mexico
in 2009 and Illinois in 2011.
9. Demographics
Race/Ethnicity (2010)
White
Black/African American
Asian
American Indian and Alaska Native
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander
Other
Two or more races
Hispanic/Latino (of any race)
72.4%
12.6%
4.8%
0.9%
0.2%
6.2%
2.9%
16.3%
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be 312,054,000, including an
estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants. The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th
century, from about 76 million in 1900. The third most populous nation in the world, after China and
India, the United States is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are
projected. Even with a birth rate of 13.82 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, its population
growth rate is positive at 1%, significantly higher than those of many developed nations. In fiscal year
2010, over 1 million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted
legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998,
China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.
The United States has a very diverse populationthirty-one ancestry groups have more than one
million members.[171] White Americans are the largest racial group; German Americans, Irish
Americans, and English Americans constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.
African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group. Asian
Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ethnic
groups are Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans. In 2010, the U.S. population included an
estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million
exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5
million exclusively). The census counted more than 19 million people of "Some Other Race" who were
"unable to identify with any" of its five official race categories in 2010.
The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a
major demographic trend. The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent are identified as sharing a
distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.
Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic
population rose just 4.9%. Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2007, 12.6% of the U.S.
population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America. Fertility is also a factor;
the average Hispanic woman gives birth to 3.0 children in her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for nonHispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).
Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau, all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites)
constitute 34% of the population, and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042.
About 82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs); about half of those reside in cities
with populations over 50,000. In 2008, 273 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine
cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los
Angeles, Chicago, and Houston). There are fifty-two metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1
million. Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, forty-seven are in the West or South. The metro areas
of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and
2008.
17

Leading population centers
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Metro area Metropolitan Statistical

pop.
Area
New York-Northern New
18,897,109 Jersey-Long Island, NYNew York
NJ-PA MSA
Los Angeles-Long BeachLos Angeles 12,828,837
Santa Ana, CA MSA
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet,
9,461,105
Chicago
IL-IN-WI MSA
Dallas-Fort Worth6,371,773
Dallas
Arlington, TX MSA
Philadelphia-CamdenPhiladelphia 5,965,343 Wilmington, PA-NJ-DEMD MSA
Houston-Sugar Land5,946,800
Houston
Baytown, TX MSA
Washington-ArlingtonWashington,
5,582,170 Alexandria, DC-VA-MDD.C.
WV MSA
Miami-Fort Lauderdale5,564,635
Miami
Pompano Beach, FL MSA
Atlanta-Sandy Springs5,268,860
Atlanta
Marietta, GA MSA
Boston-Cambridge4,552,402
Boston
Quincy, MA-NH MSA
based on the 2010 U.S. Census
Core City
Region
Northeast
West
Midwest
South
Northeast
New York
South
South
South
Los Angeles
South
Northeast
Language
Languages (2007)
English (only)
Spanish, incl. Creole
Chinese
French, incl. Creole
Tagalog
Vietnamese
German
Korean
225.5 million
34.5 million
2.5 million
2.0 million
1.5 million
1.2 million
1.1 million
1.1 million
English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level,
some lawssuch as U.S. naturalization requirementsstandardize English. In 2007, about 226 million,
or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by
12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught
second language. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at
least twenty-eight states. Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.
While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and
Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French. Other states, such as California, mandate the
publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms. Many
jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials, especially
voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions. Several insular
territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and
18

Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are
recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.
Religion
A Presbyterian church; most Americans identify as Christian.
The United States is officially a secular nation; the First

Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of
religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance.
In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very
important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any
other wealthy nation. According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults
identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4% in 1990.
Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman
Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white
evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort; another study estimates
evangelicals of all races at 3035%. The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up
from 3.3% in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam
(0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). The survey also reported that 16.1% of
Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in
1990.
Family structure
In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and
25% had never been married. Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of
bachelor's degrees.
Same-sex marriage is a contentious issue. Some states permit civil unions or domestic partnerships in
lieu of marriage. Since 2003, several states have legalized gay marriage as the result of judicial or
legislative action. Meanwhile, the federal government and a majority of states define marriage as
between a man and a woman and/or explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage. Public opinion on the issue
has shifted from general opposition in the 1990s to a statistical deadlock as of 2011.
The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among OECD nations. Abortion
policy was left to the states until the Supreme Court legalized the practice in 1972. The issue remains
highly controversial, with public opinion closely divided for many years. Many states ban public
funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and
mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live
births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 1544 remain higher than those of most Western
nations.
19
10. Culture
American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flag
The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety

of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. Aside from the now small
Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all
Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five
centuries. The culture held in common by most Americans
mainstream American cultureis a Western culture largely
derived from the traditions of European immigrants with
influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa. More recent
immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described
as both a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl in which immigrants and their
descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.
American culture is considered the most individualistic in the world. Though the American Dream, or
the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants,
other developed nations offer greater social mobility. While the mainstream culture holds that the
United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social
classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. The American middle and professional class has
initiated many contemporary social trends such as modern feminism, environmentalism, and
multiculturalism. Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated
with their occupations to an unusually close degree. While Americans tend greatly to value
socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.
Popular media
The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was
given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's
Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial
screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the
United States was in the forefront of sound film's development
in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the
U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around
Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was central to
the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen
Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time.
American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while
producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. The
major film studios of Hollywood have produced the most commercially successful movies in history,
such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global
film industry.
Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world, and the average viewing time continues to
rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006. The four major broadcast networks are all commercial entities.
Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, on average just over two-and-ahalf hours a day. Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are Facebook,
YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, eBay, and Craigslist.
The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced American music at
large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what
is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global
audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the
20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. Elvis Presley
and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan
emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and James
20

Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music.
American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.
Literature, philosophy, and the arts

Jack Kerouac, one of the best-known figures of the Beat Generation, a
group of writers that came to prominence in the 1950s
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, American art and literature took most
of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar
Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American
literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet
Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily
Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an
essential American poet. A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and
charactersuch as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)may be dubbed the "Great American
Novel".
Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993.
William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are often named among the most influential writers of the
20th century. Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the
United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist
authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.
The transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major American
philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce and then William James and John
Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. Quine
and Richard Rorty, built upon by Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the fore of U.S.
academics. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a revival of political philosophy.
In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of
European naturalism. The realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913
Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and
transformed the U.S. art scene. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new
styles, displaying a highly individualistic sensibility. Major artistic movements such as the abstract
expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy
Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has
brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.
Times Square in New York City, part of the Broadway

theater district
One of the first major promoters of American theater was
impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower
Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of
Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical
comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged
on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen
Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in
1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams,
Edward Albee, and August Wilson.
Though little known at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S.
composer in the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created
a distinctive American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin
21

developed a new synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha
Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in
20th century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography,
with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. The
newspaper comic strip and the comic book are both U.S. innovations. Superman, the quintessential
comic book superhero, has become an American icon.
Food
Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal
grain. Traditional American cuisine uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes,
sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, which were consumed by Native Americans and early
European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip
cookies are distinctively American foods. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the
South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole,
Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important.
Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the
recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes
freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed. Americans generally prefer coffee to tea.
Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous
breakfast beverages.
The American fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the drive-through format in the 1930s.
Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric
intake rose 24%; frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call
the American "obesity epidemic". Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared
beverages account for 9% of American caloric intake.
Sports
A college football quarterback looking to pass the ball
Baseball has been regarded as the national sport since the late
19th century, even after being eclipsed in popularity by
American football. Basketball and ice hockey are the country's
next two leading professional team sports. College football
and basketball attract large audiences. American football is
now by several measures the most popular spectator sport. Boxing and horse racing were once the most
watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR.
Soccer is played widely at the youth and amateur levels. Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as
well.
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball,
skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American inventions. Lacrosse and surfing arose
from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic
Games have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,301 medals at the Summer
Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 253 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most.
Measurement systems
The country retains United States customary units, constituted largely by British imperial units such as
miles, yards, and degrees Fahrenheit. Distinct units include the U.S. gallon and U.S. pint volume
measurements. The United States is one of only three countries that have not adopted the International
System of Units. However, metric units are increasingly used in science, medicine, and many industrial
fields.
22
Northeast Region Assignment

Map
Introduction
The Northeast Region of the United States is the oldest region and varies from the
largest city (New York City) to the smallest state (Rhode Island). This area is rich with
history, culture and economic opportunities. There are eleven states in the Northeast.
Of those states, 6 are known together as the New England states: Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. The other 5 states are
known as the Middle Atlantic States: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and
Pennsylvania. The nations capital, Washington, D.C., is also a part of the Northeast.
Task
Individually, you will be learning about regional characteristics such as: location,
climate and weather, natural resources, physical land features, history, famous
landmarks, food, famous people, economy, inventions, plants, animals and places of
interest.
You will be using your research to create a construction paper quilt about the
Northeast region. Your quilt will have twelve squares, one square for each of the
eleven states and a center square with the name of the region. Each square will
measure six by six inches.
Each square should contain facts about each state using the regional characteristics
from above.
Process
In order to complete your quilt square you will need to do the following:
2. Complete the Northeast States Student Activity Sheet for each state.
3. After the Activity Sheet has been completed, the teacher will check it.
4.
Brainstorm what information should go on each quilt square that will show
regional characteristics such as: location, climate and weather, natural
resources, physical land features, history, famous landmarks, food, famous
people, economy, inventions, plants, animals and places of interest.
5. Group members need to complete the quilt square for the state that they had
researched.
6. Once quilt squares are complete, the group will assemble the quilt on roll
paper. Each group will be present the quilt and display in assigned area.
Resources
Stately Knowledge
www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/stateknow/
Postcards from America
www.postcardsfrom.com/
Factmonster
www.factmonster.com/states.html
States and Capitals
http://www.50states.com/
www.netstate.com
http://www.geobop.com
eduscapes.com/42explore/50states.htm
Evaluation
o Students will be graded on the accuracy of the information on the Student
Activity Sheet for each state.
o
Students will be individually graded on neatness and content of each quilt
square that they created.
o
Students will be given a group presentation grade based on group member
participation and clarity of information.
Conclusion
By learning about the Northeast Region, you should be able to recognize
characteristics that are unique to this region.
The Northeast States Regions Activity Sheet

Students name: ______________________________________
The Land
State Capital:
______________
State Tree:
______________
Natural Resources
Location
Climate and Weather
Native Americans
Economy
History ,Inventions, Discoveries and Firsts
Famous Landmarks
Food
Southeast Region Assignment
Introduction
The Southeast Region of the United States is home to the oldest permanent
settlement, and has played an important part in the history of our nation. It hosts
endangered animals, the largest known cave system, and the largest granite sculpture
carved on a mountain. There are 12 states in the Southeast. Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina and Georgia are 4 of the 13 original states. Georgia is the largest state
in the Southeast. Florida, however, has the most people. The remaining states in this
region are: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and West
Virginia.
Task
Students will be learning about regional characteristics such as: location, climate and
weather, natural resources, physical land features, history, famous landmarks, food,
famous people, economy, inventions, plants, animals and places of interest.
Students will be individually creating a pamphlet about a state in the Southeast region
and presenting the information to the class.
Process
1. Students choose a state that they would like to research, making sure all states
are researched.
2. Students will complete the Southeast States Student Activity Sheet for each
state.
3. After the Activity Sheet has been completed, the teacher will check it.
4. Students will use a 12x18 sheet of construction paper and choose how the
pamphlet will be organized.
5. The pamphlet should entice a tourist to want to visit that region. It should
contain information listed in the regional characteristics listed above.
6. The pamphlet should be neat, colorful and show creative thinking.

7. A two-minute presentation will be given by each student highlighting his or her
state pamphlet.
Resources
Stately Knowledge
Factmonster
States and Capitals
www.netstate.com
Evaluation
Activity Sheet for each state.
o Students will be graded on neatness and content of the pamphlet that they
created.
o Students will be given a presentation grade based on clarity and completeness
of information.
Conclusion
By learning about the Southeast Region, students should be able to recognize
characteristics that are unique to this region. Why do you think the nations apital is
in the Southeast Region? Do you think it should be moved to another part of the
United States? Where would you propose to move it and why?
Southeast States Student Activity Sheet
Students name: _______________________________________________
1. My states name is ______________________________________

2. The state abbreviation is _________ and the nickname is __________________
____________________________________________________________.
3. Its lo ated on or near ___________________________________________.
4. The boundaries are (names of land and water on all sides) ______________
_____________________________________________________________.
5. My state gained statehood in ____________ and was number __________ to join the
United States.
6. The capital city is ___________________________ and one of the largest cities is
______________________________________________________________.
7. My states winter climate is ____________________________ and the summer climate is
___________________________________________.
8. When tourists visit my state, I want them to see _______________________
______________________________________________________________.
9. In my state, an important agricultural product is _____________________, and a
manufactured product is ____________________________________, and a mining or sea
product is __________________________________________.
10. My state has an area of ______________________________ square miles and
________________________________ people live there.
11. A state larger than mine is _______________________________________.
____________________________________ is a well-known physical feature (lake, mountain,
glacier). A well-known landmark (recreation spot, building, park) developed by man is
_____________________________________________.
12. One interesting historical fact about my state is ________________________
______________________________________________________________.
13. A fascinating fact I learned about this state is _________________________
______________________________________________________________.
Draw and color the state symbols bird, flower, flag and tree. Write the name of each
symbol under its picture. Then draw the flag and an outline of your state.
State Bird
State Flag
State Flower
State Tree
Outline of your State
Middle West Region Assignment
Introduction
The Middle West Region is the flattest but houses a great national monument,
plentiful lakes for fishing and recreation, professional sports teams, and the Bread
Basket of the United States. Twelve states make up the Middle West Region.
Sometimes those states are divided into two smaller regions the Plains states (Iowa,
Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) and the Great Lakes
states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin). All six Great Lakes
states border a Great Lake.
Task
Using a publishing program, students will be working in groups of 3-4 to create a
newspaper, highlighting events of the Middle West.
Students will use resources such as Internet and media materials (newspapers,
textbooks, etc.) to gather information, choose important facts and write articles
dealing with past and current events.
Process
1.
Within the group, members need to choose a topic to focus on. They will be
responsible for researching and writing about these events for the newspaper.
2. Students will self-edit articles for errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling.
3. Students will then rewrite the article.

4. Teacher will edit rewritten articles.
5.
Students will be given a template for the newspaper. As a group they will
decide where articles need to be placed and pictures that would be
appropriate.
6.
Students will then type the articles into the publishing program and make
formatting changes as needed.
7. Students will check newspaper for errors before printing.

8. Newspapers will be placed in school library for checkout.
Resources
Stately Knowledge
Factmonster
States and Capitals
www.netstate.com
Evaluation
o
Students will be graded on the accuracy of the information on the articles for
each event.
Conclusion
The Middle West Region is considered the most conservative region in the United
States. Why might the people in this region be considered more conservative than in
the pre ious regions you e studied?
Southwest Region Assignment
Introduction
The Southwest Region is unique because it is the only place in the United States where
four states meet at a single point, known as the Four Corners. It has great Spanish
influence and ranges with different climates and landforms. Snowbirds, retired people
who spend a portion of their year in a different location, have influenced the
population boom. The Southwest Region is made up of four large states Arizona,
New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. It stretches west from the Gulf Coast of Texas to
the Colorado River in Arizona. Mexico borders the region on the south.
Task
Individually, students have the choice of picking one of the following tasks to show
what they have learned about this region:
1. Suppose that you have been asked by the leaders of one of Arizonas five water
management areas to design a poster. The poster should remind people of
the importance of conserving water. Draw a poster that shows some of the
ways people can conserve water. Then display your poster in your classroom.
2. Choose one of the landforms in the Southwest. Then write a poem or song that
describes the land, climate, and resources found there. Share your poem or
song with the class.
3. Write a paragraph comparing a state in the Southwest to the state/province
you live in.
Process
Students will be responsible for choosing a topic, researching it, editing it for errors,
and producing a well-organized, neat finished product within the guidelines given by
the teacher. All projects will be presented to the class in a large group setting.
Resources
Stately Knowledge
Factmonster
States and Capitals
www.netstate.com
Evaluation
Students will peer grade the finished products using a rubric created by the students
within the class at the beginning of the project.
Conclusion
Throughout the studies of the Southwest region students should learn of the historical
importance, increasing population and stressed natural resources of this region. What
resources could be used to handle the increasing water needs of the Southwest region
due to people moving to the area?
West Region Assignment
Introduction
The West Region is ade up of a ondrous display of natures eauty, fro the
mountains to the beaches to the wildlife. This area is also home to the U.S. Mint; the
deepest lake in the United States, Crater Lake; Yosemite Falls, which is 13 times higher
than Niagara Falls and Hollywood. Eleven states make up the West. Those states are
often divided into two smaller regions the Mountain states, Colorado, Idaho,
Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, and the Pacific states, Alaska, California,
Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. All five of the Pacific states border the Pacific Ocean.
Task
Students, individually, will be create a Prezi or a PowerPoint presentation about a
national park in the West region. The PowerPoint should include five slides: facts,
tourist information, plant life particular to this park, animals particular to this park and
a map, which includes the location of the park.
Process
1. Students will complete a National Park Student Activity Sheet for their park.
2. After the Activity sheet has been completed, the teacher will check it.
3. Students will input their information from the Activity Sheet into the
appropriate slides, using proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The slides
should be well-organized, easy to read and interesting to the viewer.
PowerPoint presentations will be shared with the class and also displayed in the parent
waiting area during parent/teacher conferences.
Resources
Stately Knowledge
Factmonster
States and Capitals
www.netstate.com
Evaluation
Activity Sheet for their park.
o Students will be graded on organization, ease of reading and content of their
slides.
o Students will be given a presentation grade based on group member
participation and clarity of information.
Conclusion
The West region is known for the number of national parks it has and their natural
beauty. These parks are in danger due to the increases in population, pollution and
lack of respect for their resources. How can your generation help in preserving these
parks for generations after you?
National Park Student Activity Sheet

Name __________________________________________
Name of National Park____________________________________________________

It got its name from ______________________________________________________
My national park is in the following state/states ________________________________
____________________________________________ and has____________________
______________________ square miles.
It was established in __________ when __________________ was president of the
United States.
_________________tourists visit my national park each year.
The major tourist attractions are ___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________.
Other special landforms that my park has are _________________________________
_________________________________________________.
The highest peak is located at _______________________ and is _______________
feet.
Animals that are seen in my national park are _________________________________
__________________________________________________.
There are _______________endangered animals in my park.
Plants that are particular to this park are _____________________________________
_________________________________________________ .
There are _______________ endangered plants in my park.
One thing that is special about this park is ____________________________________
__________________________________________________.
________________________ is the best time of the year to visit my national park. The
entrance fee is __________________to visit the park for several days.
Activities that visitors to this park enjoy are __________________________________
__________________________________________________.
When visiting my park, visitors can stay at ___________________________________
_________________________________________________.
The largest cities near the park are __________________________________________
_________________________________________________.
US REGIONS
Northeast
Southeast
Middle West
Southwest
West
CHARACTERISTICS
STATES
CLIMATE/WEATHER
GEOGRAFIA Y CULTURA INGLESA 2: US Regions
IMPORTANT CITIES
NATURAL RESOURCES
OTHERS
GEOGRAFIA Y CULTURA INGLESA 2: US Regions
RELIEF
ECONOMY
9-011 IES DEL ATUEL

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA
INGLESA II
A Mari Usque ad Mare

Canada
The True North Strong and Free

Today, travelling has never been so easy. However,
rare are Canadians who can claim having visited
our entire country because it is so vast. In fact, over
five thousand kilometres separate our two coasts. In
the LES, you will discover new things about
Canada, at a glance. You will hear, read and write
about cultural, historical and unusual facts about
your majestic country.
Canada is a huge country in the continent of North America. Canada is the second
biggest country in the world after Russia. Canada is comprised of 3,849,675 square miles
(9,976,140 square km); it is the second-largest country in the world (Russia is first at
17,075,200 sq km). This huge country borders the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the
Arctic Ocean, and the United States of America. Canada has over 151,480 miles
(243,791 km) of coastline. Most of Canada's human population lives along its southern
border.
The Capital: The capital of Canada is the city of Ottawa, which is in the province of
Ontario, located above the Great Lakes.
Provinces and Territories: Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories (the capital of
each is shown in parentheses): Alberta (Edmonton), British Columbia (Victoria), Prince
Edward Island (Charlottetown), Manitoba (Winnipeg), New Brunswick (Fredericton),
Nova Scotia (Halifax), Nunavut (Iqaluit), Ontario (Toronto), Quebec (Quebec City),
Saskatchewan (Regina); Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John's), Northwest Territories
(Yellowknife), and Yukon Territory (Whitehorse).
Geography: Canada's land ranges from fertile agricultural plains in the south to freezing
tundra in the north. The southwest of Canada (British Columbia) has a mild climate.
Cold winters characterize most of the rest of Canada. The magnetic North Pole is within
Nunavut.
Mountains: Parts of Canada are very mountainous. The tallest mountain in Canada is the
1
Yukon's Mount Logan, which is 19,850 feet (6050 m) tall. Canada has many mountain
ranges, including the Appalachians, Torngats, and Laurentians in the eastern regions, the
Rocky, Coastal, and Mackenzie ranges in the western regions, and Mount St. Elias and
the Pelly Mountains in the northern country.
Lakes: Canada has about two million lakes. The biggest lakes are (in order by their
surface area): Lake Huron [36,000 sq. km of Lake Huron's 59,600 sq. km are in Canada],
Lake Great Bear [31,328 sq. km], Lake Superior [of which 28,700 sq. km of Lake
Superior's 82,100 sq. km are in Canada], Lake Great Slave [also the deepest lake, with a
depth of 614 m], Lake Winnipeg, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The 2,000,000 lakes
cover about 7.6% of Canada's land.
Rivers: The longest river in Canada is the Mackenzie River, which is 2,635 miles (4241
km) long. It runs through the Northwest Territories. Other large and important rivers are
the St. Lawrence River (1,900 miles = 3058 km long), the Yukon River, the Columbia
River (partly in the USA), the Nelson River, the Churchill River, and the Fraser River.
Canada's Flag
The Canadian flag is red and white; these are the official colors of Canada. The flag
features a red maple leaf with eleven points. The maple leaf is a symbol of Canada. The
flag is twice as wide as it is tall. This flag was officially adopted on February 15, 1965.
1. What are the official colors of Canada? ________________ and _________________.
2. What type of leaf is featured in Canada's flag ? _______________________________
3. How many points are on the leaf? __________________________________________
4. When was this flag officially adopted? ______________________________________
National Anthem
Listen to the Canadian National Anthem and read the lyrics.
Lyrics of O Canada
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/symbl/anthem-eng.cfm
Map of Canada and flags of every provinces and territories
Draw a map in the school yard, bring the students outside with the map in
hand and tell them where to go.
i.e.:
Go on Ontario
Travel to the second province
Hop in your card and drive to Manitoba
Take the plane and fly to Newfoundland
Bike across Canada to go to British Columbia
Label Canadian Provinces and Territories

Read about the Canadian provinces and territories, then label the map below.
Alberta - a province in southwestern
Canada, between British Columbia and
Saskatchewan.
Nunavut - a territory in northern Canada east
British Columbia - a province in
of the Northwest Territories, bordering the
southwestern Canada, by the Pacific
Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay.
Ocean.
Ontario - a province in southern Canada
Manitoba - a province in southern
between Manitoba and Quebec, bordering
Canada, between Saskatchewan and
Hudson Bay.
Ontario, bordering Hudson Bay.
Prince Edward Island - an island province
New Brunswick - a province in
just north of New Brunswick and Nova
southeastern Canada that is east of
Scotia.
Quebec and west of Nova Scotia.
Quebec - a province in southern Canada, east
of Ontario, bordering Hudson Bay.
Newfoundland and Labrador - a
Saskatchewan - a province in southern
province that is northeast of Quebec.
Canada, between Alberta and Manitoba.
Northwest Territories - a territory in
northern Canada between the Yukon and Yukon Territory - a territory in northwestern
Canada, by the Pacific Ocean and Alaska.
Nunavut.
Nova Scotia - a province in southeastern
Canada that is east of New Brunswick.
Canada: Geographic Features Quiz
1. What ocean forms Canada's western border? _________________________________

2. What ocean forms Canada's eastern border? __________________________________
3. What ocean lies north of Canada? __________________________________________
4. What is the name of the enormous Canadian bay that almost divides Canada in two?
________________________________________________________________________
5. What is the name of the country that borders Canada to the south? ________________
6. What is the name of the Bay that separates part of Canada from Greenland? _________
7. What is the name of the southeastern Canadian gulf that opens to the Atlantic Ocean?
________________________________________________________________________
8. What is the name of the large river that flows north into the Beaufort Sea? __________
9. What is the name of the long lake in south-central Canada? ______________________
10. What is the name of the tallest peak in Canada? It is located in western Canada, near
Alaska. _________________________
Nova Scotia
One defends and the other conquers
Capital: Halifax
Official flower: Mayflower (also called trailing arbutus)
Official bird: Osprey
Canadas seacoast Nova Scotia is one of the three Maritime
Provinces. It is surrounded by the Bay of Fundy, the strait of
Northumberland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the northwest, in
the west by the province of New Brunswick, in the northeast by
Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, and in the
east, the south and the west by the Atlantic Ocean.
FACTS:
-Nova Scotia" means "New Scotland" in Latin;
-Nova Scotia became a province in 1867;
-Second-smallest province (P.E.I. is the smallest);
-Capital city and largest city - Halifax - population 375,000 (estimated 2005);
-Halifax is an international seaport and transportation center.
THE PEOPLE
-There are 937,900 people living in Nova Scotia.(2005);
-Many people live in or close to Halifax;
-Most of the communities are along the coast;
-First people were the Micmac and Abenaki;
-People came from Britain, Western Europe, and Southern Europe;
-One-quarter of the people are of British origin;
-N.S. also has Canada's oldest African-Canadian community.
HISTORY
-Micmac lived there. They hunted, fished, gathered plants and berries;
-French settlers arrived in 1605;
-A French settlement named Port Royal was built in 1605;
-The area was turned over to the British after a war;
-French colonists were forced to leave;
-Some went back to France while others went to the U.S.
7
WATER AND LAND

-The Bay of Fundy is between N.S. and N.B.
-Most of the province is covered with forests and lakes.
-There are 3000 lakes in this province.
RESOURCES/INDUSTRY
-The main mineral is coal (used for making electricity).
-Scallops, crabs, clams, cod, haddock, pollock, herring, salmon, and haddock are fished.
-Lobsters from N.S. are eaten all across Canada.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
Nova Scotia is proud of its exciting and engaging history. Nova Scotia attractions are
eclectic and exciting from the urban attractions of the Halifax Citadel and Pier 21, to
the rural provincial parks and sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Theres a lot to
celebrate in Nova Scotia and many attractions to help you. On Cape Breton Island,
the Cabot Trail is breathtaking.
-The Miner's Museum in Glace Bay is incredible and tells the story of mining in the
province from the perspective of the miner
-In Halifax, Pier 21 tells the stories of many immigrants to Canada who came into the
country through the famous Pier 21. It is well worth a visit.
-The Martime Museum of the Atlantic in the historic properties is a great place and has
some fascinating exhibits on both the Titanic and the Halifax Explosion
-Peggy's Cove is a great tourist destination and has a pretty lighthouse; there is also a
restaurant and several gift shops close by; don't miss the view of the picturesque cove.
Quiz on Nova Scotia

1. What does Nova Scotia means in Latin? ____________________________________
2. What is the most important fact about Halifax? _______________________________
3. Where are located most of the communities? _________________________________
4. How many lakes are in this province? _______________________________________
5. N.S. also has Canada's oldest African-Canadian community. True
False
6. The main mineral we can find in Nova Scotia is: ________________________
Oral Comprehension
Step through a doorway in time to discover historic landmarks. Did you know that NS
attracts tourists more than any other provinces?
Instructions:
- Read the questions below.
- Listen to the text
- Link every question with the right answer. - Write your answers.
Canadas Seacoast
1. What historic site is located in Louisbourg?
2. What historic site is situated in Halifax?
3. Where is the home of the famous Bluenose?
4. Where is Alexander Graham Bell museum?
5. What is the Cabot trail?
A) Citadel
___
___
___
___
___
B) Lunenburg
D) Canadas great ocean highway
C) Fortress of Louisbourg
E) Baddeck
New Brunswick
Hope was Restored
Capital: Fredericton
Official flower: Purple violet
Official bird: Black-capped Chickadee
New Brunswick, a maritime province in the east of Canada, connected
to Nova Scotia, is boarded at the east by Prince Edward Island, at the
west by the American State of Maine and in the northwest by Quebec.
Here, the worlds highest tides rise and fall the height of a four-storey building, twice a
day, every day. Thats just the beginning of the wonder waiting in New Brunswick a
place where rivers stretch from breathtaking to beautiful. Where you will be fascinated by
the fragile beauty of coastal dunes or inspired by the Appalachians, some of the oldest
mountains on the planet! Theres a world of Natural Wonders waiting for you in New
Brunswick!
FLAG:
-The royal lion of England is on the top of the flag and shield;
-The bottom has a sailing ship which shows the province;
once relied on the shipping and shipbuilding industry;
-It became the official flag of New Brunswick in 1965.
FACTS:
-The name "Brunswick" was in honor of King George of England
whose family came from the House of Brunswick;
-New Brunswick became a province in 1867;
-It is the third-smallest province;
-N.B. is the home of about 752,000 people.(2005) ;
-The largest city is Saint John;
-Other major cities are Fredericton (the capital city) and Moncton;
-Many people are of French, British, Scottish and Irish origin.
HISTORY
-The first people to live in N.B. include the Micmac and Maliseet-Passamaquaddy
(Malecite);
-The Micmac and Malecite hunted and fished and were guides for the French explorers;
-In 1604 Samuel de Champlain and the French arrived;
10
-The French called the east coast area Acadia;

-Acadia became an English colony in 1713;
-Some of the people would not swear loyalty to England. Their homes were burned and
they were sent away. Some went to Louisiana (U.S.A.);
-American settlers founded the city of Saint John (oldest city in Canada);
-The longest river is the Saint John River ( 670 km.long);
-The river splits the province from north to south;
-The Bay of Fundy between N.B. and Nova Scotia has the world's highest tides (15 m.
high);
-Forests, mainly black spruce and fir, cover about 85 percent of N.B.
RESOURCES/INDUSTRY
-N.B. is the main producer of lead, zinc, copper, and bismuth in Canada;
-Coal, potash, antimony, silver, natural gas and oil are also mined;
-There are fishing ports where more than fifty kinds of fish and shellfish are caught:
-Scallops, shrimp, herring, lobsters, snow crabs, mussels, etc.
-Lobster is the most valuable catch;
-The main industry is forestry;
-Paper, newspaper, magazines, tissue, wooden doors and windows are made;
-There are over 3000 farms (livestock, dairy, poultry, potatoes, berries);
-The main crop is potatoes. The Saint John River Valley is called the "Potato Belt."
FUN THINGS TO DO
-LIGHTHOUSES
Lighthouses are proud sentinels of these peoples past. Want to picnic or go birdwatching
on lighthouse grounds?
-MUSEUMS
From a 1905 REO touring car at the Antique Automobile Museum to the secrets of the
Popes Museum in Grande-Anse, discover Newbrunswick thrilling historical treasures and
piece together its unique story.
Quiz on New-Brunswick
1. Where does the name Brunswick comes from? ________________________________
2. Which city is the oldest city in Canada? _____________________________________
3. What did Micmac and Malecite do for a living? _______________________________
4. What happened to the people who did not swear loyalty to England? ______________
________________________________________________________________________
5. Whats the main crop? ___________________________________________________
11
What is a travel agent?

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
What is a travel agency?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Attractions
Next summer, Jamie is planning to go to New Brunswick. He wrote to a travel agent for
suggestions and this is the answer somebody left him on his answering machine.
Instructions:
- Read the information in the grid below.
- Listen to the message
- Place the information in chronological order, the order in which a series of events
happened: 1 being the first place to visit and 4 being the last.
- Write your answers.
Tourist Attractions
Bay of Fundy
Order
Shediac
Magic Mountain
Acadian Historical Village
12
Prince Edward Island

The small under the protection of the great
Capital: Charlottetown
Official flower: Lady's slipper
Official bird: Blue Jay
Prince Edward Island is one of the three Maritimes
provinces in the east of Canada. It is located in the gulf
of the St. Lawrence, on the Atlantic Ocean, at the north
of Nova Scotia and at the east of New Brunswick. It is separated from the NorthAmerican continent by the strait of Northumberland.
The main attractions in PEI are Avonlea, Anne of Green Gables, Confederation Trail,
Confederation Bridge, P.E.I. National Park, Potato field. The green and gentle landscape
of Prince Edward Island is so inviting that visitors find themselves spending plenty of
vacation time in the great outdoors.
FLAG:
-The P.E.I. flag is divided into two sections.
-The gold lion is from Prince Edward's coat of arms.
-It is the royal lion of England.
-Below the lion are four oak trees on an island.
-It became the province's official flag in 1964.
FACTS:
-It is the smallest province (224 km. long);
-The Island was named "Prince Edward" in honor of the father of Queen Victoria in 1799;
-PEI became a province in 1873.
THE PEOPLE
-P.E.I. is the home of 138,100 people(2005);
-Charlottetown is the largest city with about 39,000 people;
-The Island was the home of the Mi'kmaq (Micmac);
-About 75 percent are of Scottish and Irish origin.
13
HISTORY
-The first people to live on the Island were the Micmac;
-They moved from place to place living in huts of skin and bark;
-In the winter they hunted deer, in the summer they fished;
-Jacques Cartier discovered the island in 1534;
-In 1719 a French colony was formed;
-The English took over the island and drove the French farmers out.
THE LAND AND WATER
-The Confederation Bridge joins New Brunswick and PEI;
-The bridge was opened in 1997 and is almost 13 km long;
-Ferry boats travel from Nova Scotia to P.E.I.
-Prince Edward Island National Park has a large beach with reddish sand;
-There are over 90 sandy beaches for swimming and boating;
-The soil is red because it is made of red sandstone.
RESOURCES/INDUSTRY
-Agriculture is the largest industry;
-About thirty percent of Canada's potatoes are grown in P.E.I.
-The second-largest industry is tourism;
-Fishing is the third-largest industry;
-Lobsters are caught in traps;
-About 10 million oysters a year are harvested for Canada and the world.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
-Amusement park: Sandpit is the largest Amusement Park in Prince Edward Island,
boasting over 18 attractions. Sandpit features a huge rollercoaster, Can-AM go-kart track,
miniature golf, bumper boats, many classic family rides, and so much more!
-Water Parks: Shining water Family Fun Park, Magic Mountain Water Park
-Wax World of the Stars is one of the top attractions in Cavendish. Visit your favorite
celebrities. See how life-like our wax figures really are. Take your photo with Shrek and
Michael Jordan. See Julia Roberts, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise
Quiz on Prince Edwards Island:
1. The Island was named in honor of ________________________________________.
2. Whats the name of the largest city? ________________________________________
3. 75% of the people are ______________ and ______________ origins.
4. Whats the name of the bridge that joins New Brunswick and PEI? ________________
5. Explain why the soil is red: _______________________________________________
6. Whats the largest industry? _______________________________________________
14
Newfoundland and Labrador
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God
Capital: St. John's

Official flower: Pitcher plant
Official bird: Atlantic Puffin
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is composed of the
island of Newfoundland and the Eastern part of the area Labrador. It
is bordered, in the east and the south, by the Atlantic Ocean and, in
the west, by the gulf of the St. Lawrence and the province of
Quebec. The island of Newfoundland is located at the north of the
French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
Here, you will learn about this place called Newfoundland and
Labrador, Canada. Catch a glimpse of icebergs, whales, birds and
wildlife. Find hiking trails, parks, historic sites and scenic driving
routes. Search for maps, accommodations, tours, festivals and events, outfitters and
places to shop. Take this opportunity to explore this mysterious land. Let go of your
expectations. Prepare yourself to be lost, and found, in Newfoundland and Labrador.
FLAG:
-White represents the ice and snow;
-Blue is for the sea;
-Red is for human effort;
-The yellow line (arrow) represents confidence for a bright future;
-The two red triangles represent the island and mainland of the province;
-Blue triangles stand for the Commonwealth heritage;
-The provincial flag represents the past, present and future.
FACTS:
-Newfoundland is one of the oldest places in Canada;
-Nfld. is one of the four Atlantic provinces;
-Nfld. is surrounded by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Atlantic and Artic Ocean;
-The capital city and largest city is St. John's;
-About 516,000 people lived in Nfld/Labrador in 2005;
-People live in small fishing villages near the coast;
15
-Many are of British and Irish origin;

-Aboriginal ancestry: Micmac, Inuit, Innu and Metis;
-Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province in 1949.
HISTORY
-The first people were the Beothuk (now extinct) who hunted caribou and fished;
-Vikings were the first to visit Nfld . They were blown off course on the way to
Greenland;
-Five hundred years later the explorer John Cabot arrived ( 1497);
-He arrived on the feast day of St. John the Baptist and first called it St. John's Isle in
honour of the saint;
-He claimed the land for the King of England.
LAND AND WATER
-There are many bays and deep fiords along the coastlines of Nfld. and Labrador.
-Icebergs can be seen off the coastline.
RESOURCES/INDUSTRY
-Nfld. is the main producer of iron ore in Canada. Steel is made from iron ore;
-Churchill Falls in Labrador is one of the largest hydro-electric power plants in the world;
-Main exports are oil, fish products, newsprint, iron ore and electricity;
-Overfishing caused a severe decline in the amount of fish in the Grand Banks;
-Titanic, a large passenger ship, sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg south of Nfld.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
-L'Anse Aux Meadow National Historic Site is truly "the end of the world" for
most American travellers. Miles of landscape, rocks and mountains, flanked by seas
are absolutely magnificent. It is easy to imagine the Norse arriving here from
Greenland 1000 years ago
-Norstead is a village which recreates a typical Norse port of trade, which may be
similar to the home port that the Vikings departed from to reach L'Anse aux
Meadows. Costumed interpreters portray the villagers and answer visitors'
questions, as well as demonstrating skills such as tablet weaving, Viking-era
blacksmithing, and naalbinding
-Gros Morne National Park, you can hike to the top of Gros Morne Mountain.
Quiz on Newfoundland
1. What is the capital city? __________________________________________________
2. Who were the first people to visit Newfoundland? _____________________________
3. Who did John Cabot claimed the land for? ___________________________________
4. Whats the name of the famous ship that sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912? ______
5. Whats the name of the largest hydro-electric power plants in the world? ___________
16
What are superstitions? ____________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Are you superstitious? Yes
NO
Do you have any superstitions? ______________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Superstitions
Lets have a look at some superstitions from Newfoundland.
Instructions:
- Listen to the text.
- Find four (4) key words that give the essential idea of the text.
- Write these four words.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
17
Ontario
Loyal she began, loyal she remains
Capital: Toronto
Official flower: White trillium
Official bird: Common Loon
Ontario, boarded at the north by Hudson Bay, in the east by Quebec,
the south by the Lakes, which constitute a natural border with the
United States (States of New York, Michigan and Minnesota), and in
the west by Manitoba.
No matter where you travel in the province, you'll discover a natural
wonder that rivals the best in the world.
FACTS:
-The name "Ontario" was first used for Lake Ontario. It meant "beautiful lake" or
"sparkling water" in the Iroquois language;
- Ontario became a province in 1867;
-It is the second-largest province;
- Toronto has a large financial district and the stock exchange.
THE PEOPLE
-The first people were the Huron, Iroquois, Neutral, Ojibwa, Cree, Ottawa, Nipissin, and
Algonquin;
-Ontario is the home of over 12 million people. (12,541,400 in 2005);
-The largest city is Toronto with 5.3 million people.(2005);
-Over half of the people in Toronto were born in other countries;
-Many are of Italian, German, Chinese, Portuguese, Indian, Polish and Caribbean origin.
HISTORY
-Loyalists fled the U.S. in 1781 and settled on the north shore of Lake Ontario;
-The land was divided into Upper Canada (Ont.) and Lower Canada (Que.);
-York (now Toronto) became the capital of Upper Canada;
-Ontario became a province in 1867.
18
WATER AND LAND

-Four of the five Great Lakes are in Ontario. (Superior, Huron, Erie, Ontario)
-There are 250,000 lakes.
-Niagara Falls (a part of the Niagara River) is in Ontario.
RESOURCES AND INDUSTRY
-Mining: zinc, nickel, platinum, uranium, oil, natural gas, copper, gold, silver, iron ore;
-Main producer of nickel, cobalt, salt, and magnesium in Canada.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
-Feel the awesome power of Niagara Falls as rushing river waters plunge over its mighty
brink. In one second Niagara Falls pours out enough water to fill two large swimming
pools.
-It's all about family fun at Ontario Place, where you'll find exhilarating waterslides,
exciting rides, pedal boats, mini putts, an arcade, restaurants and the world's first
permanent IMAX theatre, the Cinesphere.
-The CN tower: The tallest tower in the world
-Virtual Hockey Play Virtual Hockey at the Hockey Hall of Fame
-It's all happening at the Toronto Zoo, a half hour drive north of downtown Toronto. The zoo
is open every day except December 25th and has over 5,000 animals, making this one of the
world's best zoos.
-Paramount Wonderland If you're ready to just let loose, check out the Paramount
Wonderland. A spectacularly large amusement park with over four dozen rides (including 10
roller coasters).
IMPORTANT PEOPLE and EVENTS

-Wayne Gretsky the famous hockey player came from Brantford;
-Actor Jim Carrey was born in Ontario;
-Singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette was born in Ottawa.
Quiz on Ontario
1. The Iroquoians called Ontario "Kanadario" what does it mean? ___________________
2. Whats the largest city? __________________________________________________
3. Name the four great lakes that are in Ontario: _________________________________
4. Name one famous attraction: ______________________________________________
5. Name a famous person born in Ontario: _____________________________________
19
Marineland
Justin meets Travis and they talk about Justins new job as a critic and the review he
made of the show presented at Marineland.
Instructions
- Read the four (4) topics below.
- Listen to the conversation.
- Compare the opinions of Justin and Travis for each topic.
- For each topic, write the letter S if their opinions are similar or the letter D if
their opinions are different.
Topics
Whales
S or D
Accent
Crowd
Surprise
20
Manitoba
Glorious and Free
Capital: Winnipeg.
Official flower: Prairie crocus
Official bird: Great Gray Owl
Manitoba is the central part of the country, limited to north by the
Northwest Territories, to the North-East by Hudson Bay, the east by
Ontario, the south by Minnesota and North Dakota and to the west by
Saskatchewan.
Manitoba combines all the best elements of a memorable vacation
four distinct seasons of sunshine, nature untouched by the spoils of
modern life and the endless celebration of life and culture by people
who love opening their hearts to new friends.
FLAG :
-Manitoba's flag looks a lot like Canada's former flag, the Canadian Red Ensign;
-The Union Jack is in the upper left corner on a red background;
-The province's shield is on the right side of the flag;
- It became the official flag of Manitoba in 1966.
FACTS:
-The name Manitoba was first used for Lake Manitoba;
-In the Assiniboine language, it is Mini tobow meaning Lake of the Prairie;
-In Cree, it is Manitou bou for the place of the Great Spirit;
-Manitoba is larger than Japan and twice the size of the United Kingdom;
-Manitoba is the home of over a million people.(1,177.600 in 2005);
-Winnipeg is the largest city. About 706,900 people live there;
-Manitoba is home to many Metis and native peoples;
-Known for its cold dry winters and hot dry summers.
LAND and WATER
-Manitoba is known as the land of 100,000 lakes (Lake Winnipeg, Lake Winnipegosis
and Lake Manitoba are three large lakes).
-Forests (pine, hemlock and birch) cover northern Manitoba.
21
RESOURCES/INDUSTRIES
-Manitoba has petroleum (used to make gasoline);
-Hydro-electric power is an important industry;
-There are different types of farming in southern Manitoba: growing wheat, barley, oats,
sunflowers, flax and canola.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
-There are wonderful beaches within a short 1 hour drive to Winnipeg. You will find
white sand in Grand Beach, and dunes;
-If you are interested in fossils, then check out the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre
in Morden, Manitoba. They have the biggest collection of marine reptile fossils in
Canada;
-Manitoba's Provincial Parks offer some of the provinces most inspiring,
challenging and rewarding visitor experiences.
Quiz on Manitoba:
1. Where is Manitoba located? _______________________________________________
2. Manitoba is larger than which country? ______________________________________
3. Which city is the largest? _________________________________________________
4. How many lakes are located in Manitoba? ___________________________________
5. Name one important industry in Manitoba: ___________________________________
What is a main idea?

A main idea is larger, more important or more influential than others sentences. The
main idea in a piece of writing is the point the author is making about a topic.
Use the following steps to find the main idea:
- Preview: look for clues in the introduction
- Read: read the text looking for the general idea
- Focus: on individual information in the text
- Look for transition words: first, next, however, in addition and more
- Identify the most general statement
- Look for supporting evidence and discussion
- State the main idea for each paragraph in your own words
- Find the main idea of entire piece of writing by considering all of the points
22
Manitoba is a province with many unknown facts.

Instructions:
- Read the two texts below.
- In each text, find the sentence that contains the main idea.
- Write these sentences.
Text one
Hi! My name is John and I am from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Did you know that my
province was the fifth one to join the Canadian confederation in 1870?
One thing not many people know is that, in its early days, Manitoba was predominantly
a province inhabited by French people. However, over the years, the use of French in the
province would change. As I said, over a century ago, French was the first language, but
then, many settlers* arrived from Ontario with the construction of the CP railway. After
a few years, the English majority clearly outnumbered the French one; laws were
changed and French was no longer the official language. From that year on, French
could only be used in school if the number of students was significant.
Text two
Hi! My name is Michael and I am from Winnipeg, Manitoba. I am doing research on my
province for my History class. I have learned many things about commerce in y area
centuries ago. What caught my attention was all the travelling people would do to profit
from the trading business. Centuries ago, aboriginal people lived in the region near the
junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. They would walk for days to reach good
hunting grounds. They would hunt animals and use their pelts as clothing. Then, when
the first settlers* arrived, they would also hunt these animals but for commercial fur
trade. It was not long before traders from Europe would travel far and wide to profit
from the fur trade. In 1670, the London-based Hudsons Bay company had the furtrading monopoly over most of Western Canada. Soon after, French-Canadian voyageurs
and English-speaking traders travelled from Winnipeg to trade furs in the southern
regions.
* settler: a person who establishes himself/herself in a new country or colony.
Text
1
Main Idea
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
23
Saskatchewan
From many peoples strength
Capital: Regina
Official flower: Western red (Prairie) lily
Official bird: Sharp-tailed Grouse
Saskatchewan is limited to north by the Northwest Territories, to the east
by Manitoba, the south by the American States of North Dakota and
Montana, and with the west by Alberta.
Saskatchewan offers visitors endless freshwater fishing and waterbased recreation opportunities, abundant wildlife, uncrowded parks,
outdoor adventures like canoeing and horseback riding, farm
vacations and amazing and accessible golf. Festive towns and cities,
and friendly, down to earth people, whose prairie roots run deep, will
make you feel right at home.
FLAG :
-The Saskatchewan flag is divided into two equal parts;
-The green represents Saskatchewan's northern forests;
-The gold section is for the golden fields of grain;
-The provincial shield is in the top left corner;
-The Western Red Lily is on the right side of the flag;
-The Western Red Lily is Saskatchewan's floral emblem.
LAND AND WATER
-Saskatchewan means ``swift-flowing river`` in Cree language;
-Half is forest, one-third is farmland;
-Over 100,000 lakes, rivers, marshes;
-Athabasca Provincial Park has sand dunes 30 m. high;
-Main rivers: Assiniboine, North and South Saskatchewan and Churchill;
-Two largest cities are Regina ( the capital ) and Saskatoon.
THE PEOPLE
-First people : Chipewyan (north) , Assiniboine (east), Blackfoot (west) and Cree.
-Metis (of mixed European and Aboriginal descent) were among the first settlers.
24
-People came from Germany, Ukraine, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, Britain, France
-Population 990,930 (January, 2006)
HISTORY
-Earliest explorer - Henry Kelsey (1690);
-Samuel Hearne built trading posts;
-Trappers and fur traders arrived;
-Forts were built to maintain law and order;
-Settlers were encouraged to come for free farmland;
-Railroad was built across the southern part of the province;
-Became a province in 1905 with Regina as the capital.
ECONOMY
-Produces 28 percent of Canada's grain;
-Grows over 54 percent of Canada's wheat crop;
-Forestry in northern Saskatchewan;
-Rich in minerals (potash, uranium, coal, oil and natural gas).
FUN THINGS TO DO:
-Climb306: One of North America's largest indoor rock climbing facilities. Fun for all
ages and skill levels.
-Eco-Party Dragonboat tours : Tour Wascana Lake in a Dragon Boat! Learn about the
lake and Wascana Park, see Regina from a different angle, and race a real dragon boat.
-The Herpetological Garden is not about tigers, great apes, or giant pandas. In fact their
focus is on herptiles ( Reptiles and Amphibians).
Quiz on Saskatchewan
1. What is the meaning of Saskatchewan in Cree language? ________________________
2. How high are the Athabasca Provincial Parks dune? ___________________________
3. Name the two largest cities: _______________________________________________
4. Who built trading posts? _________________________________________________
5. In what year did Saskatchewan became a province? ____________________________
25
Place visited
Saskatchewan has a variety of activities to please everyone.
Instructions:
- Read the four texts below.
- Look at the grid below.
- Associate each text with the appropriate place visited.
- Write your answers
Text 1
Inside this great building, Stuart was walking through the half-silent crowd. People all
around him seemed to be interested in what they were looking at. They were quiet.
None of them had come here to meet and discuss. They were interested in discovering
natural records of life, and so was Stuart.
Text 2
Pa walked on the unstable floor, trying to keep her balance. She enjoyed the view, as
the scenery was magnificent. Rarely had she seen such beauty and she truly liked this
ride, regardless of the cold and the humidity.
Text 3
Richard hiked over the hill and admired the view from the top. He saw a small arch
and a couple getting married. He thought how weird it was to have a wedding here,
but he did not pay to much attention. John kept walking; he loves everything that has
to do with Mother Natures display of colors and scents.
Text 4
Paul was sitting in his seat, watching it all go by in front of him. He had rarely seen
such a big event. The eleven thousand watts of sound was incredible. People beside
him were just as amazed. The pleasure was immense from watching the greatest
wonders that space pictures had to over.
26
Associate each place visited to its text.

Places visited
A) Regina Floral Conservatory
Text #
B) Saskatchewan Science Centre / IMAX

Theatre
C) Royal Saskatchewan Museum
D) Willow Island / Boat Tours
27
Alberta
Strong and Free
Capital: Edmonton
Official flower: Wild rose
Official bird: Great horned owl
Official animal: Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep
Alberta, Western province of Canada, boarded at the north by the
Northwest Territories, at the east by Saskatchewan, the south by the
American State of Montana and in southwest and the west by the British
Colombia.
The province of Alberta is amazingly beautiful. There are five national
parks and over one hundred other parks. It is considered by many to be
hikers paradise. These areas are filled with abundant wildlife. However,
there are many precautions to be taken if you want to explore the wild
beauty of Alberta safely.
From natural wonders to man-made marvels. Shop (and play) at the largest
entertainment and shopping centre in the world, hike where the dinosaurs
once roamed, and experience life in the past complete with pioneers, cowboys, and
Aboriginal dancers. Below is a sampling of major attractions from the six tourism
regions.
THE PROVINCIAL FLAG
The blue background represents the prairie skies;

The Cross of St. George ( patron saint of England ) is at the top;
Below it are the Rockies, foothills, prairies and wheat fields;
All these represent the landscape of Alberta;
It became the official provincial flag in 1968.
FACTS:
-The name "Alberta" is in honour of the daughter of Queen Victoria;
28
-It is the fourth-largest province;

-Edmonton (capital city) and Calgary are the largest cities;
-It is known as Canada's "energy province";
-More than half of the people live in Edmonton and Calgary.
LAND AND WATER
-There are icefields in Banff and Jasper National Parks: Ice fields are formed by a large
accumulation of snow which, through years of compression and freezing, turns into ice.
-The icefields help to fill the rivers;
-There are five national parks;
-Banff National Park is the oldest national park in Canada.
RESOURCES
-Alberta has oil, natural gas, and coal;
-It is the main producer of coal in Canada. i.e. Coal is the largest source of fuel for the
generation of electricity world-wide;
-The province is also the main producer of oil and natural gas in Canada;
-Alberta sells the oil, natural gas and coal to other provinces and other countries;
-Forests cover over half of Alberta;
-There is good soil for growing crops like oats, canola and barley;
-The main crop is wheat. Alberta is the second largest producer of wheat in Canada.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
- One of the province's most popular attractions is Dinosaur Provincial Park, located in
the Alberta badlands, where a century of excavations have discovered the skeletons of
over 150 dinosaurs that once roamed the landscape 75 million years ago.
-Calgary stampede has bull riding, calf roping and wagon racing.
-West Edmonton Mall, the worlds largest mall. Home to over 800 stores and services,
world's largest indoor wave pool at 5 acres in size, world's largest parking lot with 20,000
free parking spaces, 18 hole mini-golf course, real submarines to ride in, casino, spa, 3
movie theatres, hotel and the list goes on and on. The roller coaster is rated number 1 in
the world for g-force.
Quiz on Alberta:
1. Where is Alberta? ______________________________________________________
2. Which cities are the largest (2)? ____________________________________________
3. What are Albertas principal industries? _____________________________________
4. Whats the name of the oldest park in Canada? ________________________________
5. Alberta is the second producer of which crop in Canada? ________________________
6. What is the province most popular attraction? ________________________________
29
Bear Country
Instructions:
- Read the two texts below.
- Read the list of topics below.
- Decide if the recommendations concerning these topics are similar or different.
- Write your answers.
Alberta Bear Country
Park A
Park B
There are many rules to follow while you

are in bear country. You should always
take good care of your garbage. Never
leave a trash bag containing food lying
around, keep it at a distance from your
tent. Even better, tie it up high in a tree.
Always wash your dirty dishes
immediately after you are done eating.
When you walk in the forest, make sure
that you always make a lot of noise.
Animals, especially bears, do not like to
be startled; they like to be left alone,
undisturbed.
Never walk at night on off-trails. This
makes you vulnerable. Remember,
animals have better nocturnal eyesight
than humans.
Be careful not to surprise a mother with
her baby cubs. Also, never get close to a
cub that seems abandoned. It is better if
you alert the forest ranger of its location.
The first thing you should know about

hiking in bear country is how to store
your food. You should keep it in an
airtight container, preferably close to your
tent because racoons are clever thieves.
Also, keep your dishes clean all the times
so the smell wont attract bears.
Keep real quiet in the forest. If you make
noise all the time, you will never get to
see any wildlife. When you are in a
group, keep your conversation to a
minimum.
Off trails are super cool, especially at
night. You will hear owls and maybe
encounter a raccoon or two although it is
quite difficult to see in the dark.
I should mention one last thing. If you
ever come across a baby bear, do not
approach it because the mother is never
too far behind. I strongly recommend you
leave the area quickly.
30
Indicate if the recommendations concerning these topics are similar or different.

Topics
Food
Similar
Different
Noise
Off-Trails
Cubs
31
British Columbia
Splendour without diminishment
Capital: Victoria
Official flower: Pacific dogwood
Official bird: Steller's Jay
British Colombia is limited to north by the Yukon Territory and the
Northwest Territories, to the east by Alberta, the south by Montana,
Idaho and the State of Washington, in the northwest by Alaska. The
peak of the Rocky Mountains forms the southern part of the Eastern
limit.
The excitement and energy are building as British Columbia, home of the Vancouver
2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games prepares to welcome the world!
Experience BCs breathtaking scenery, exciting cities and resorts including
Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler, and do it your way. Enjoy a stay in our hotels and
resorts, backcountry cabins, ranches, campsites, B&Bs and all approved and
inspected accommodations in between. Try our activities, from skiing, golf, fishing,
whale watching to wine tasting and dining. Learn more about things to do in BC,
including sightseeing trips, adventure tours, attractions, driving routes, maps and
great escapes.
THE PROVINCIAL FLAG :
-At the top is the flag of the United Kingdom since this province was once a British
colony;
-Below is a half sun on blue waves;
-The waves are for the Pacific Ocean off the B.C. coast;
-The setting sun represents the most westerly province;
-It became the official provincial flag in 1960.
FACTS:
-B.C. is the most western province in Canada and the third-largest;
-Victoria, the capital city is on Vancouver Island;
-Vancouver is the third largest city in Canada;
32
-B.C. is the home to over 4.2 million people. (2005 population);

-B.C. has the largest Chinese community in Canada;
-The top 10 languages spoken are English, Chinese (including Cantonese and Mandarin),
Punjabi, German, French, Tagalog, Spanish, Italian, Korean, and Dutch;
-Approximately 35,000 immigrants from around the world arrive each year.
LAND AND WATER:
-The Fraser River is one of the largest rivers in Canada;
-Both the Fraser and the Columbia River flow into the Pacific Ocean;
-Coastal Mountains and Rocky Mountains are two large mountain ranges.
RESOURCES/INDUSTRIES :
-Forestry is the largest industry. Forest covers half of B.C.;
-B.C, has the largest and oldest trees in Canada;
-B.C.'s mountains, parks and beaches attract many tourists;
-B.C. has the largest fishing industry in Canada
(salmon, halibut, clams, cod, crab, oysters, rockfish, shrimp and herring);
-There are many orchards in the Okanagan Valley
( apples, cherries, peaches, apricots, and plums);
-The province is Canada's third-largest generator of hydro electricity;
-B.C. is Canada's second-largest natural gas producer;
-B.C. is the third-largest film and television production centre in North America (after
New York and Los Angeles).
FUN THINGS TO DO:
-Miniature Train and Children's Farmyard. There's a Halloween train in October. In
December, "Bright Nights" features a Christmas town, decorated with lights and cheery
displays, and the train runs at night.
-Skiing: Whistler Mountain and other ski resorts in B.C.
-Model Ships Museum A wonderful collection of model ships, including models of
WWII submarines, local Canadian fishing ships, tugs and barges, historical sailing ships,
and fantasy ships, such as Jules Verne's Nautilus submarine.
Quiz on British Columbia:
1. Where is British Columbia? _______________________________________________
2. Where is located Victoria, the capital city? __________________________________
3. What is BCs largest industry? ____________________________________________
4. B.C, has the largest and oldest __________ in Canada. _________________________
5. What do tourist do? _____________________________________________________
6. Which river is one of the largest in Canada? __________________________________
33
When you are travelling with others, it is important to choose activities that please
everyone.
Instructions:
- Read the letter below.
- Read the description of activities.
- Determine which six (6) activities Derek and his sister would both enjoy.
- Write the number of the activities.
Dear Travel Agent,
My name is Derek and Im from Kelowna, British Columbia. I have a younger sister and
it will soon be her birthday. I would like to take her to Vancouver for the weekend. The
problem is that I do not have a lot of money and we have different interests. We will
have to establish priorities and do only activities that we both like.
Personally, I love kayaking and canoeing, but my sister does not like outdoor activities
that have to do with water; she prefers to be on land. She likes skiing and I love
snowboarding. She is afraid of heights and thats too bad because I would love to try
parachuting. Our common interests are educational activities, the arts and our love for
animals.
Could you please send me information on what might interest us?
Thank you.
Derek Thompson
34
Activities
1. The ocean surrounds Vancouver; there are many boat companies at the harbour
that offer tours around the island.
2. There is a sky ride that can take you all the way to the top of Grouse Mountain.
From up there, you have an absolutely amazing view of the area.
3. It is also possible to take an adventure tour in the surrounding mountains. The
trip includes bird watching, hiking and ever grizzly watching.
4. Another great activity is the White Water rafting excursion in the turquoise rivers
of British Columbia. It is only a short car-ride from downtown Vancouver. If you
like extreme sports, it is the place to go.
5. The best gold courses in the country are located in the Vancouver area. If you
love the sport or simply want to take a nice walk, this is worth the while.
6. From June 3 to September 26 is the Shakespeare festival on the beach. Plays can
be seen every day.
7. There is the Capilano suspended bridge in the park by the same name. Lets see
if you are brave enough to walk over the river at an elevation of 230 feet. I can
guarantee the view is worth every shiver.
8. If you feel like walking, you must go to the Granville Island. It is an old factory
that his become a public market. There is also an art school and other little shops.
9. Science fans should go to the Science World. It is an unbelievable museum,
filled with exhibits for kids, science shows, and amazing demonstrations.
10. Stanley Park is the place to visit. It is the biggest green space in Vancouver. It is
also near the zoo and the best international attraction in British Columbia: the
aquarium.
Activities
Determine which six (6) activities Derek and his sister would both enjoy.
Write the number of the activities.
The order of the answers is not important.
Activities
35
Nunavut
Nunavut, our strength
Capital: Iqaluit
Official flower: Arctic poppy
Nunavut is bordered in the east by the Northwest Territories, in the
north by the Arctic Ocean, the northeast and the east by Baffin Bay, in
the east by the strait of Davis and in the south by Quebec, Hudson Bay
and Manitoba.
Nunavut is an exciting arctic destination that offers a pristine, raw, noncommercialized, and a truly "you and nature" experience. The Inuit
people are brilliant, industrious and innovative, and have survived here for thousands of
years. Now it's your turn!
FLAG:
-The white and gold stand for the land;
-Red is one of Canada's official colours;
-The inuksuk is a stone marker, they were made by the Inuit long ago to show the way for
travelers;
-The marker and the North Star are guides to help people find their way.
FACTS:
-Nunavut means "our land" in Inuktitut;
-Nunavut became Canada's third territory on April 1, 1999;
-It is the largest territory and has one-fifth of the land in Canada;
-Baffin Island and Ellesmere Island are two large islands.
THE PEOPLE
-Nunavut is the home to about 30,000 people. (2005);
-The Inuit are the aboriginal people who make up 85 percent of the population;
-Inuktitut is the language of the Inuit;
-English, French and Inuktitut are the languages spoken in Nunavut;
-The towns are very small and far away from each other;
-Airplanes bring supplies if towns can't be reached by road;
-On Baffin Island the Inuit still hunt and fish for survival.
36
PLACES
IQALUIT (ee-kha-lu-eet)
-largest community in Nunavut; population 6000;
-Canada's most northern capital;
-Became capital of Nunavut on April 1, 1999;
-Iqaluit means the place of many fish;
-Winter activities: dog sledding, snowmobiling, ice-fishing;
-Was an airbase in the 1940s.
HISTORY
-The first people to live in Nunavut were the Inuit;
-They used to live in small hunting and fishing camps;
-Fur trading posts were set up in the 1700s;
-In 1870 the territories belonged to Canada;
-Inuit way of life changed. They forgot their native traditions;
-The Canadian government urged the Inuit to settle in communities;
-The Inuit requested their own territory.
LAND AND WATER
-The land and water are frozen most of the year;
-The Arctic waters are covered with ice floes;
-Icebergs break off from the glaciers and fall into the sea;
-In winter you can't tell where the land ends and the sea begins;
-There are also mountains and tundra;
-The soil is frozen. (Fruits and vegetables are flown in);
-It is a polar desert with very little snowfall.
INDUSTRY
-Tourism: People come to fish, hike, camp, hunt, to see the wildlife;
-Mining: copper, lead, silver, zinc, iron, gold and diamonds, oil and gas;
-Fishing: whitefish and Arctic char;
-Sale of Inuit arts and crafts (soapstone sculptures).
WILDLIFE
-The Inuit believe in taking care of the land and the wildlife;
-Wildlife includes muskoxen, caribou, polar bears, arctic foxes, whales and seals;
-They eat the meat of muskoxen, caribou, whales and seals. They also fish;
-Clothing is made from the furs of the muskoxen, polar bears, arctic foxes and seals.
TRADITION:
In April the people of Iqaluit celebrate the coming of Spring. They have dog team and
snowmobile races and contests (hunting, fishing, igloo-building, harpoon-throwing).
FUN THINGS TO DO?

-Combine walrus watching with a little iceberg and ice floe photography for a Natural
Geographic adventure.
37
-Glaciers, mountains, musk-ox, birds, polar bear, they can all be found in our Territorial
and National Parks. These remote, accessible parks receive around 2,000 visitors a year.
Thats one reason they remain unspoiled and untamed.
-Camping can be as soft or as rugged as you like. It is recommended that even
experienced campers hire a guide or outfitter.
-Whether a casual daytrip or a well-planned journey, canoe trips are spectacular.
-Iceberg watching: As the ice breaks up, icebergs arrive. White Mountains float on blue
seas.
-Learn about the culture: Drum dancers and throat singers tell the same stories of hunts,
travels, gods and beasts that were told a thousand years ago.
Quiz on Nunavut
1. Whats the language of Inuit? _____________________________________________
2. What does Nunavut means in Inuktitut? _____________________________________
3. What is the percentage of Inuit in Nunavut? __________________________________
4. Whats the name of the largest community? __________________________________
5. What is the population of the largest community? _____________________________
6. What winter activity can be done in Nunavut? ________________________________
7. What was set up in the 1700s? _____________________________________________
8. Icebergs break off from the __________ and fall into the ______.
9. What do people in Iqaluit do in April? ______________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
10. What would you like to visit in Nunavut? ___________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
38
Northwest Territories
Capital: Yellowknife
Official flower: Mountain avens
Official bird: Gyrfalcon
The Northwest Territories are part of northern Canada. The N.W.T. lies
between the Yukon Territory and Nunavut. The Arctic Ocean is to the
north. The Northwest Territories is a land of contrasts. It is 1.17 million
square kilometers of mountains, forests and tundra threaded by wild,
clean rivers feeding thousands of pristine lakes.
Northwest Territories have many amazing travel activities where you can experience a
truly northern adventure vacation. The best Canada has to offer from canoeing, relaxing,
hunting and fishing.
FLAG:
-This colourful flag represents Canada's North;
-The blue in the flag stands for water;
-while the white is for the ice and snow;
-It became the official flag of the N.W.T in 1969.
FACTS:
-Second-largest of the three territories in Canada;
-Population - about 43,000 people (2005);
-Almost half are aboriginal (Dene, Inuvialuit and Metis);
-The largest community is the city of Yellowknife (the capital), population 20,000;
-Most people are living in the Mackenzie River Valley.
HISTORY
-The first people were the Dene and the Inuit;
-Dene lived along the Mackenzie Valley ten thousand years ago;
-The first Inuit may have crossed the Bering Strait about five thousand years ago;
-Alexander Mackenzie discovered the Mackenzie River in 1789;
39
-Fur trading posts were built along the river;

-Communities grew around the trading posts;
-Yukon, Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, parts of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec were
once part of N.T.W.
-In 1870 the area became Canada's first territory.
LAND AND WATER
-Mackenzie River is the longest river in Canada;
-Great Bear Lake is eighth-largest in the world;
-Great Slave Lake is the deepest lake in Canada and tenth-largest in the world;
-Part of the N.W.T. has trees like black spruce, white spruce, birch, poplar.(taiga)
RESOURCES
-Mining gold, zinc, iron ore, lead, silver and diamonds (near Lac de Gras);
-NWT is home to Canadas first diamond mine;
-Oil and natural gas exploration;
-Hunting and trapping of beaver, lynx, fox, marten, muskrat, polar bear;
-Tourism - people come to see the wildlife and natural beauty.
FUN THINGS TO DO:
The best Canada has to offer - from canoeing pristine waters to viewing a dazzling
northern lights display - from relaxing at a remote wilderness lodge to hunting and
fishing in an unspoiled land.
-Water Activities: Mighty Rivers, majestic lakes, the vast untamed waterways of the
Northwest Territories offer unrivalled paddling experiences.
-Sport Fishing: Legendary fishing awaits you in the land of the midnight sun. For a dream
angling adventure, join us in Canada's Northwest Territories.
-Northern Lights: Experience awesome displays of the aurora borealis from the comfort
of a winter lodge or a remote wilderness lake.
-Wildlife Viewing: See wildlife in the pristine wilderness. Bring your camera and ready
yourself for an unforgettable adventure.
Quiz on North West territories
1. Where do most people live? _______________________________________________
2. Who were the first people? _______________________________________________
3. Who discovered the Mackenzie River? ______________________________________
4. What is the name of the longest river in Canada? ______________________________
5. What is the name of the deepest lake in Canada? ______________________________
40
Yukon
Capital: Whitehorse
Official flower: Fireweed
Official bird: Common Raven
The Yukon Territory is bordered in north by the sea of Beaufort (Arctic
Ocean), in the east by the Northwest Territories, in the south by British
Colombia and at the west by the American State of Alaska.
According to legend, Yukon's land has been peopled since a
mythological creature named Crow created the world. Yukon First
Nations include the Southern and Northern Tutchone, Tlingit, Tagish,
Kaska, Tanana, Han and Gwitchin people. The Inuvialuit peoples'
traditional hunting grounds include northern Yukon. Respect for the land, its creatures
and the forces of nature, combined with a rich oral tradition, form the foundations of the
Yukon First Nations culture.
FLAG :
The main colours of the Yukon flag are green, white and blue;
Green is for forests, white for snow, and blue for water;
The coat of arms is in the centre of the flag;
The floral emblem (fireweed) is under the shield.
FACTS:
-The Yukon Territory became part of Canada in 1898;
-The word "Yukon" means "Great River";
-The smallest territory;
-Name : from the Native word "Yu-kun-ah" meaning Great River.
THE PEOPLE
-Population about 31,587 (2005);
-Over 70 percent live in Whitehorse, the capital city (23,511 people);
-About 24 percent of the people are Aboriginal (2001 census);
-There are fourteen First Nations, speaking eight different languages.
41
HISTORY
-They hunted, fished and trapped to survive;
-In 1840 British fur trader and explorer Robert Campbell arrived;
-Forts were built so the Hudson's Bay Company could trade for furs with the trappers..
-By 1899 the gold was almost gone so people left the Yukon;
-Building of the Alaska highway in 1942 brought hundreds of workers;
-The highway (1,520 miles or 2,446 km) was constructed in eight months.
LAND AND WATER
-The Yukon River is 3,520 km (2,200 miles) long;
-Part of the land is "tundra" : rocky, moss, tough grasses, small willow shrubs grow
-Soil is frozen so growing crops is difficult;
-Part of the land is covered with forests.
RESOURCES
-People visit the Yukon to hike, raft, camp, rock climb, fish, see wildlife, and hunt;
-Tourism provides many jobs for people;
-The largest industry is mining (gold, lead, zinc and silver);
-Beaver, lynx, wolverine, muskrat, marten and fox are trapped and the furs are sold.
FUN THINGS TO DO IN THE YUKON:
-The Yukon enjoys some of the liveliest and predictable displays of aurora borealis in the
circumpolar North. You can experience Yukons winter activities such as dog sledding or
snowshoeing by day and spend your nights watching the enchanting northern lights in the
peaceful solitude of a Yukon winter night.
-Come face-to-face with a seven-foot grizzly at the MacBride Museum of Yukon History.
Quiz on Yukon
1. Where is Yukon Territory? _______________________________________________
2. What does Yukon Mean? _________________________________________________
3. Why did they build forts? ________________________________________________
4. Why do people visit Yukon? ______________________________________________
5. How long is the Yukon River? _____________________________________________
42
Each province has its festival, but the Yukon has one like no other.
Instructions:
- Read the text.
- Read the five questions below.
- Find the answers to the questions.
- Write the answers.
Yukon Festival
There is a festival in every province, but not many are as special as the Dawson City
Music Festival. It is regarded to many as the summer equivalent of the Frostbite Music
Festival in February. These are over ten major festivals in this territory, but Dawson City
is the real place to be for musicians of the small northern community. It is a place for
newcomers but also for well-established popular Canadian artists. Every kind of music
can be heard all over the city, from rock to traditional. Even churches become concert
halls, as the acoustics in their buildings are fantastic.
The festival takes place during the second half of July, at the height of the tourist season.
Every year, people from all over Canada, the United States and even Europe come to this
festival. Because of the geographical position of the Yukon, the sun never sets. During
the summer, it never gets dark; there is an ever-present brightness for every single
concert.
There is a lot more than just music going on. There are games for kids and crafts for
adults. There is fun for the entire family; everyone will find something that pleases them.
Come and join the adventure!
43
Festival
Answer the questions in complete sentences.
1. What is the Dawson City Music Festival compared to?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. Why can we say that there is a mixture of artists?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. Why are there so many people at the festival?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. What is so special about the geographical position of Yukon?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
5. Name two (2) other activities you can do at the summer festival?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
44
Show and Tell

Explain the best trip in Canada you had in your life and the worst one.
Where did you go? ________________________________________________________
When did you go? ________________________________________________________
What did you like the most?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
What did you hate the most?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Discussion
Over 200,000 people from other countries immigrate to Canada each year. Nearly 20
percents of Canadians have come from somewhere else. Many become Canadian
Citizens. Why do they come here?
Reason people say they come to Canada: Canada is a peaceful country; everyone has
equal rights. Women are treated as equal as men; there is freedom of speech in Canada.
We can say what we think, even if others disagree.
How would you describe Canada to an immigrant?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Are you proud to be a Canadian? Why?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
45
Create a poster of a province or territory.

It must include a picture and a text (15 to 25 words) for each category listed in the
checklist below.
- See your teachers poster for an example.
Tic when its done ()

Pictures
Texts
Name of the province or territory

Flag
Geography
Language
Capital city
Symbols
Industries
Food
Animals
Temperature
Fun things to do
Other...
46
GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- CANADA
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of

ten provinces and three territories. Located in the
northern part of the continent, it extends from the
Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in
the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is
the world's second largest country by total area.
Canada's common border with the United States to
the south and northwest is the longest in the world.
The land that is now Canada was inhabited for
millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples.
Beginning in the late 15th century, British and
French expeditions explored, and later settled,
along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of
its colonies in North America in 1763 after the
Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three
British North American colonies through
Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal
dominion of four provinces. This began an
accretion of provinces and territories and a process
of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom.
This widening autonomy was highlighted by the
Statute of Westminster 1931 and culminated in the
Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of
legal dependence on the British parliament.
Canada is a federal state that is governed as a
parliamentary democracy and a constitutional
monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of
state. It is a bilingual nation with both English and
French as official languages at the federal level.
One of the world's highly developed countries,
Canada has a diversified economy that is reliant
upon its abundant natural resources and upon
tradeparticularly with the United States, with
which Canada has had a long and complex
relationship. It is a member of the G7, G8, G20,
NATO, OECD, WTO, Commonwealth of Nations,
Francophonie, OAS, APEC, and UN. With the
eighth-highest Human Development Index
globally, it has one of the highest standards of
living in the world.
Flag
Coat of arms
Motto: A Mari Usque Ad Mare (Latin)

"From Sea to Sea"
Anthem: "O Canada"
Royal anthem: "God Save the Queen"
Capital
Ottawa
4524N 7540W
Toronto
English and French
Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Cree,
Dne Sin, Gwichin,
Inuvialuktun, Slavey and Tch
Yati[3]
Canadian
Demonym
Federal parliamentary democracy
Government
and constitutional monarchy[4]
- Monarch
Elizabeth II
-Governor General
David Johnston
- Prime Minister
Stephen Harper
Parliament
Legislature
- Upper House
Senate
- Lower House
House of Commons
Establishment
- British North America
July 1, 1867
Acts
- Statute of Westminster December 11, 1931
- Canada Act
April 17, 1982
Area
- Total
9,984,670 km2 (2nd)
3,854,085 sq mi
- Water (%)
8.92 (891,163 km2/344,080 mi2)
Population
- 2011 estimate
34,560,000 (36th)
- 2006 census
32,623,490
3.41/km2 (228th)
Density
8.3/sq mi
GDP (PPP)
2010 estimate
- Total
$1.330 trillion
- Per capita
$39,057
GDP (nominal)
2010 estimate
- Total
$1.574 trillion
- Per capita
$46,215
Gini (2005)
32.1 (medium)
HDI (2010)
0.888 (very high) (8th)
Currency
Canadian dollar ($) (CAD)
(UTC3.5 to 8)
Time zone
-Summer (DST)
(UTC2.5 to 7)
dd-mm-yyyy, mm-dd-yyyy, and
Date formats
yyyy-mm-dd (CE)
Right
Drives on the
CA
ISO 3166 code
.ca
Internet TLD
+1
Calling code
Largest city
Recognised
regional languages
Contents
1 History
1.1 Etymology
1.2 Aboriginal peoples
1.3 European colonization
1.4 Confederation and expansion
1.5 Early 20th century
1.6 Modern times
2 Geography
3 Government and politics
o 3.1 Law
o 3.2 Foreign relations and military
o 3.3 Provinces and territories
4 Economy
o 4.1 Science and technology
5 Demographics
o 5.1 Language
6 Culture
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
o
o
o
o
o
o
1. History
Etymology
The name Canada comes from a St. Lawrence Iroquoian word, kanata, meaning "village" or
"settlement". In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to
direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona.[11] Cartier later used the word Canada
to refer not only to that particular village, but also the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at
Stadacona); by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this region as Canada.
In the 17th and early 18th century, Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint
Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes. The area was later split into two British
colonies, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. They were re-unified as the Province of Canada in 1841.
Upon Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country, and
Dominion (a term from Psalm 72:8) was conferred as the country's title. As Canada asserted its political
autonomy from the United Kingdom, the federal government increasingly used simply Canada on state
documents and treaties, a change that was reflected in the renaming of the national holiday from
Dominion Day to Canada Day in 1982.
Aboriginal peoples
Archaeological and genetic studies support a human presence in the northern Yukon from 26,500 years
ago, and in southern Ontario from 9,500 years ago. Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the
earliest archaeological sites of human (Paleo-Indians) habitation in Canada. Among the First Nations
peoples, there are eight unique creation myths and their adaptations. The characteristics of Canadian
Aboriginal societies included permanent settlements, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies, and
trading networks. Some of these cultures had faded by the time of the first permanent European arrivals
(c. late 15thearly 16th centuries), and have been discovered through archaeological investigations.
The aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 200,000and two million in the late 15th
century, with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health.

Repeated outbreaks of European infectious diseases such as influenza, measles, and smallpox (to which
they had no natural immunity), combined with other effects of European contact, resulted in a forty to
eighty percent aboriginal population decrease post-contact. Aboriginal peoples in Canada include the
First Nations, Inuit, and Mtis. The Mtis are a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th
century when First Nation and Inuit married European settlers. The Inuit had more limited interaction
with European settlers during the colonization period.
European colonization
Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe (1771)
dramatizes Wolfe's death during the Battle of the Plains of
Abraham at Quebec in 1759
European colonization began when Norsemen settled briefly at
L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around 1000. No further
European exploration occurred until 1497, when Italian seafarer
John Cabot explored Canada's Atlantic coast for England.
Basque and Portuguese mariners established seasonal whaling
and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast. In 1534 Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence
River for France. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed St. John's, Newfoundland as the first North
American English colony by royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I. French explorer Samuel de
Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal in
1605 and Quebec City in 1608. Among French colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled
the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and
Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to
Louisiana. The Beaver Wars broke out over control of the North American fur trade.
The English established additional colonies in Cupids and Ferryland, Newfoundland beginning in 1610
and soon after founded the Thirteen Colonies to the south. A series of four French and Indian Wars
erupted between 1689 and 1763. Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the Treaty of
Utrecht (1713); the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded Canada and most of New France to Britain after the
Seven Years' War.[38]
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 carved the Province of Quebec out of New France and annexed Cape
Breton Island to Nova Scotia. St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony in
1769. To avert conflict in Quebec, the British passed the Quebec Act of 1774, expanding Quebec's
territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. It re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and
French civil law there. This angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies and helped to fuel the
American Revolution.
The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded territories south of the Great
Lakes to the United States. New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of
Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes. To accommodate English-speaking Loyalists in Quebec, the
Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and
English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.
Robert Harris's Fathers of Confederation, an amalgamation

of the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences
The Canadas were the main front in the War of 1812 between the
United States and Britain. Following the war, large-scale
immigration to Canada from Britain and Ireland began in 1815.
From 1825 to 1846, 626,628 European immigrants landed at

Canadian ports. Between one-quarter and one-third of all Europeans who immigrated to Canada before
1891 died of infectious diseases.
The desire for responsible government resulted in the aborted Rebellions of 1837. The Durham Report
subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into
English culture. The Act of Union 1840 merged The Canadas into a united Province of Canada.
Responsible government was established for all British North American provinces by 1849. The signing
of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute,
extending the border westward along the 49th parallel. This paved the way for British colonies on
Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858).
Confederation and expansion

Following several constitutional conferences, the Constitution Act, 1867 officially proclaimed Canadian
Confederation on July 1, 1867, with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick. Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the
Northwest Territories, where the Mtis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of
the province of Manitoba in July 1870. British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had united in
1866) and Prince Edward Island joined the Confederation in 1871 and 1873, respectively. Prime
Minister John A. Macdonald and his Conservative government established a National Policy of tariffs to
protect nascent Canadian manufacturing industries.
To open the West, the government sponsored construction of three transcontinental railways (including
the Canadian Pacific Railway), opened the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and
established the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory. In 1898, after the
Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, the Canadian government created the Yukon
Territory. Under Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, continental European immigrants settled the
prairies, and Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.
Early 20th century

Canadian soldiers at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917
Because Britain still maintained control of Canada's foreign affairs
under the Confederation Act, its declaration of war in 1914
automatically brought Canada into World War I. Volunteers sent
to the Western Front later became part of the Canadian Corps. The
Corps played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and
other major battles of the war. Out of approximately 625,000 who
served, about 60,000 were killed and another 173,000 were
wounded. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden
brought in compulsory military service over the objection of French-speaking Quebecers. In 1919,
Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain and, the Statute of Westminster 1931
affirmed Canada's independence.
The Great Depression brought economic hardship throughout Canada. In response, the Co-operative
Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Alberta and Saskatchewan enacted many measures of a welfare
state (as pioneered by Tommy Douglas) into the 1940s and 1950s. Canada declared war on Germany
independently during World War II under Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, three
days after Britain. The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939.
Canadian troops played important roles in the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid, the Allied invasion of Italy, the
Normandy landings, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944. Canada provided

asylum and protection for the monarchy of the Netherlands while that country was occupied, and is
credited by the country for leadership and major contributions to its liberation from Nazi Germany. The
Canadian economy boomed as industry manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China, and
the Soviet Union. Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec, Canada finished the war with a large
army and strong economy.
Modern times
At Rideau Hall, Governor General the Viscount Alexander
of Tunis (centre) receives the bill finalizing the union of
Newfoundland and Canada, March 31, 1949.
Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) joined
Canada in 1949. Canada's post-war economic growth, combined
with the policies of successive Liberal governments, led to the
emergence of a new Canadian identity, marked by the adoption
of the current Maple Leaf Flag in 1965, the implementation of
official bilingualism (English and French) in 1969, and official
multiculturalism in 1971. There was also the founding of socially democratic programmes, such as
Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans, though provincial governments,
particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions. Finally,
another series of constitutional conferences resulted in the 1982 patriation of Canada's constitution from
the United Kingdom, concurrent with the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 1999,
Nunavut became Canada's third territory after a series of negotiations with the federal government.
At the same time, Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes through the Quiet
Revolution of the 1960s, giving birth to a modern nationalist movement. The radical Front de libration
du Qubec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis in 1970. The sovereignist Parti Qubcois was elected in
1976 and organized an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Attempts to
accommodate Quebec nationalism constitutionally through the Meech Lake Accord failed in 1990. This
led to the formation of the Bloc Qubcois in Quebec and invigoration of the Reform Party of Canada in
the West. A second referendum followed in 1995, in which sovereignty was rejected by a slimmer
margin of just 50.6 to 49.4 percent. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that unilateral secession by a
province would be unconstitutional, and the Clarity Act was passed by parliament, outlining the terms
of a negotiated departure from Confederation.
In addition to the issues of Quebec sovereignty, a number of crises shook Canadian society in the late
1980s and early 1990s. These included the explosion of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, the largest mass
murder in Canadian history; the cole Polytechnique massacre in 1989, a university shooting targeting
female students; and the Oka Crisis in 1990, the first of a number of violent confrontations between the
government and Aboriginal groups. Canada also joined the Gulf War in 1990 as part of a US-led
coalition force, and was active in several peacekeeping missions in the late 1990s. It sent troops to
Afghanistan in 2001, but declined to send forces to Iraq when the US invaded in 2003.
2. Geography
Canada occupies a major northern portion of North America, sharing the land borders with the
contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest, stretching from the
Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean.[74][75] By
total area (including its waters), Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land
area, Canada ranks fourth.
The country lies between latitudes 41 and 84N, and longitudes 52 and 141W. Since 1925, Canada
has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60 and 141W longitude, but this claim is not universally

recognized. The northernmost settlement in Canada (and in the world) is Canadian Forces Station Alert
on the northern tip of Ellesmere Islandlatitude 82.5N817 kilometres (450 nautical miles,
508 miles) from the North Pole. Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost. Canada
also has the longest coastline in the world: 202,080 kilometres (125,570 mi).
The Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is one of

the world's most voluminous waterfalls, renowned both for
its beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power.
Since the last glacial period Canada has consisted of eight
distinct forest regions, including extensive boreal forest on the
Canadian Shield. Canada has more lakes than any other country,
containing much of the world's fresh water. There are also freshwater glaciers in the Canadian Rockies and the Coast
Mountains. Canada is geologically active, having many
earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley,
and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex. The volcanic eruption of Tseax Cone in 1775 caused a
catastrophic disaster, killing 2,000 Nisga'a people and destroying their village in the Nass River valley
of northern British Columbia; the eruption produced a 22.5-kilometre (14.0 mi) lava flow, and
according to legend of the Nisga'a people, it blocked the flow of the Nass River.
The population density, 3.3 inhabitants per square kilometre (8.5 /sq mi), is among the lowest in the
world. The most densely populated part of the country is the Quebec City Windsor Corridor, situated
in Southern Quebec and Southern Ontario along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.[83]
Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary according to the location. Winters
can be harsh in many regions of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which
experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near 15 C (5 F) but can drop
below 40 C (40 F) with severe wind chills.[84] In noncoastal regions, snow can cover the ground
almost six months of the year (more in the north). Coastal British Columbia has a temperate climate,
with a mild and rainy winter. On the east and west coasts, average high temperatures are generally in the
low 20s C (70s F), while between the coasts, the average summer high temperature ranges from 25 to
30 C (77 to 86 F), with occasional extreme heat in some interior locations exceeding 40 C (104 F).
3. Government and politics

Parliament Hill in Canada's capital, Ottawa
Canada has strong democratic traditions upheld through a
parliamentary system within the construct of constitutional
monarchy; the monarchy of Canada is the foundation of the
executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The sovereign is
Queen Elizabeth II, who also serves as head of state of 15 other
Commonwealth countries and each of Canada's ten provinces
and resides predominantly in the United Kingdom. As such, the
Queen's representative, the Governor General of Canada
(presently David Lloyd Johnston), carries out most of the federal royal duties in Canada.
The direct participation of the royal and viceroyal figures in areas of governance is limited; in practice,
their use of the executive powers is directed by the Cabinet, a committee of ministers of the Crown
responsible to the elected House of Commons and chosen and headed by the Prime Minister of Canada
(presently Stephen Harper), the head of government. To ensure the stability of government, the
governor general will usually appoint as prime minister the person who is the current leader of the
political party that can obtain the confidence of a plurality in the House of Commons. The Prime

Minister's Office (PMO) is thus one of the most powerful institutions in government, initiating most
legislation for parliamentary approval and selecting for appointment by the Crown, besides the
aforementioned, the governor general, lieutenant governors, senators, federal court judges, and heads of
Crown corporations and government agencies. The leader of the party with the second-most seats
usually becomes the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (presently Nycole Turmel) and is part of
an adversarial parliamentary system intended to keep the government in check.
The Senate chamber within the Centre Block on

Parliament Hill
Each of the 308 Members of Parliament in the House of
Commons is elected by simple plurality in an electoral district
or riding. General elections must be called by the governor
general, on the advice of the prime minister, within four years of
the previous election, or may be triggered by the government
losing a confidence vote in the House. The 105 members of the
Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, serve until age 75. Five parties had
representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2011 elections: the Conservative Party of Canada
(governing party), the New Democratic Party (the Official Opposition), the Liberal Party of Canada, the
Bloc Qubcois, and the Green Party of Canada. The list of historical parties with elected representation
is substantial.
Canada's federal structure divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the
ten provinces. Provincial legislatures are unicameral and operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the
House of Commons. Canada's three territories also have legislatures, but these are not sovereign and
have fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces and with some structural differences.
Law
The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of the country, and consists of written text and unwritten
conventions. The Constitution Act, 1867 (known as the British North America Act prior to 1982)
affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent and divided powers between the federal and
provincial governments; the Statute of Westminster 1931 granted full autonomy; and the Constitution
Act, 1982, ended all legislative ties to the UK, added a constitutional amending formula, and added the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually
cannot be overridden by any governmentthough a notwithstanding clause allows the federal
parliament and provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five
years.
The Indian Chiefs Medal, presented to commemorate the

Numbered Treaties, bearing the effigy of Queen Victoria
Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early
interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were
relatively peaceful. Combined with Canada's late economic
development in many regions, this peaceful history has allowed Canadian Indigenous peoples to have a
relatively strong influence on the national culture while preserving their own identity. The Crown and
Aboriginal peoples began interactions during the European colonialization period. Numbered Treaties,
the Indian Act, the Constitution Act of 1982, and case laws were established. A series of eleven treaties
were signed between Aboriginals in Canada and the reigning Monarch of Canada from 1871 to 1921.
These treaties are agreements with the Government of Canada administered by Canadian Aboriginal law
and overseen by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The role of the treaties was
reaffirmed by Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, 1982, which "recognizes and affirms existing
Aboriginal and treaty rights". These rights may include provision of services such as health care, and

exemption from taxation. The legal and policy framework within which Canada and First Nations
operate was further formalized in 2005, through the First NationsFederal Crown Political Accord.
The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, west of Parliament Hill

Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has
the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. The
Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and has
been led by the Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, P.C. (the first female
Chief Justice) since 2000. Its nine members are appointed by the
governor general on the advice of the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice. All judges at the superior
and appellate levels are appointed after consultation with nongovernmental legal bodies. The federal
cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts at the provincial and territorial levels.
Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is
solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada. Law enforcement, including criminal
courts, is a provincial responsibility, but in rural areas of all provinces except Ontario and Quebec,
policing is contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Foreign relations and military

Prime Minister Stephen Harper meeting President of the
United States Barack Obama
Canada and the United States share the world's longest
undefended border, co-operate on military campaigns and
exercises, and are each other's largest trading partner. Canada
nevertheless has an independent foreign policy, most notably
maintaining full relations with Cuba and declining to officially participate in the Iraq War. Canada also
maintains historic ties to the United Kingdom and France and to other former British and French
colonies through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and the Francophonie. Canada
is noted for having a positive relationship with the Netherlands, owing, in part, to its contribution to the
Dutch liberation.
Canada currently employs a professional, volunteer military force of over 67,000 regular and
approximately 43,000 reserve personnel including supplementary reserves. The unified Canadian Forces
(CF) comprise the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force.
Strong attachment to the British Empire and Commonwealth led to major participation in British
military efforts in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II. Since then, Canada has been
an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other
nations. Canada was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of NATO in 1949. During
the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend
against potential aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.
Canadian Army soldiers from the Royal 22e Rgiment during UNITAS Gold (April 25, 2009)
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing
the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, for which he was awarded the 1957 Nobel
Peace Prize. As this was the first UN peacekeeping mission, Pearson is often credited as the inventor of

the concept. Canada has since served in 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping
effort until 1989, and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former
Yugoslavia, and elsewhere; Canada has sometimes faced controversy over its involvement in foreign
countries, notably in the 1993 Somalia Affair.
Canada joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990 and hosted the OAS General
Assembly in Windsor, Ontario, in June 2000 and the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in
April 2001. Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).
The Halifax-class frigate HMCS Regina, a warship of the

Royal Canadian Navy
In 2001, Canada had troops deployed to Afghanistan as part of
the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATOcommanded International Security Assistance Force. Starting
in July 2011, Canada began withdrawing its troops from
Afghanistan. The mission had cost 157 soldiers, one diplomat,
two aid workers, and one journalist their lives, with an approximate cost of C$11.3 billion Canada and
the U.S. continue to integrate state and provincial agencies to strengthen security along the CanadaUnited States border through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
In February 2007, Canada, Italy, Britain, Norway, and Russia announced their funding commitments to
launch a $1.5 billion project to help develop vaccines they said could save millions of lives in poor
nations, and called on others to join them. In August 2007, Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic were
challenged after a Russian underwater expedition to the North Pole; Canada has considered that area to
be sovereign territory since 1925. In July 2010 the largest purchase in Canadian military history,
totaling C$9 billion for the acquisition of 65 F-35 fighters was announced by the federal government.
Provinces and territories

Canada is a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories. In turn, these may be grouped
into regions: Western Canada, Central Canada, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Canada (Eastern Canada
refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together). Provinces have more autonomy than territories.
The provinces are responsible for most of Canada's social programs (such as health care, education, and
welfare) and together collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure
among federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national
policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these, but rarely
do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure that reasonably
uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.[126]
10
4. Economy
Current Canadian banknotes, depicting (top to bottom) Wilfrid
Laurier, John A. Macdonald, Queen of Canada (Elizabeth II),
William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Robert Borden
Canada is one of the world's wealthiest nations, with a high per-capita
income. It is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) and the G8, and is one of the world's top ten
trading nations. Canada is a mixed economy, ranking above the U.S. and
most western European nations on the Heritage Foundation's index of
economic freedom. The largest foreign importers of Canadian goods are
the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
In the past century, the growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service
sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy to a
more industrial and urban one. Like other First World nations, the
Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs
about three quarters of Canadians. Canada is unusual among developed
countries in the importance of its primary sector, in which the logging
and petroleum industries are two of the most important.
Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of
energy. Atlantic Canada has vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and
Alberta has large oil and gas resources. The immense Athabasca oil
sands give Canada the world's second-largest oil reserves, behind Saudi Arabia.
Canada is one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies are one of
the most important producers of wheat, canola, and other grains. Canada is the largest producer of zinc
and uranium, and is a global source of many other natural resources, such as gold, nickel, aluminum,
and lead. Many towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, are sustainable because of
nearby mines or sources of timber. Canada also has a sizable manufacturing sector centred in southern
Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries.
Representatives of the governments of Canada, Mexico,

and the United States sign the North American Free Trade
Agreement in 1992
Economic integration with the United States has increased
significantly since World War II. The Automotive Products
Trade Agreement of 1965 opened the borders to trade in the
auto manufacturing industry. In the 1970s, concerns over
energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to enact the National Energy Program (NEP) and the Foreign
Investment Review Agency (FIRA).
In the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and
changed the name of FIRA to "Investment Canada" in order to encourage foreign investment. The
Canada United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two
countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free-trade zone to
include Mexico in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, the Liberal government under Jean Chrtien began to
post annual budgetary surpluses and steadily paid down the national debt. The global financial crisis of
2008 caused a recession, which could increase the country's unemployment rate to 10 percent. In 2008,
11

Canada's imported goods were worth over $442.9 billion, of which $280.8 billion was from the United
States, $11.7 billion from Japan, and $11.3 billion from the United Kingdom. The countrys 2009 trade
deficit totaled C$4.8 billion, compared with a C$46.9 billion surplus in 2008.
As of October 2009, Canada's national unemployment rate was 8.6 percent. Provincial unemployment
rates vary from a low of 5.8 percent in Manitoba to a high of 17 percent in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Between October 2008, and October 2010, the Canadian labour market lost 162,000 full-time jobs and a
total of 224,000 permanent jobs. Canada's federal debt is estimated to be $566.7 billion for 201011, up
from $463.7 billion in 200809. Canadas net foreign debt rose by $41-billion to $194-billion in the first
quarter of 2010.
Science and technology

The Canadarm in action on the Space Shuttle
Discovery during STS-116
Canada is an industrial nation with a highly developed
science and technology sector. Nearly 1.88 percent of
Canada's GDP is allocated to research & development
(R&D). The country has ten Nobel laureates in physics,
chemistry and medicine. Canada ranks twelfth in the world
for Internet usage with 28.0 million users, 84.3 percent of the total population.
The Canadian Space Agency conducts space, planetary, and aviation research, and develops rockets and
satellites. In 1984, Marc Garneau became Canada's first astronaut, serving as payload specialist of STS41-G. Canada was ranked third among 20 top countries in space sciences. Canada is a participant in the
International Space Station and one of the world's pioneers in space robotics with the Canadarm,
Canadarm2 and Dextre. Since the 1960s, Canada Aerospace Industries have designed and built 10
satellites, including Radarsat-1, Radarsat-2 and MOST.[149] Canada also produced one of the most
successful sounding rockets, the Black Brant; over 1000 have been launched since they were initially
produced in 1961. Universities across Canada are working on the first domestic landing spacecraft: the
Northern Light, designed to search for life on Mars and investigate Martian electromagnetic radiation
environment and atmospheric properties. If the Northern Light is successful, Canada will be the third
country to land on another planet.
5. Demographics
Historical populations
Year
Pop.
1851
2,415,000
1861
3,174,000
31.4%
1871
3,689,000
16.2%
1881
4,325,000
17.2%
1891
4,833,000
11.7%
12
1901
5,371,000
11.1%
1911
7,207,000
34.2%
1921
8,788,000
21.9%
1931
10,377,000
18.1%
1941
11,507,000
10.9%
1951
14,009,000
21.7%
1961
18,238,000
30.2%
1971
21,962,000
20.4%
1981
24,820,000
13.0%
1991
28,031,000
12.9%
2001
31,021,000
10.7%
2010
est.
34,560,000
11.4%
Source: Statistics Canada[152]
The Canada 2006 Census counted a total population of 31,612,897, an increase of 5.4 percent since
2001. Population growth is from immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. About four-fifths
of Canada's population lives within 150 kilometres (93 mi) of the United States border. A similar
proportion live in urban areas concentrated in the Quebec City Windsor Corridor, the BC Lower
Mainland, and the CalgaryEdmonton Corridor in Alberta. In common with many other developed
countries, Canada is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees
and fewer people of working age. In 2006, the average age of the population was 39.5 years.
According to the 2006 census, the largest self-reported ethnic origin is Canadian (32%), followed by
English (21%), French (15.8%), Scottish (15.1%), Irish (13.9%), German (10.2%), Italian (4.6%),
Chinese (4.3%), First Nations (4.0%), Ukrainian (3.9%), and Dutch (3.3%). There are 600 recognized
First Nations governments or bands encompassing 1,172,790 people.
Canada's Aboriginal population is growing at almost twice the national rate, and 3.8 percent of Canada's
population claimed aboriginal identity in 2006. Another 16.2 percent of the population belonged to a
non-aboriginal visible minority. The largest visible minority groups in Canada are South Asian (4.0%),
Chinese (3.9%) and Black (2.5%). Between 2001 and 2006, the visible minority population rose by 27.2
percent. In 1961, less than two percent of Canada's population (about 300,000 people) could be
classified as belonging to a visible minority group and less than 1% as aboriginal. As of 2007, almost
one in five Canadians (19.8%) were foreign-born. Nearly 60 percent of new immigrants come from Asia
(including the Middle East). The leading emigrating countries to Canada were China, Philippines and
India. By 2031, one in three Canadians could belong to a visible minority group.
Canada has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world, driven by economic policy and
family reunification, and is aiming for between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents in 2011,
the same number of immigrants as in recent years. New immigrants settle mostly in major urban areas
13

like Toronto and Vancouver. Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees. The country resettles over
one in 10 of the worlds refugees.
According to the 2001 census, 77.1 percent of Canadians identify as being Christians; of this, Catholics
make up the largest group (43.6% of Canadians). The largest Protestant denomination is the United
Church of Canada (9.5% of Canadians), followed by the Anglicans (6.8%), Baptists (2.4%), Lutherans
(2%), and other Christians (4.4%). About 16.5 percent of Canadians declare no religious affiliation, and
the remaining 6.3 percent are affiliated with non-Christian religions, the largest of which is Islam
(2.0%), followed by Judaism (1.1%).
Canadian provinces and territories are responsible for education. Each system is similar, while reflecting
regional history, culture and geography. The mandatory school age ranges between 57 to 1618 years,
contributing to an adult literacy rate of 99 percent. In 2002, 43 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 64
possessed a post-secondary education; for those aged 25 to 34, the rate of post-secondary education
reached 51 percent.
Name
Toronto
Montreal
Vancouver
Ottawa
Gatineau
Calgary
Edmonton
Quebec
Winnipeg
Hamilton
London
Largest metropolitan areas in Canada by population (2006 Census)

Province
Pop.
Name
Province
Pop.
KitchenerCambridgeOntario
5,113,149
Ontario
451,235
Waterloo
Quebec
3,635,571 St. CatharinesNiagara
Ontario
390,317
British
2,116,581 Halifax
Nova Scotia
372,858
Columbia
Ontario
1,130,761 Oshawa
Ontario
330,594
Quebec
Alberta
1,079,310 Victoria
British Columbia
330,088
Alberta
1,034,945 Windsor
Ontario
323,342
Quebec
715,515 Saskatoon
Saskatchewan
233,923
Manitoba
694,898 Regina
Saskatchewan
194,971
Ontario
692,911 Sherbrooke
Quebec
186,952
Newfoundland and
Ontario
457,720 St. John's
181,113
Labrador
Language
In 2006, about 17.4% of the population were bilingual, as
they were able to conduct a conversation in both official
languages.
English - 57.8%
English and French (Bilingual) - 17.4%
French - 22.1%
Sparsely populated area ( < 0.4 persons per km2)
Canada's two official languages are English and French.

Official bilingualism is defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Official Languages
Act, and Official Language Regulations; it is applied by the Commissioner of Official Languages.
English and French have equal status in federal courts, Parliament, and in all federal institutions.
Citizens have the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in
either English or French, and official-language minorities are guaranteed their own schools in all
provinces and territories.
14

English and French are the first languages of 59.7 and 23.2 percent of the population respectively.
Approximately 98 percent of Canadians speak English or French: 57.8% speak English only, 22.1%
speak French only, and 17.4% speak both. English and French Official Language Communities, defined
by First Official Language Spoken, constitute 73.0 and 23.6 percent of the population respectively.
The Charter of the French Language makes French the official language in Quebec. Although more than
85 percent of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, there are substantial Francophone populations
in Ontario, Alberta, and southern Manitoba; Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside
Quebec. New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province, has a French-speaking Acadian
minority constituting 33 percent of the population. There are also clusters of Acadians in southwestern
Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island, and through central and western Prince Edward Island.
Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in
courts, and for other government services in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec allow
for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both
languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status but is not fully co-official. There are 11 Aboriginal
language groups, made up of more than 65 distinct dialects. Of these, only Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway
have a large enough population of fluent speakers to be considered viable to survive in the long term.
Several aboriginal languages have official status in the Northwest Territories. Inuktitut is the majority
language in Nunavut, and one of three official languages in the territory.
Over six million people in Canada list a non-official language as their mother tongue. Some of the most
common non-official first languages include Chinese (mainly Cantonese; 1,012,065 first-language
speakers), Italian (455,040), German (450,570), Punjabi (367,505) and Spanish (345,345). and the
languages most spoken at home by 68.3 percent and 22.3 percent of the population respectively.
6. Culture
Canada has a diverse makeup of nationalities and cultures, and has constitutional protection for policies
that promote multiculturalism. In Quebec, cultural identity is strong, and many French-speaking
commentators speak of a culture of Quebec as distinguished from English Canadian culture; however,
as a whole Canada is a cultural mosaica collection of several regional, aboriginal, and ethnic
subcultures. Government policies such as publicly-funded health care, higher taxation to distribute
wealth, outlawing capital punishment, strong efforts to eliminate poverty, an emphasis on
multiculturalism, stricter gun control, and legalization of same-sex marriage are social indicators of how
Canada's political and cultural evolution differs from that of the United States.
Bill Reid's sculpture Raven and The First Men. The Raven is a
figure common to many mythologies in aboriginal culture.
Historically Canada has been influenced by British, French, and
aboriginal cultures and traditions. Through their culture, language,
art and music, aboriginals continue to influence the Canadian
identity. Many Canadians value multiculturalism and see Canada as
being inherently multicultural. However, the country's culture has
been heavily influenced by that of the United States because of its proximity and the high rate of
migration between the two countries. American media and entertainment are popular, if not dominant,
in English Canada; conversely, many Canadian cultural products and entertainers are successful in the
United States and worldwide. Many cultural products are marketed toward a unified "North American"
or global market. The creation and preservation of distinctly Canadian culture are supported by federal
government programs, laws, and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the
National Film Board of Canada, and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications
Commission.[193]
15
The Jack Pine, by Tom Thomson, 1916; oil on canvas, in the

collection of the National Gallery of Canada
Canadian visual art has been dominated by Tom Thomson
Canada's most famous painter and by the Group of Seven.
Thomson's brief career painting Canadian landscapes spanned just a
decade up to his death in 1917 at age 39. The Group were painters
with a nationalistic and idealistic focus, who first exhibited their
distinctive works in May 1920. Though referred to as having seven
members, five artists Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Arthur
Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley were responsible for articulating the Group's
ideas. They were joined briefly by Frank Johnston, and by commercial artist Franklin Carmichael. A. J.
Casson became part of the Group in 1926. Associated with the Group was another prominent Canadian
artist, Emily Carr, known for her landscapes and portrayals of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific
Northwest Coast.
The Canadian music industry has produced internationally renowned composers, musicians and
ensembles. Canada's music broadcasting is regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
administers Canada's music industry awards, the Juno Awards, which commenced in 1970. The national
anthem of Canada O Canada adopted in 1980, was originally commissioned by the Lieutenant
Governor of Quebec, the Honourable Thodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day
ceremony. Calixa Lavalle wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the
poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French, before it was
translated to English in 1906.
A scene at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver

seconds after Team Canada won gold in men's ice hockey
Canada's official national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse.[201]
Hockey is a national pastime and the most popular spectator
sport in the country. It is also the sport most played by
Canadians, with 1.65 million participants in 2004. Seven of
Canada's eight largest metropolitan areasToronto, Montreal,
Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeghave
franchises in the National Hockey League (NHL), and there are more Canadian players in the NHL than
from all other countries combined. Other popular spectator sports include curling and football; the latter
is played professionally in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Golf, baseball, skiing, soccer, cricket,
volleyball, and basketball are widely played at youth and amateur levels, but professional leagues and
franchises are not widespread.
Canada has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, including the 1976 Summer
Olympics in Montreal, the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Canada was the host nation for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British
Columbia.
Canada's national symbols are influenced by natural, historical, and Aboriginal sources. The use of the
maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates to the early 18th century. The maple leaf is depicted on Canada's
current and previous flags, on the penny, and on the Arms of Canada. Other prominent symbols include
the beaver, Canada Goose, Common Loon, the Crown, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and more
recently, the totem pole and Inuksuk.
16
9-011 IES DEL ATUEL

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA
INGLESA II
AdvanceAustralia Fair
GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- AUSTRALIA
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of

Australia, is a country in the Southern
Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the
Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and
numerous smaller islands in the Indian and
Pacific Oceans. Neighbouring countries include
Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to
the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New
Caledonia to the northeast and New Zealand to
the southeast.
For at least 40,000 years before European
settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was
inhabited by indigenous Australians, who
belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language
groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in
1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by
Britain in 1770 and initially settled through penal
transportation to the colony of New South Wales,
where formal possession of the land had been
taken on 26 January 1788. The population grew
steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was
explored and an additional five self-governing
Crown Colonies were established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies became a
federation and the Commonwealth of Australia
was formed. Since Federation, Australia has
maintained a stable liberal democratic political
system and is a Commonwealth realm. The
population is approximately 22.6 million, with
approximately 60 per cent concentrated in and
around the mainland state capitals of Sydney,
Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The
nation's capital city is Canberra, in the Australian
Capital Territory. Approximately 57 per cent of
Australia's population live in either Victoria or
New South Wales, and approximately 79 per cent
live in the eastern states of Australia.
Commonwealth of Australia
Flag
Coat of arms
Anthem:
"Advance Australia Fair"
Capital
Largest city
National language
Demonym
Government
- Monarch
- Governor-General
Prime Minister
Legislature
- Upper House
- Lower House
Independence
- Constitution
- Statute of Westminster
Adoption Act
- Australia Act
- Total
- 2011 estimate
- 2006 census
- Density
GDP (PPP)
- Total
- Per capita
GDP (nominal)
- Total
- Per capita
Gini (2006)
HDI (2010)
Currency
Time zone
- Summer (DST)
Canberra
Sydney
None
English (de facto)
Australian, Aussie
Federal parliamentary
democracy and constitutional
monarchy
Elizabeth II
Quentin Bryce
Julia Gillard
Parliament
Senate
House of Representatives
from the United Kingdom
1 January 1901
11 December 1931
9 October 1942 (with effect
from 3 September 1939)
3 March 1986
Area
7,617,930 km2 (6th)
2,941,299 sq mi
Population
22,687,206 (50th)
19,855,288
2.8/km2 (233rd)
7.3/sq mi
2010 estimate
$882.362 billion (17th)
$39,699 (9th)
2010 estimate
$1.235 trillion (13th)
$55,589 (6th)
30.5 (medium)
0.937 (very high) (2nd)
Australian dollar (AUD)
various (UTC+8 to +10.5)
various (UTC+8 to +11.5)
A developed country, Australia is the world's

left
Drives on the
thirteenth largest economy and it holds a position
AU
ISO 3166 code
.au
Internet TLD
16 in Global Competitiveness Index 20102011
+61
Calling code
[15]
rankings made by World Economic Forum.
Australia ranks highly in many international comparisons of national performance such as human
development, quality of life, health care, life expectancy, public education, economic freedom and
the protection of civil liberties and political rights. [16] Australia is a member of the United Nations,
G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, OECD, APEC, Pacific Islands Forum and the World
Trade Organization. Australia is the only country outside Europe in the top ten of the quality-oflife index.
1
Contents
1 Etymology
2 History
3 Politics
4 States and territories
5 Foreign relations and military
6 Geography and climate
7 Environment
8 Economy
9 Demography
o 9.1 Language
o 9.2 Religion
o 9.3 Education
o 9.4 Health
10 Culture
o 10.1 Arts
o 10.2 Media
o 10.3 Cuisine
o 10.4 Sport
1. Etymology
The name Australia is derived from the Latin australis, meaning "southern". The country has been
referred to colloquially as Oz since the early 20th century. Aussie is a common colloquial term for
"Australian".
Legends of Terra Australis Incognitaan "unknown land of the South"date back to Roman times
and were commonplace in medieval geography, although not based on any documented knowledge of
the continent. Following European discovery, names for the Australian landmass were often references
to the famed Terra Australis.
The earliest recorded use of the word Australia in English was in 1625 in "A note of Australia del
Espritu Santo, written by Master Hakluyt" and published by Samuel Purchas in Hakluytus Posthumus,
a corruption of the original Spanish name Austrialia del Espritu Santo for an island in Vanuatu. The
Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia (Jakarta) in 1638, to refer to
the newly discovered lands to the south. Australia was later used in a 1693 translation of Les
Aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Dcouverte et le Voyage de la Terre Australe, a 1676 French
novel by Gabriel de Foigny, under the pen-name Jacques Sadeur. Referring to the entire South Pacific
region, Alexander Dalrymple used it in An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the
South Pacific Ocean in 1771. By the end of the 18th century, the name was being used to refer
specifically to Australia, with the botanists George Shaw and Sir James Smith writing of "the vast
island, or rather continent, of Australia, Australasia or New Holland" in their 1793 Zoology and
Botany of New Holland, and James Wilson including it on a 1799 chart.
The name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who pushed for it to be
formally adopted as early as 1804. When preparing his manuscript and charts for his 1814 A Voyage to
Terra Australis, he was persuaded by his patron, Sir Joseph Banks, to use the term Terra Australis as
this was the name most familiar to the public. Flinders did so, but allowed himself the footnote:
"Had I permitted myself any innovation on the original term, it would have been to convert it to
Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great
portions of the earth."[
This is the only occurrence of the word Australia in that text; but in Appendix III, Robert Brown's
General remarks, geographical and systematical, on the botany of Terra Australis, Brown makes use
of the adjectival form Australian throughout,the first known use of that form. Despite popular
conception, the book was not instrumental in the adoption of the name: the name came gradually to be
accepted over the following ten years. Lachlan Macquarie, a Governor of New South Wales,
subsequently used the word in his dispatches to England, and on 12 December 1817 recommended to
the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent
should be known officially as Australia.
2. History
Exploration by Europeans till 1812
1606 Willem Janszoon
1606 Luis Vez de Torres
1616 Dirk Hartog
1619 Frederick de Houtman
1644 Abel Tasman
1696 Willem de Vlamingh
1699 William Dampier
1770 James Cook
17971799 George Bass
18011803 Matthew Flinders
Human habitation of Australia is estimated to have begun
between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago, possibly with the migration of people by land bridges and short
sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia. These first inhabitants may have been ancestors of
modern Indigenous Australians. At the time of European settlement in the late 18th century, most
Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based
on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically
Melanesian, were originally horticulturalists and hunter-gatherers.
Following sporadic visits by fishermen from the Malay Archipelago, the first recorded European
sighting of the Australian mainland and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian
continent were attributed to the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York
Peninsula on an unknown date in early 1606, and made landfall on 26 February at the Pennefather
River on the western shore of Cape York, near the modern town of Weipa. The Dutch charted the
whole of the western and northern coastlines of "New Holland" during the 17th century, but made no
attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer/privateer landed on the northwest coast
of Australia in 1688 and again in 1699 on a return trip. In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped
the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. Cook's
discoveries prepared the way for establishment of a new penal colony. The British Crown Colony of
New South Wales was formed on 26 January 1788, when Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet to
Port Jackson. This date became Australia's national day, Australia Day. Van Diemen's Land, now
known as Tasmania, was settled in 1803 and became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom
formally claimed the western part of Australia in 1828.
Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in
1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from
South Australia. South Australia was founded as a "free province"it was never a penal colony.
Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts. A
campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony;
the last convict ship arrived in 1848
Port Arthur, Tasmania was Australia's largest gaol for

transported convicts.
The indigenous population, estimated at 750,000 to 1,000,000
at the time of European settlement, declined steeply for 150
years following settlement, mainly due to infectious disease.
The "Stolen Generations" (removal of Aboriginal children from their families), which historians such
as Henry Reynolds have argued could be considered genocide, may have contributed to the decline in
the Indigenous population. Such interpretations of Aboriginal history are disputed by conservative
commentators such as former Prime Minister John Howard as exaggerated or fabricated for political or
ideological reasons. This debate is known within Australia as the History wars. The Federal
government gained the power to make laws with respect to Aborigines following the 1967
referendum. Traditional ownership of landaboriginal titlewas not recognised until 1992, when the
High Court case Mabo v Queensland (No 2) overturned the notion of Australia as terra nullius ("land
belonging to no one") before European occupation.
A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, and the Eureka Rebellion against mining licence
fees in 1854 was an early expression of civil disobedience. Between 1855 and 1890, the six colonies
individually gained responsible government, managing most of their own affairs while remaining part
of the British Empire. The Colonial Office in London retained control of some matters, notably
foreign affairs, defence, and international shipping.
The Last Post is played at an ANZAC Day ceremony in Port

Melbourne, Victoria. Similar ceremonies are held in most
suburbs and towns.
On 1 January 1901 federation of the colonies was achieved after a
decade of planning, consultation, and voting. The Commonwealth
of Australia was established and it became a dominion of the
British Empire in 1907. The Federal Capital Territory (later renamed the Australian Capital Territory)
was formed in 1911 as the location for the future federal capital of Canberra. Melbourne was the
temporary seat of government from 1901 to 1927 while Canberra was constructed. The Northern
Territory was transferred from the control of the South Australian government to the federal
parliament in 1911. In 1914, Australia joined Britain in fighting World War I, with support from both
the outgoing Liberal Party and the incoming Labor Party. Australians took part in many of the major
battles fought on the Western Front. Of about 416,000 who served, about 60,000 were killed and
another 152,000 were wounded. Many Australians regard the defeat of the Australian and New
Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) at Gallipoli as the birth of the nationits first major military action.
The Kokoda Track campaign is regarded by many as an analogous nation-defining event during World
War II.
Britain's Statute of Westminster 1931 formally ended most of the constitutional links between
Australia and the UK. Australia adopted it in 1942, but it was backdated to 1939 to confirm the
validity of legislation passed by the Australian Parliament during World War II. The shock of the UK's
defeat in Asia in 1942 and the threat of Japanese invasion caused Australia to turn to the United States
as a new ally and protector. Since 1951, Australia has been a formal military ally of the US, under the
ANZUS treaty. After World War II Australia encouraged immigration from Europe. Since the 1970s
and following the abolition of the White Australia policy, immigration from Asia and elsewhere was
also promoted. As a result, Australia's demography, culture, and self-image were transformed. The
final constitutional ties between Australia and the UK were severed with the passing of the Australia
Act 1986, ending any British role in the government of the Australian States, and closing the option of
judicial appeals to the Privy Council in London. In a 1999 referendum, 55 per cent of Australian
voters and a majority in every Australian state rejected a proposal to become a republic with a
president appointed by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of the Australian Parliament. Since the
election of the Whitlam Government in 1972, there has been an increasing focus in foreign policy on
ties with other Pacific Rim nations, while maintaining close ties with Australia's traditional allies and
trading partners.
3. Politics
Parliament House, Canberra was opened in 1988,
replacing the provisional Parliament House building
opened in 1927.
Australia is a constitutional monarchy with a federal
division of powers. It uses a parliamentary system of
government with Queen Elizabeth II at its apex as the
Queen of Australia, a role that is distinct from her position as monarch of the other Commonwealth
realms. The Queen resides in the United Kingdom, and she is represented by her viceroys in Australia,
(the Governor-General at the federal level and by the Governors at the state level), who by convention
act on the advice of her ministers. Supereme executive authority is vested by the constitution of
Australia in the sovereign, but the power to exercise it is conferred by the constitution specifically to
the Governor-General. The most notable exercise of the Governor-General's reserve powers outside a
Prime Minister's request was the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in the constitutional crisis of
1975.
The federal government is separated into three branches:
The legislature: the bicameral Parliament, comprising the Queen (represented by the
Governor-General), the Senate, and the House of Representatives;
The executive: the Federal Executive Council, in practice the Governor-General as advised by
the Prime Minister and Ministers of State;
The judiciary: the High Court of Australia and other federal courts, whose judges are
appointed by the Governor-General on advice of the Council.
In the Senate (the upper house), there are 76 senators: twelve each from the states and two each from
the mainland territories (the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory). The House of
Representatives (the lower house) has 150 members elected from single-member electoral divisions,
commonly known as "electorates" or "seats", allocated to states on the basis of population, with each
original state guaranteed a minimum of five seats. Elections for both chambers are normally held
every three years, simultaneously; senators have overlapping six-year terms except for those from the
territories, whose terms are not fixed but are tied to the electoral cycle for the lower house; thus only
40 of the 76 places in the Senate are put to each election unless the cycle is interrupted by a double
dissolution.[
The official residence of the Governor-General of

Australia
Australia's electoral system uses preferential voting for all lower
house elections with the exception of Tasmania and the ACT,
which, along with the Senate and most state upper houses,
combine it with proportional representation in a system known as the single transferable vote. Voting
is compulsory for all enrolled citizens 18 years and over in every jurisdiction, as is enrolment (with the
exception of South Australia). Although the Prime Minister is appointed by the Governor-General, in
practice the party with majority support in the House of Representatives forms government and its
leader becomes Prime Minister.
There are two major political groups that usually form government, federally and in the states: the
Australian Labor Party, and the Coalition which is a formal grouping of the Liberal Party and its minor
partner, the National Party. Independent members and several minor partiesincluding the Greens
and the Australian Democratshave achieved representation in Australian parliaments, mostly in
upper houses.
Following a partyroom leadership challenge, Julia Gillard became the first female Prime Minister in
June 2010. The last federal election was held on 21 August 2010 and resulted in the first hung
parliament in over 50 years. Gillard was able to form a minority Labor government with the support of
independents.
4. States and territories

Australia has six statesNew South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and
Western Australiaand two major mainland territoriesthe Northern Territory and the Australian
Capital Territory (ACT). In most respects these two territories function as states, but the
Commonwealth Parliament can override any legislation of their parliaments. By contrast, federal
legislation overrides state legislation only in areas that are set out in Section 51 of the Australian
Constitution; state parliaments retain all residual legislative powers, including those over schools, state
police, the state judiciary, roads, public transport, and local government, since these do not fall under
the provisions listed in Section 51.
Each state and major mainland territory has its own parliamentunicameral in the Northern Territory,
the ACT, and Queensland, and bicameral in the other states. The states are sovereign entities, although
subject to certain powers of the Commonwealth as defined by the Constitution. The lower houses are
known as the Legislative Assembly (the House of Assembly in South Australia and Tasmania); the
upper houses are known as the Legislative Council. The head of the government in each state is the
Premier, and in each territory the Chief Minister. The Queen is represented in each state by a
Governor; and in the Northern Territory, the Administrator. In the Commonwealth, the Queen's
representative is the Governor-General.
The federal parliament directly administers the following territories:
Jervis Bay Territory, a naval base and sea port for the national capital in land that was
formerly part of New South Wales
Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Ashmore and Cartier Islands
Coral Sea Islands
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Australian Antarctic Territory
Norfolk Island is also technically an external territory; however, under the Norfolk Island Act 1979 it
has been granted more autonomy and is governed locally by its own legislative assembly. The Queen
is represented by an Administrator, currently Owen Walsh.
5. Foreign relations and military

Australian Army soldiers conducting a foot patrol
during a joint training exercise with US forces in
Shoalwater Bay (2007).
Over recent decades, Australia's foreign relations have been
driven by a close association with the United States through the ANZUS pact, and by a desire to
develop relationships with Asia and the Pacific, particularly through ASEAN and the Pacific Islands
Forum. In 2005 Australia secured an inaugural seat at the East Asia Summit following its accession to
the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, and in 2011 will attend the Sixth East Asia
Summit in Indonesia. Australia is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, in which the
Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings provide the main forum for cooperation.
Australia has pursued the cause of international trade liberalisation. It led the formation of the Cairns
Group and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Australia is a member of the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization, and has pursued several
major bilateral free trade agreements, most recently the Australia United States Free Trade
Agreement and Closer Economic Relations with New Zealand, with another free trade agreement
being negotiated with China the AustraliaChina Free Trade Agreement and Japan, South Korea in
2011, AustraliaChile Free Trade Agreement, ASEAN Australia New Zealand Free Trade Area,
and the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership.
Along with New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore, Australia is party to the Five
Power Defence Arrangements, a regional defence agreement. A founding member country of the
United Nations, Australia is strongly committed to multilateralism, and maintains an international aid
program under which some 60 countries receive assistance. The 200506 budget provides
A$2.5 billion for development assistance; as a percentage of GDP, this contribution is less than that
recommended in the UN Millennium Development Goals. Australia ranks seventh overall in the
Center for Global Development's 2008 Commitment to Development Index.
Australia's armed forcesthe Australian Defence Force (ADF)comprise the Royal Australian Navy
(RAN), the Australian Army, and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), in total numbering 80,561
personnel (including 55,068 regulars and 25,493 reservists). The titular role of Commander-in-Chief is
vested in the Governor-General, who appoints a Chief of the Defence Force from one of the armed
services on the advice of the government. Day-to-day force operations are under the command of the
Chief, while broader administration and the formulation of defence policy is undertaken by the
Minister and Department of Defence.
In the 201011 budget, defence spending was A$25.7 billion, representing the 14th largest defence
budget in the world but accounting for only 1.2 per cent of global military spending. Australia has
been involved in UN and regional peacekeeping, disaster relief, and armed conflict; it currently has
deployed approximately 3,330 defence force personnel in varying capacities to 12 overseas operations
in areas including East Timor, Solomon Islands and Afghanistan.
6. Geography and climate

Climatic zones in Australia, based on the Kppen climate
classification.
Australia's landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi) is on the Indo-Australian Plate.
Surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is separated from Asia by the Arafura and Timor seas.
The world's smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australiaowing to its size and
isolationis often dubbed the 'island continent' and variably considered the world's largest island.
Australia has 34,218 kilometres (21,262 mi) of coastline (excluding all offshore islands) and claims an
extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,060 sq mi). This exclusive
economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory. Excluding Macquarie Island,
Australia lies between latitudes 9 and 44S, and longitudes 112 and 154E.
The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and
extends for over 2,000 kilometres (1,240 mi). Mount Augustus, claimed to be the world's largest
monolith, is located in Western Australia. At 2,228 metres (7,310 ft), Mount Kosciuszko on the Great
Dividing Range is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland, although Mawson Peak on the
remote Australian territory of Heard Island is taller at 2,745 metres (9,006 ft).
Australia is the flattest continent, with the oldest and least fertile soils; desert or semi-arid land
commonly known as the outback makes up by far the largest portion of land. The driest inhabited
continent, only its south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate. The population density,
2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, is among the lowest in the world, although a large proportion of
the population lives along the temperate south-eastern coastline.
Eastern Australia is marked by the Great Dividing Range that runs parallel to the coast of Queensland,
New South Wales and much of Victoria although the name is not strictly accurate, as in parts the
range consists of low hills and the highlands are typically no more than 1,600 metres (5,249 ft) in
height. The coastal uplands and a belt of Brigalow grasslands lie between the coast and the mountains
while inland of the dividing range are large areas of grassland. These include the western plains of
New South Wales and the Einasleigh Uplands, Barkly Tableland and the Mulga Lands of inland
Queensland. The northern point of the east coast is the tropical rainforested Cape York Peninsula.
Topographic map of Australia

The landscapes of the northern part of the country, the Top End
and the Gulf Country behind the Gulf of Carpentaria, with their
tropical climate, consist of woodland, grassland and desert. At
the northwest corner of the continent is the sandstone cliffs and
gorges of The Kimberley and below that the Pilbara while
south and inland of these lie more areas of grassland, the Ord
Victoria Plain and the Western Australian Mulga shrublands.
The heart of the country is the uplands of central Australia
while prominent features of the centre and south include the
inland Simpson, Tirari and Sturt Stony, Gibson, Great Sandy,
Tanami and Great Victoria Deserts with the famous Nullarbor
Plain on the southern coast.
The climate of Australia is significantly influenced by ocean currents, including the Indian Ocean
Dipole and the El Nio-Southern Oscillation, which is correlated with periodic drought, and the
seasonal tropical low pressure system that produces cyclones in northern Australia. These factors
induce rainfall to vary markedly from year to year. Much of the northern part of the country has a
tropical predominantly summer rainfall (monsoon) climate. Just under three quarters of Australia lies
within a desert or semi-arid zone. The southwest corner of the country has a Mediterranean climate.
Much of the southeast (including Tasmania) is temperate.
7. Environment
The koala and the eucalyptus form an iconic Australian pair
Although most of Australia is semi-arid or desert, it includes a
diverse range of habitats from alpine heaths to tropical
rainforests, and is recognised as a megadiverse country. Because
of the continent's great age, extremely variable weather patterns,
and long-term geographic isolation, much of Australia's biota is
unique and diverse. About 85 per cent of flowering plants, 84
per cent of mammals, more than 45 per cent of birds, and 89 per
cent of in-shore, temperate-zone fish are endemic. Australia has
the greatest number of reptiles of any country, with 755 species.
Australian forests are mostly made up of evergreen species,
particularly eucalyptus trees in the less arid regions, Wattles replace them in drier regions and deserts
as the most dominant species. Among well-known Australian fauna are the monotremes (the platypus
and echidna); a host of marsupials, including the kangaroo, koala, and wombat, and birds such as the
emu and the kookaburra. Australia is home to many dangerous animals including some of the most
venomous snakes in the world. The dingo was introduced by Austronesian people who traded with
Indigenous Australians around 3000 BCE. Many plant and animal species became extinct soon after
first human settlement, including the Australian megafauna; others have disappeared since European
settlement, among them the thylacine.
Many of Australia's ecoregions, and the species within those regions, are threatened by human
activities and introduced plant and animal species. The federal Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is the legal framework for the protection of threatened species.
Numerous protected areas have been created under the National Strategy for the Conservation of
Australia's Biological Diversity to protect and preserve unique ecosystems; 65 wetlands are listed
under the Ramsar Convention, and 16 natural World Heritage Sites have been established. Australia
was ranked 51st of 163 countries in the world on the 2010 Environmental Performance Index.
Climate change has become an increasing concern in Australia in recent years, with many Australians
considering protection of the environment to be the most important issue facing the country. The Rudd
Ministry has initiated several emission reduction activities; Rudd's first official act, on his first day in
office, was to sign the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Nevertheless, Australia's
carbon dioxide emissions per capita are among the highest in the world, lower than those of only a few
other industrialised nations. Rainfall in Australia has slightly increased over the past century, both
nationwide and for two quadrants of the nation, while annual mean temperatures increased
significantly over the past decades. Water restrictions are currently in place in many regions and cities
of Australia in response to chronic shortages due to urban population increases and localised drought.
8. Economy
The Super Pit gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Australia's
largest open cut mine.[175]
Australia has a market economy with high GDP per capita
and low rate of poverty. The Australian dollar is the
currency for the nation, including Christmas Island, Cocos
(Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the
independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru, and
10
Tuvalu. After the 2006 merger of the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange,
the Australian Securities Exchange is now the ninth largest in the world.
Ranked third in the Index of Economic Freedom (2010), Australia is the world's thirteenth largest
economy and has the ninth highest per capita GDP; higher than that of the United Kingdom, Germany,
France, Canada, Japan, and the United States. The country was ranked second in the United Nations
2010 Human Development Index and first in Legatum's 2008 Prosperity Index. All of Australia's
major cities fare well in global comparative liveability surveys; Melbourne reached second place on
The Economist's 2008 World's Most Livable Cities list, followed by Perth, Adelaide, and Sydney in
fourth, seventh and ninth place respectively. Total government debt in Australia is about $190 billion.
Australia has amongst the highest house prices and some of the highest household debt levels in the
world.
An emphasis on exporting commodities rather than manufactured goods has underpinned a significant
increase in Australia's terms of trade since the start of the century, due to rising commodity prices.
Australia has a balance of payments that is more than 7 per cent of GDP negative, and has had
persistently large current account deficits for more than 50 years. Australia has grown at an average
annual rate of 3.6 per cent for over 15 years, in comparison to the OECD annual average of 2.5 per
cent. There are differing opinions based on evidence as to whether or not Australia had been one of the
few OECD nations to avoid experiencing a recession during the late 2000s global financial downturn.
Six of Australia's major trading partners had been in recession which in turn affected Australia, and
economic growth was hampered significantly over recent years.
The Hawke Government floated the Australian dollar in 1983 and partially deregulated the financial
system. The Howard Government followed with a partial deregulation of the labour market and the
further privatisation of state-owned businesses, most notably in the telecommunications industry. The
indirect tax system was substantially changed in July 2000 with the introduction of a 10 per cent
Goods and Services Tax (GST). In Australia's tax system, personal and company income tax are the
main sources of government revenue.
In January 2007, there were 10,033,480 people employed, with an unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent.
Youth unemployment (1524) rose from 8.7 per cent to 9.7 per cent over 20082009. Over the past
decade, inflation has typically been 23 per cent and the base interest rate 56 per cent. The service
sector of the economy, including tourism, education, and financial services, accounts for about 70 per
cent of GDP. Rich in natural resources, Australia is a major exporter of agricultural products,
particularly wheat and wool, minerals such as iron-ore and gold, and energy in the forms of liquified
natural gas and coal. Although agriculture and natural resources account for only 3 per cent and 5 per
cent of GDP respectively, they contribute substantially to export performance. Australia's largest
export markets are Japan, China, the US, South Korea, and New Zealand. Australia is the world's
fourth largest exporter of wine, in an industry contributing $5.5 billion per annum to the nation's
economy.
9. Demography
Historic population (Estimated)
Year
Indigenous population
pre 1788
750,000 to 1,000,000
Year
Non Indigenous population Annual increase %
1788
900
1800
5,200
14.6%
1850
405,400
8.7%
11
Year
Total population
Annual increase %
1900
3,765,300
1910
4,525,100
1.8%
1920
5,411,000
1.8%
1930
6,501,000
1.8%
1940
7,078,000
0.9%
1950
8,307,000
1.6%
1960
10,392,000
2.2%
1970
12,663,000
2.0%
1980
14,726,000
1.5%
1990
17,169,000
1.5%
2000
19,169,100
1.1%
2010
20,971,000
0.9%
For generations, the vast majority of immigrants came from the British Isles, and the people of
Australia are still mainly of British or Irish ethnic origin. In the 2006 Australian census, the most
commonly nominated ancestry was Australian (37.13 per cent), followed by English (32 per cent),
Irish (9 per cent), Scottish (8 per cent), Italian (4 per cent), German (4 per cent), Chinese (3 per cent),
and Greek (2 per cent).
Australia's population has quadrupled since the end of World War I, much of the increase from
immigration. Following World War II and through to 2000, almost 5.9 million of the total population
settled in the country as new immigrants, meaning that nearly two out of every seven Australians were
born overseas. Most immigrants are skilled, but the immigration quota includes categories for family
members and refugees. By 2050, Australia's population is currently projected to reach around 42
million.
In 2001, 23.1 per cent of Australians were born overseas; the five largest immigrant groups were those
from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Vietnam, and China. Following the abolition of the
White Australia policy in 1973, numerous government initiatives have been established to encourage
and promote racial harmony based on a policy of multiculturalism. In 200506, more than
131,000 people emigrated to Australia, mainly from Asia and Oceania. The migration target for 2010
11 is 168,700, compared to 67,900 in 199899.
The Indigenous populationmainland Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanderswas counted at
410,003 (2.2 per cent of the total population) in 2001, a significant increase from 115,953 in the 1976
census. A large number of Indigenous people are not identified in the Census due to undercount and
cases where their Indigenous status is not recorded on the form; after adjusting for these factors, the
ABS estimated the true figure for 2001 to be around 460,140 (2.4 per cent of the total population).
Indigenous Australians experience higher than average rates of imprisonment and unemployment,
lower levels of education, and life expectancies for males and females that are 1117 years lower than
those of non-indigenous Australians. Some remote Indigenous communities have been described as
having "failed state"-like conditions.
In common with many other developed countries, Australia is experiencing a demographic shift
towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2004, the average
age of the civilian population was 38.8 years. A large number of Australians (759,849 for the period
200203) live outside their home country.
12
Largest populated areas in Australia

(June 2010 Australian Bureau of Statistics estimate)
Rank City Name State
Pop.
Rank City Name State Pop.

Greater
1 Sydney
NSW 4,575,532 11
TAS 214,705
Hobart
2 Melbourne VIC 4,077,036 12 Geelong
VIC 178,650
3 Brisbane
QLD 2,043,185 13 Townsville QLD 172,316
4 Perth
WA 1,696,065 14 Cairns
QLD 150,920
5 Adelaide
SA 1,203,186 15 Toowoomba QLD 131,258
QLD
Gold Coast6
591,473
16 Darwin
NT 127,532
/
Tweed
NSW
7 Newcastle NSW 546,788
17 Launceston TAS 106,153
ACT
NSW
CanberraAlbury8
410,419
18
106,052
/
/
Queanbeyan
Wodonga
NSW
VIC
9 Wollongong NSW 292,190
19 Ballarat
VIC 96,097
Sunshine
10
QLD 251,081
20 Bendigo
VIC 91,713
Coast
view talk edit
Sydney
Melbourne
Nearly three quarters of Australians live in metropolitan

cities and coastal areas. The beach is an integral part of
the Australian identity.
The Barossa Valley is a wine-producing region in South

Australia. Fewer than 15 per cent of Australians live in rural
areas.
Language
Although Australia has no official language, English is so entrenched that it has become the de facto
national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and
lexicon. Grammar and spelling are similar to that of British English with some notable exceptions.
According to the 2006 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 79 per cent
of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Italian (1.6 per cent), Greek
(1.3 per cent) and Cantonese (1.2 per cent); a considerable proportion of first- and second-generation
migrants are bilingual. A 20102011 study by the Australia Early Development Index found that the
most common language spoken by children after English was Arabic, followed by Vietnamese, Greek,
Chinese, and Hindi.
13
Between 200 and 300 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at the time of first
European contact, of which only about 70 have survived. Many of these are exclusively spoken by
older people; only 18 Indigenous languages are still spoken by all age groups. At the time of the 2006
Census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12 per cent of the Indigenous population,
reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home. Australia has a sign language known as
Auslan, which is the main language of about 5,500 deaf people.
Religion
Australia has no state religion. In the 2006 census, 64 per cent of Australians listed themselves as
Christian, including 26 per cent as Roman Catholic and 19 per cent as Anglican. About 19 per cent of
the population cited "No religion" (which includes humanism, atheism, agnosticism and rationalism),
which was the fastest-growing group from 2001 to 2006, and a further 12 per cent did not answer (the
question is optional) or did not give a response adequate for interpretation. The largest non-Christian
religion in Australia is Buddhism (2.1 per cent), followed by Islam (1.7 per cent), Hinduism (0.8 per
cent) and Judaism (0.5 per cent). Overall, fewer than 6 per cent of Australians identify with nonChristian religions. Weekly attendance at church services in 2004 was about 1.5 million: about 7.5 per
cent of the population.
An international survey, made by the private, not-for profit German think-tank, the Bertelsmann
Foundation, found that "Australia is one of the least religious nations in the western world, coming in
17th out of 21 [countries] surveyed" and that "Nearly three out of four Australians say they are either
not at all religious or that religion does not play a central role in their lives.". A survey of 1,718
Australians by the Christian Research Association at the end of 2009 suggested that the numbers of
people attending religious services per month in Australia has dropped from 23 per cent in 1993 to 16
per cent in 2009, and while 60 per cent of 15 to 29-year-old respondents in 1993 identified with
Christian denominations, 33 per cent did in 2009.
Education
School attendance is compulsory throughout Australia. All children receive 11 years of compulsory
education from the age of 6 to 16 (Year 1 to 10), before they can undertake two more years (Years 11
and 12), contributing to an adult literacy rate that is assumed to be 99 per cent. A preparatory year
prior to Year 1, although not compulsory, is almost universally undertaken. In the Programme for
International Student Assessment, Australia regularly scores among the top five of thirty major
developed countries (member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development). Government grants have supported the establishment of Australia's 38 universities; all
but one is public. OECD places Australia as among the most expensive nations to attend university.
There is a state-based system of vocational training, known as TAFE Institutes, and many trades
conduct apprenticeships for training new tradespeople. Approximately 58 per cent of Australians aged
from 25 to 64 have vocational or tertiary qualifications, and the tertiary graduation rate of 49 per cent
is the highest among OECD countries. The ratio of international to local students in tertiary education
in Australia is the highest in the OECD countries.
Health
Life expectancy in Australia in 2006 was 78.7 years for males and 83.5 years for females. Australia
has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, while cigarette smoking is the largest preventable
cause of death and disease. Australia has one of the highest proportions of overweight citizens
amongst developed nations.
Total expenditure on health (including private sector spending) is around 9.8 per cent of GDP.
Australia introduced universal health care in 1975. Known as Medicare it is now nominally funded by
an income tax surcharge known as the Medicare levy, currently set at 1.5 per cent. The states manage
14
hospitals and attached outpatient services, while the Commonwealth funds the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme (reducing the costs of medicines) and general practice.
10. Culture
The Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne was the first
building in Australia to be listed as a UNESCO World
Heritage Site in 2004
Since 1788, the basis of Australian culture has been strongly
influenced by Anglo-Celtic Western culture. Distinctive cultural features have also arisen from
Australia's natural environment and Indigenous cultures. Since the mid-20th century, American
popular culture has strongly influenced Australia, particularly through television and cinema. Other
cultural influences come from neighbouring Asian countries, and through large-scale immigration
from non-English-speaking nations.
Arts
Sunlight Sweet by Australian landscape artist Arthur Streeton.
Australian visual arts are thought to have begun with the cave and bark
paintings of its Indigenous peoples. The traditions of Indigenous
Australians are largely transmitted orally, through ceremony and the
telling of Dreamtime stories. From the time of European settlement, a
theme in Australian art has been the natural landscape, seen for
example in the works of Albert Namatjira, Arthur Streeton and others
associated with the Heidelberg School, and Arthur Boyd.
The country's landscape remains a source of inspiration for Australian
modernist artists; it has been depicted in acclaimed works by the likes
of Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams, Sydney Long, and Clifton Pugh.
Australian artists influenced by modern American and European art
include cubist Grace Crowley, surrealist James Gleeson, and pop artist
Martin Sharp. Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the only art
movement of international significance to emerge from Australiaand
"the last great art movement of the 20th century"; its exponents have
included Emily Kngwarreye. Art critic Robert Hughes has written several influential books about
Australian history and art, and was described as the "world's most famous art critic" by The New York
Times. The National Gallery of Australia and state galleries maintain Australian and overseas
collections.
Many of Australia's performing arts companies receive funding through the federal government's
Australia Council. There is a symphony orchestra in each state, and a national opera company, Opera
Australia, well-known for its famous soprano Joan Sutherland. At the start of the 20th century, Nellie
Melba was one of the world's leading opera singers. Ballet and dance are represented by The
Australian Ballet and various state companies. Each state has a publicly funded theatre company.
15
Performance of Aboriginal song and dance in the

Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney
Australian literature has also been influenced by the landscape;
the works of writers such as Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and
Dorothea Mackellar captured the experience of the Australian
bush. The character of the nation's colonial past, as represented in
early literature, is popular with modern Australians. In 1973, Patrick White was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Literature, the first Australian to have achieved this. Australian winners of the Man Booker
Prize have included Peter Carey and Thomas Keneally; David Williamson, David Malouf, and J. M.
Coetzee, who recently became an Australian citizen, are also renowned writers, and Les Murray is
regarded as "one of the leading poets of his generation".
Media
The Australian cinema industry began with the 1906 release of The Story of the Kelly Gang, which is
regarded as being the world's first feature-length film, but both Australian feature film production and
the distribution of British-made features declined dramatically after World War I as American studios
and distributors monopolised the industry and by the 1930s around 95 per cent of the feature films
screened in Australia were produced in Hollywood. By the late 1950s feature film production in
Australia had effectively ceased and there were no all-Australian feature films made in the decade
between 1959 and 1969.
Thanks to initiatives by the Gorton and Whitlam federal governments, the New Wave of Australian
cinema of the 1970s brought provocative and successful films, some exploring the nation's colonial
past, such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant, while the so-called "Ocker" genre
produced several highly successful urban-based comedy features including The Adventures of Barry
McKenzie and Alvin Purple. Later hits included Mad Max and Gallipoli. More recent successes
included Shine and Rabbit-Proof Fence. Notable Australian actors include Judith Anderson, Errol
Flynn, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Geoffrey Rush and current joint director of the
Sydney Theatre Company, Cate Blanchett.
Australia has two public broadcasters (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the multicultural
Special Broadcasting Service), three commercial television networks, several pay-TV services, and
numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has at least one daily
newspaper, and there are two national daily newspapers, The Australian and The Australian Financial
Review. In 2010, Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 18th on a list of 178 countries ranked by
press freedom, behind New Zealand (8th) but ahead of the United Kingdom (19th) and United States
(20th). This relatively low ranking is primarily because of the limited diversity of commercial media
ownership in Australia; most print media are under the control of News Corporation and Fairfax
Media.
Cuisine
The food of Indigenous Australians was largely influenced by the area in which they lived. Most tribal
groups subsisted on a simple hunter-gatherer diet, hunting native game and fish and collecting native
plants and fruit. The general term for native Australian flora and fauna used as a source of food is bush
tucker. The first settlers introduced British food to the continent which much of what is now
considered typical Australian food is based on the Sunday roast has become an enduring tradition for
many Australians. Since the beginning of the 20th century, food in Australia has increasingly been
influenced by immigrants to the nation, particularly from Southern European and Asian cultures.
Australian wine is produced in 60 distinct production areas totaling approximately 160,000 hectares,
mainly in the southern, cooler parts of the country. The wine regions in each of these states produce
16
different wine varieties and styles that take advantage of local climates and soil types. The
predominant varieties are Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Smillon, Pinot noir,
Riesling, and Sauvignon blanc. In 1995, an Australian red wine, Penfolds Grange, won the Wine
Spectator award for Wine of the Year, the first time a wine from outside France or California achieved
this distinction.
Sport
Cricket has been an important part of Australia's
sporting culture since the 19th century.
Around 24 per cent Australians over the age of 15 regularly
participate in organised sporting activities in Australia.
Australia has strong international teams in cricket, field
hockey, netball, rugby league and rugby union, having been Olympic or world champions at least
twice in each sport in the last 25 years for both men and women where applicable. Australia is also
powerful in track cycling, rowing, and swimming, having consistently been in the top-five medalwinners at Olympic or World Championship level since 2000. Swimming is the strongest of these
sports; Australia is the second-most prolific medal winner in the sport in Olympic history.
17
9-011 IES DEL ATUEL

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA
INGLESA II
Aotearoa-land of the white long cloud
GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand (Aotearoa in Mori) is an island
country in the south-western Pacific Ocean
comprising two main landmasses (the North
Island and the South Island) and numerous
smaller islands. The country is situated some
1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia
across the Tasman Sea, and roughly 1,000
kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island
nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Due
to its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to
be settled by humans. During its long isolation
New Zealand developed a distinctive fauna
dominated by birds, many of which became
extinct after the arrival of humans and
introduced mammals. With a mild maritime
climate, the land was mostly covered in forest.
The country's varied topography and its sharp
mountain peaks owe much to the uplift of land
and volcanic eruptions caused by the Pacific and
Indo-Australian Plates clashing underfoot.
Polynesians settled New Zealand in 12501300
AD and developed a distinctive Mori culture,
and Europeans first made contact in 1642 AD.
The introduction of potatoes and muskets
triggered upheaval among Mori early during
the 19th century, which led to the inter-tribal
Musket Wars. In 1840 the British and Mori
signed a treaty making New Zealand a colony of
the British Empire. Immigrant numbers
increased sharply and conflicts escalated into the
New Zealand Wars, which resulted in much
Mori land being confiscated in the mid North
Island. Economic depressions were followed by
periods of political reform, with women gaining
the vote during the 1890s, and a welfare state
being established from the 1930s. After World
War II, New Zealand joined Australia and the
United States in the ANZUS security treaty,
although the United States later suspended the
treaty after New Zealand banned nuclear
weapons. New Zealanders enjoyed one of the
highest standards of living in the world in the
1950s, but the 1970s saw a deep recession,
worsened by oil shocks and the United
Kingdom's entry into the European Economic
Community. The country underwent major
economic changes during the 1980s, which
transformed it from a protectionist to a
liberalised free-trade economy. Markets for New
Zealand's agricultural exports have diversified
greatly since the 1970s, with once-dominant
exports of wool being overtaken by dairy
products, meat, and recently wine.
New Zealand
Aotearoa
Flag
Coat of arms
Anthem:
"God Defend New Zealand"
"God Save the Queen"
Wellington
Capital
4117S 17427E
Auckland
Mori (4.2%)
NZ Sign Language (0.6%)
English (de facto) (98%)
78% European/Other
14.6% Mori
9.2% Asian
6.9% Pacific peoples
New Zealander,
Kiwi (colloquial)
Parliamentary democracy and
Constitutional monarchy
Elizabeth II
Anand Satyanand
John Key
from the United Kingdom
25 May 1854
26 September 1907
11 December 1931 (adopted
25 November 1947)
13 December 1986
Largest city
National language
Ethnic groups
Demonym
Government
- Monarch
- Governor-General
- Prime Minister
Independence
- 1st Parliament
- Dominion
- Constitution Act 1986
Area
268,021 km2 (75th)

103,483 sq mi
- Water (%)
1.6
Population
December 2010 estimate
4,393,500[6] (123rd)
- Total
2006 census
4,027,947[7]
Density
16.4/km2 (200th)
42.5/sq mi
2010 estimate
$117.807 billion (61st)
$26,966 (32nd)
2010 estimate
$140.434 billion (51st)
$32,145 (24th)
36.2 (medium)
0.907 (very high) (3rd)
New Zealand dollar (NZD)
NZST (UTC+12)
NZDT (UTC+13)
GDP (PPP)
- Total
- Per capita
GDP (nominal)
- Total
- Per capita
Gini (1997)
HDI (2010)
Currency
Time zone
Summer (DST)
Date formats
Drives on the
ISO 3166 code
Internet TLD
Calling code
(Sep to Apr)
dd/mm/yyyy
left
NZ
.nz
+64
The majority of New Zealand's population is of

European descent; the indigenous Mori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and non-

Mori Polynesians. English, Mori and New Zealand Sign Language are the official languages,
with English predominant. Much of New Zealand's culture is derived from Mori and early British
settlers. Early European art was dominated by landscapes and to a lesser extent portraits of Mori.
A recent resurgence of Mori culture has seen their traditional arts of carving, weaving and
tattooing become more mainstream. Many artists now combine Mori and Western techniques to
create unique art forms. The country's culture has also been broadened by globalisation and
increased immigration from the Pacific Islands and Asia. New Zealand's diverse landscape
provides many opportunities for outdoor pursuits and has provided the backdrop for a number of
big budget movies.
New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local
government purposes; these have less autonomy than the country's long defunct provinces did.
Nationally, executive political power is exercised by the Cabinet, led by the Prime Minister. Queen
Elizabeth II is the country's head of state and is represented by a Governor-General. The Queen's
Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau (a dependent territory); the Cook Islands and Niue
(self-governing but in free association); and the Ross Dependency, New Zealand's territorial claim
in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum, Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation, United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Contents
1 Etymology
2 History
3 Politics
o 3.1 Government
o 3.2 Foreign relations and the military
o 3.3 Local government and external territories
4 Environment
o 4.1 Geography
o 4.2 Climate
o 4.3 Biodiversity
5 Economy
o 5.1 Trade
o 5.2 Infrastructure
6 Demography
o 6.1 Ethnicity and immigration
o 6.2 Language
o 6.3 Education and religion
7 Culture
o 7.1 Art
o 7.2 Literature
o 7.3 Entertainment
o 7.4 Sports
1. Etymology
Detail from a 1657 map showing the western
coastline of "Nova Zeelandia"
Aotearoa (often translated as "land of the long white
cloud") is the current Mori name for New Zealand, and is
also used in New Zealand English. It is unknown whether
Mori had a name for the whole country before the arrival
of Europeans, with Aotearoa originally referring to just the
North Island. Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642
and named it Staten Landt, assuming it was connected to land off the southern tip of South

America. In 1645 Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province
of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand.
Mori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Mui (the fish of
Mui) for the North Island and Te Wai Pounamu (the waters of greenstone) or Te Waka o Aoraki
(the canoe of Aoraki) for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North (North
Island), Middle (South Island) and South (Stewart Island / Rakiura). In 1830 maps began to use
North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907 this was the accepted norm. The
New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South
Island had never been formalised, but there are now plans to do so. The board is also considering
suitable Mori names, with Te Ika-a-Mui and Te Wai Pounamu the most likely choices according
to the chairman of the Mori Language Commission.
2. History
The Mori people are most likely
descended from people that emigrated
from Taiwan to Melanesia and then
travelled east through to the Society
Islands. After a pause of 70265 years
a new wave of exploration led to the
discovery and settlement of New
Zealand.
New Zealand was one of the last major
landmasses
settled
by
humans.
Radiocarbon dating, evidence of deforestation and mitochondrial DNA variability within
Mori populations suggest New Zealand was first settled by Eastern Polynesians between
1250 and 1300, concluding a long series of voyages through the southern Pacific islands.
Over the centuries that followed these settlers developed a distinct culture now known as
Mori. The population was divided into iwi (tribes) and hap (subtribes) which would
cooperate, compete and sometimes fight with each other. At some point a group of Mori
migrated to Rkohu (the Chatham Islands) where they developed their distinct Moriori
culture. The Moriori population was decimated between 1835 and 1862, largely due to
European diseases and Mori invasion and enslavement. In 1862 only 101 survived and the
last known full-blooded Moriori died in 1933.
The first Europeans known to have reached New Zealand were Dutch explorer Abel
Tasman and his crew in 1642. In a hostile encounter, four crew members were killed and at
least one Mori was hit by canister shot. Europeans did not revisit New Zealand until 1769
when British explorer James Cook mapped almost the entire coastline. Following Cook,
New Zealand was visited by numerous European and North American whaling, sealing and
trading ships. They traded food, metal tools, weapons and other goods for timber, food,
artefacts, water, and on occasion sex. The introduction of the potato and the musket
transformed Mori agriculture and warfare. Potatoes provided a reliable food surplus,
which enabled longer and more sustained military campaigns. The resulting inter-tribal
Musket Wars encompassed over 600 battles between 1801 and 1840, killing between
30,00040,000 Mori. From the early 19th century, Christian missionaries began to settle
New Zealand, eventually converting most of the Mori population. The Mori population
declined to around 40 percent of its pre-contact level during the 19th century; introduced
diseases were the major factor.
The Waitangi sheet from the Treaty of Waitangi

The British government appointed James Busby as British
Resident to New Zealand in 1832 and in 1835, following an
announcement of impending French sovereignty, the nebulous
United Tribes of New Zealand sent a Declaration of the
Independence to King William IV of the United Kingdom
asking for protection. Ongoing unrest and the dubious legal
standing of the Declaration of Independence prompted the
Colonial Office to send Captain William Hobson to claim
sovereignty for the British Crown and negotiate a treaty with
the Mori. The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed in the Bay
of Islands on 6 February 1840. In response to the commercially
run New Zealand Company's attempts to establish an
independent settlement in Wellington and French settlers
"purchasing" land in Akaroa, Hobson declared British
sovereignty over all of New Zealand on 21 May 1840, even
though copies of the Treaty were still circulating. With the
signing of the Treaty and declaration of sovereignty the number of immigrants, particularly
from the United Kingdom, began to increase.
New Zealand, originally part of the colony of New South Wales, became a separate Crown
colony in 1841. The colony gained a representative government in 1852 and the 1st New
Zealand Parliament met in 1854. In 1856 the colony effectively became self-governing,
gaining responsibility over all domestic matters other than native policy. (Control over
native policy was granted in the mid-1860s.) Following concerns that the South Island
might form a separate colony, premier Alfred Domett moved a resolution to transfer the
capital from Auckland to a locality near the Cook Strait. Wellington was chosen due to its
harbour and central location, with parliament officially sitting there for the first time in
1865. As immigrant numbers increased, conflicts over land led to the New Zealand Wars
of the 1860s and 1870s, resulting in the loss and confiscation of much Mori land. In 1893
the country became the first nation in the world to grant all women the right to voteand in
1894 pioneered the adoption of compulsory arbitration between employers and unions.
In 1907 New Zealand declared itself a Dominion within the British Empire and in 1947 the
country adopted the Statute of Westminster, making New Zealand a Commonwealth realm.
New Zealand was involved in world affairs, fighting alongside the British Empire in the
first and second World Wars and suffering through the Great Depression. The depression
led to the election of the first Labour government and the establishment of a
comprehensive welfare state and a protectionist economy. New Zealand experienced
increasing prosperity following World War II and Mori began to leave their traditional
rural life and move to the cities in search of work. A Mori protest movement developed,
which criticised Eurocentrism and worked for greater recognition of Mori culture and the
Treaty of Waitangi. In 1975, a Waitangi Tribunal was set up to investigate alleged
breaches of the Treaty, and it was enabled to investigate historic grievances in 1985. The
government has negotiated settlements of these grievances with many iwi, although Mori
claims to the foreshore and seabed have proved controversial in the 2000s.
3. Politics
John Key, the New Zealand Prime Minister
Government
New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a
parliamentary democracy, although its constitution is not
codified. Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of New Zealand
and the head of state. The Queen is represented by the
Governor-General, whom she appoints on the advice of the
Prime Minister. The Governor-General can exercise the
Crown's prerogative powers (such as reviewing cases of
injustice and making appointments of Cabinet ministers,
ambassadors and other key public officials) and in rare situations, the reserve powers (the
power to dismiss a Prime Minister, dissolve Parliament or refuse the Royal Assent of a bill
into law). The powers of the Queen and the Governor-General are limited by constitutional
constraints and they cannot normally be exercised without the advice of Cabinet.
The Parliament of New Zealand holds legislative power and consists of the Sovereign
(represented by the Governor-General) and the House of Representatives. The supremacy
of the House over the Sovereign was established in England by the Bill of Rights 1689 and
has been ratified as law in New Zealand. The House of Representatives is democratically
elected and a Government is formed from the party or coalition with the majority of seats.
If no majority is formed a minority government can be formed if support from other parties
is obtained through confidence votes. The Governor-General appoints ministers under
advice from the Prime Minister, who is by convention the Parliamentary leader of the
governing party or coalition. Cabinet, formed by ministers and led by the Prime Minister,
is the highest policy-making body in government and responsible for deciding significant
government actions. By convention, members of cabinet are bound by collective
responsibility to decisions made by cabinet.
Judges and judicial officers are appointed non-politically and under strict rules regarding
tenure to help maintain constitutional independence from the government. This
theoretically allows the judiciary to interpret the law based solely on the legislation enacted
by Parliament without other influences on their decisions. The Privy Council in London
was the country's final court of appeal until 2004, when it was replaced with the newly
established Supreme Court of New Zealand. The judiciary, headed by the Chief Justice,
includes the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and
subordinate courts.
New Zealand government "Beehive" and the

Parliament Buildings (right), in Wellington
Almost all parliamentary general elections between
1853 and 1996 were held under the first past the post
voting system. The elections since 1930 have been
dominated by two political parties, National and
Labour. Since 1996, a form of proportional representation called Mixed Member
Proportional (MMP) has been used. Under the MMP system each person has two votes;
one is for the 65 electoral seats (including seven reserved for Mori), and the other is for a
5
party. The remaining 55 seats are assigned so that representation in parliament reflects the
party vote, although a party has to win one electoral seat or 5 percent of the total party vote
before it is eligible for these seats. Between March 2005 and August 2006 New Zealand
became the only country in the world in which all the highest offices in the land (Head of
State, Governor-General, Prime Minister, Speaker and Chief Justice) were occupied
simultaneously by women.
Foreign relations and the military

Early colonial New Zealand allowed the British Government to determine external trade
and be responsible for foreign policy. The 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided
that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate their own political treaties, with the first
successful commercial treaty being with Japan in 1928. Despite this independence New
Zealand readily followed Britain in declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939 with
then Prime Minister Michael Savage proclaiming, "Where she goes, we go; where she
stands, we stand."
Mori Battalion haka in Egypt, 1941
In 1951 the United Kingdom became increasingly focused
on its European interests, while New Zealand joined
Australia and the United States in the ANZUS security
treaty. The influence of the United States on New Zealand
weakened following protests over the Vietnam War, the
failure of the United States to admonish France after the
sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, disagreements over
environmental and agricultural trade issues and New
Zealand's nuclear-free policy. Despite the USA's suspension of ANZUS obligations the
treaty remained in effect between New Zealand and Australia, whose foreign policy has
followed a similar historical trend. Close political contact is maintained between the two
countries, with free trade agreements and travel arrangements that allow citizens to visit,
live and work in both countries without restrictions. Currently over 500,000 New
Zealanders live in Australia and 65,000 Australians live in New Zealand.
New Zealand has a strong presence among the Pacific Island countries. A large proportion
of New Zealand's aid goes to these countries and many Pacific people migrate to New
Zealand for employment. Permanent migration is regulated under the 1970 Samoan Quota
Scheme and the 2002 Pacific Access Category, which allow up to 1,100 Samoan nationals
and up to 750 other Pacific Islanders respectively to become permanent New Zealand
residents each year. A seasonal workers scheme for temporary migration was introduced in
2007 and in 2009 about 8,000 Pacific Islanders were employed under it. New Zealand is
involved in the Pacific Islands Forum, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (including the East Asia Summit).
New Zealand is also a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Five Powers Defence
Arrangements.
Infantry from the 2nd Battalion, Auckland

Regiment in the Battle of the Somme, September
1916.
The New Zealand Defence Force has three
branches: the Royal New Zealand Navy, the New
Zealand Army and the Royal New Zealand Air
Force. New Zealand's national defence needs are
modest due to the unlikelihood of direct attack,
although it does have a global presence. The country fought in both world wars, with
notable campaigns in Gallipoli, Crete, El Alamein and Cassino. The Gallipoli campaign
played an important part in fostering New Zealand's national identity and strengthened the
ANZAC tradition it shares with Australia. According to Mary Edmond-Paul, "World War I
had left scars on New Zealand society, with nearly 18,500 in total dying as a result of the
war, more than 41,000 wounded, and others affected emotionally, out of an overseas
fighting force of about 103,000 and a population of just over a million." New Zealand also
played key parts in the naval Battle of the River Plateand the Battle of Britain air
campaign. During World War II, the United States had more than 400,000 American
military personnel stationed in New Zealand.
In addition to Vietnam and the two world wars, New Zealand fought in the Korean War,
the Second Boer War, the Malayan Emergency, the Gulf War and the Afghanistan War. It
has contributed forces to several regional and global peacekeeping missions, such as those
in Cyprus, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sinai, Angola, Cambodia, the IranIraq
border, Bougainville, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands. New Zealand also sent a unit
of army engineers to help rebuild Iraqi infrastructure for one year during the Iraq War.
Local government and external territories

Realm of New Zealand
The
early
European
settlers
divided
New
Zealand into provinces,
which had a degree of
autonomy.
Due
to
financial pressures and the
desire
to
consolidate
railways, education, land
sales and other policies, government was centralised and the provinces were abolished in
1876. As a result, New Zealand now has no separately represented subnational entities.
The provinces are remembered in regional public holidays and sporting rivalries.
Since 1876, various councils have administered local areas under legislation determined by
the central government. In 1989, the government reorganised local government into the
current two-tier structure of regional councils and territorial authorities. The 249
municipalities that existed in 1975 have now been consolidated into 67 territorial
authorities and 11 regional councils. The regional councils' role is to regulate "the natural
environment with particular emphasis on resource management", while territorial
authorities are responsible for sewage, water, local roads, building consents and other local
matters. Five of the territorial councils are unitary authorities and also act as regional
councils. The territorial authorities consist of 13 city councils, 53 district councils, and the
7
Chatham Islands Council. While officially the Chatham Islands Council is not a unitary
authority, it undertakes many functions of a regional council.
The Realm of New Zealand is one of 16 realms within the commonwealth and comprises
New Zealand, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, the Cook Islands and Niue. The Cook
Islands and Niue are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand.[115][116]
The New Zealand Parliament cannot pass legislation for these countries, but with their
consent can act on behalf of them in foreign affairs and defence. Tokelau is a non-selfgoverning territory that uses the New Zealand flag and anthem, but is administered by a
council of three elders (one from each Tokelauan atoll). The Ross Dependency is New
Zealand's territorial claim in Antarctica, where it operates the Scott Base research facility.
New Zealand citizenship law treats all parts of the realm equally, so most people born in
New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and the Ross Dependency before 2006 are
New Zealand citizens. Further conditions apply for those born from 2006 onwards.
4. Environment
Geography
The snow-capped Southern Alps dominate the South Island,
while the North Island's Northland Peninsula stretches
towards the subtropics.
New Zealand is made up of two main islands and a number of
smaller islands, located near the centre of the water
hemisphere. The main North and South Islands are separated
by the Cook Strait, 22 kilometres (14 mi) wide at its narrowest
point. Besides the North and South Islands, the five largest
inhabited islands are Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands,
Great Barrier Island (in the Hauraki Gulf), d'Urville Island (in
the Marlborough Sounds) and Waiheke Island (about 22 km
(14 mi) from central Auckland). The country's islands lie
between latitudes 29 and 53S, and longitudes 165 and 176E.
New Zealand is long (over 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) along its north-north-east axis) and
narrow (a maximum width of 400 kilometres (250 mi)), with approximately 15,134 km
(9,404 mi) of coastlineand a total land area of 268,021 square kilometres (103,483 sq mi)
Due to its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine
resources. Its Exclusive Economic Zone, one of the largest in the world, covers more than
15 times its land area.
The South Island is the largest land mass of New Zealand, and is divided along its length
by the Southern Alps. There are 18 peaks over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), the highest of
which is Aoraki/Mount Cook at 3,754 metres (12,316 ft). Fiordland's steep mountains and
deep fiords record the extensive ice age glaciation of this south-western corner of the South
Island. The North Island is less mountainous but is marked by volcanism. The highly
active Taupo volcanic zone has formed a large volcanic plateau, punctuated by the North
Island's highest mountain, Mount Ruapehu (2,797 metres (9,177 ft)). The plateau also hosts
the country's largest lake, Lake Taupo, nestled in the caldera of one of the world's most
active supervolcanoes.
Abel Tasman National Park in the South Island

The country owes its varied topography, and perhaps even its
emergence above the waves, to the dynamic boundary it
straddles between the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates. New
Zealand is part of Zealandia, a microcontinent nearly half the
size of Australia that gradually submerged after breaking
away from the Gondwanan supercontinent. About 25 million
years ago, a shift in plate tectonic movements began to contort
and crumple the region. This is now most evident in the
Southern Alps, formed by compression of the crust beside the
Alpine Fault. Elsewhere the plate boundary involves the
subduction of one plate under the other, producing the
Puysegur Trench to the south, the Hikurangi Trench east of
the North Island, and the Kermadec and Tonga Trenches further north.
Climate
New Zealand has a mild and temperate maritime climate with mean annual temperatures
ranging from 10 C (50 F) in the south to 16 C (61 F) in the north. Historical maxima
and minima are 42.4 C (108.3 F) in Rangiora, Canterbury and 25.6 C (14.08 F) in
Ranfurly, Otago. Conditions vary sharply across regions from extremely wet on the West
Coast of the South Island to almost semi-arid in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Basin of
inland Canterbury and subtropical in Northland. Of the seven largest cities, Christchurch is
the driest, receiving on average only 640 millimetres (25 in) of rain per year and Auckland
the wettest, receiving almost twice that amount. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch all
receive a yearly average in excess of 2,000 hours of sunshine. The southern and southwestern parts of the South Island have a cooler and cloudier climate, with around 1,400
1,600 hours; the northern and north-eastern parts of the South Island are the sunniest areas
of the country and receive approximately 2,4002,500 hours.
Biodiversity
The endemic flightless kiwi is a national icon.
New Zealand's geographic isolation for 80 million years and
island biogeography is responsible for the country's unique
species of flora and fauna. They have either evolved from
Gondwanan wildlife or the few organisms that have managed to
reach the shores flying, swimming or being carried across the
sea. About 82 percent of New Zealand's indigenous vascular
plants are endemic, covering 1,944 species across 65 genera and
includes a single family. The two main types of forest are those
dominated by broadleaf trees with emergent podocarps, or by southern beech in cooler
climates. The remaining vegetation types consist of grasslands, the majority of which are
tussock.
Before the arrival of humans an estimated 80 percent of the land was covered in forest,
with only high alpine, wet, infertile and volcanic areas without trees. Massive deforestation
occurred after humans arrived, with around half the forest cover lost to fire after
Polynesian settlement. Much of the remaining forest fell after European settlement, being
logged or cleared to make room for pastoral farming, leaving forest occupying only
23 percent of the land.
The forests were dominated by birds, and the lack of mammalian predators led to some like
the kiwi, kakapo and takah evolving flightlessness. The arrival of humans, associated
changes to habitat, and the introduction of rats, ferrets and other mammals led to the
extinction of many bird species, including large birds like the moa and Haast's eagle.
Burnt forest near Levin, cleared for farming in 1909
Other indigenous animals are represented by reptiles
(tuataras, skinks and geckos), frogs, spiders (katipo),
insects (weta) and snails. Some, such as the wrens and
tuatara, are so unique that they have been called living
fossils. Three species of bats (one since extinct) were
the only sign of native land mammals in New Zealand
until the 2006 discovery of bones from a unique,
mouse-sized land mammal at least 16 million years old. Marine mammals however are
abundant, with almost half the world's cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) and
large numbers of fur seals reported in New Zealand waters. Many seabirds breed in New
Zealand, a third of them unique to the country. More penguin species are found in New
Zealand than in any other country.
Since human arrival almost half of the country's vertebrate species have become extinct,
including at least fifty one birds, three frogs, three lizards, one freshwater fish, four plant
species, and one bat. Others are endangered or have had their range severely reduced.
However New Zealand conservationists have pioneered several methods to help threatened
wildlife recover, including island sanctuaries, pest control, wildlife translocation, fostering,
and ecological restoration of islands and other selected areas.
10
11
5. Economy
New Zealand has a modern, prosperous and developed market economy with an estimated
gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of roughly
US$28,250. The New Zealand dollar, informally known as the "Kiwi dollar", is the
currency of New Zealand. It also circulates in the Cook Islands (see Cook Islands dollar),
Niue, Tokelau, and the Pitcairn Islands.[171] New Zealand was ranked the 3rd "most
developed" country in 2010 according to the United Nations Development Programme's
Human Development Index, 4th in the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom published by The
Heritage Foundation.
Milford Sound, one of New Zealand's most famous

tourist destinations
Historically, extractive industries have contributed
strongly to New Zealand's economy, focussing at
different times on sealing, whaling, flax, gold, kauri
gum, and native timber. With the development of
refrigerated shipping in the 1880s meat and dairy products were exported to Britain, a trade
which provided the basis for strong economic growth in New Zealand. High demand for
agricultural products from the United Kingdom and the United States helped New
Zealanders achieve higher living standards than both Australia and Western Europe in the
1950s and 1960s. In 1973 New Zealand's export market was reduced when the United
Kingdom joined the European Communityand other compounding factors, such as the
1973 oil and 1979 energy crisis, led to a severe economic depression. Living standards in
New Zealand fell behind those of Australia and Western Europe, and by 1982 New
Zealand had the lowest per-capita income of all the developed nations surveyed by the
World Bank. Since 1984, successive governments engaged in major macroeconomic
restructuring (known first as Rogernomics and then Ruthanasia), rapidly transforming New
Zealand from a highly protectionist economy to a liberalised free-trade economy.
Unemployment peaked above 10 percent in 1991 and 1992, following the 1987 share
market crash, but eventually fell a record low of 3.4 percent in 2007 (ranking fifth from
twenty-seven comparable OECD nations). The global financial crisis that followed
however had a major impact on New Zealand with the GDP shrinking for five consecutive
quarters, the longest recession in over thirty years, and unemployment rising back to 7
percent in late 2009. The unemployment rate for youth was 17.4 percent in the June 2011
quarter. New Zealand has experienced a series of "brain drains" since the 1970s that still
continue today. Nearly one quarter of highly-skilled workers live overseas, most in
Australia and Britain, the most from any developed nation. In recent years, however, a
"brain gain" has brought in educated professionals from Europe and lesser developed
countries.
Trade
New Zealand is heavily dependent on international trade, particularly in agricultural
products. Exports account for a high 24 percent of its output, making New Zealand
vulnerable to international commodity prices and global economic slowdowns. Its
principal export industries are agriculture, horticulture, fishing, forestry and mining, which
make up about half of the country's exports. Its major export partners are Australia, United
States, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom. On 7 April 2008, New Zealand and China
12
signed the New Zealand China Free Trade Agreement, the first such agreement China has
signed with a developed country. The service sector is the largest sector in the economy,
followed by manufacturing and construction and then farming and raw material extraction.
Tourism plays a significant role in New Zealand's economy, contributing $15.0 billion to
New Zealands total GDP and supporting 9.6 percent of the total workforce in 2010.
International visitors to New Zealand increased by 3.1 percent in the year to October 2010
and are expected to increase at a rate of 2.5 percent
annually up to 2015.
Wool has historically been one of New Zealand's

major exports.
Wool was New Zealands major agricultural export
during the late 19th century. Even as late as the
1960s it made up over a third of all export revenues, but since then its price has steadily
dropped relative to other commodities and wool is no longer profitable for many farmers.
In contrast dairy farming increased, with the number of dairy cows doubling between 1990
and 2007, to become New Zealand's largest export earner. In the year to June 2009, dairy
products accounted for 21 percent ($9.1 billion) of total merchandise exports, and the
country's largest company, Fonterra, controls almost one-third of the international dairy
trade. Other agricultural exports in 2009 were meat 13.2 percent, wool 6.3 percent, fruit
3.5 percent and fishing 3.3 percent. New Zealand's wine industry has followed a similar
trend to dairy, the number of vineyards doubling over the same period, overtaking wool
exports for the first time in 2007.
Infrastructure
In 2008, oil, gas and coal generated approximately 69 percent of New Zealand's gross
energy supply and 31 percent was generated from renewable energy, primarily
hydroelectric power and geothermal power.[210] New Zealand's transport network includes
93,805 kilometres (58,288 mi) of roads, worth 23 billion dollars, and 4,128 kilometres
(2,565 mi) of railway lines. Most major cities and towns are linked by bus services,
although the private car is the predominant mode of transport. The railways were privatised
in 1993, then re-purchased by the government in 2004 and vested into a state owned
enterprise. Railways run the length of the country, although most lines now carry freight
rather than passengers. Most international visitors arrive via air and New Zealand has
seven international airports, although currently only the Auckland and Christchurch
airports connect directly with countries other than Australia or Fiji. The New Zealand Post
Office had a monopoly over telecommunications until 1989 when Telecom New Zealand
was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990. Telecom still
owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other
providers has increased.
6. Demography
New Zealand's historical population (black)
and projected growth (red)
13
The population of New Zealand is approximately 4.4 million. New Zealand is a

predominantly urban country, with 72 percent of the population living in 16 main urban
areas and 53 percent living in the four largest cities of Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington,
and Hamilton. New Zealand cities generally rank highly on international livability
measures. For instance, in 2010 Auckland was ranked the world's 4th most liveable city
and Wellington the 12th by the Mercer Quality of Life Survey.
The life expectancy of a New Zealand child born in 2008 was 82.4 years for females, and
78.4 years for males. Life expectancy at birth is forecast to increase from 80 years to 85
years in 2050 and infant mortality is expected to decline. In 2050 the population is forecast
to reach 5.3 million, the median age to rise from 36 years to 43 years and the percentage of
people 60 years of age and older to rise from 18 percent to 29 percent.
Ethnicity and immigration

In the 2006 census, 67.6 percent identified ethnically as European and 14.6 percent as
Mori. Other major ethnic groups include Asian (9.2 percent) and Pacific peoples
(6.9 percent), while 11.1 percent identified themselves simply as a "New Zealander" (or
similar) and 1 percent identified with other ethnicities. This contrasts with 1961, when the
census reported that the population of New Zealand was 92 percent European and
7 percent Mori, with Asian and Pacific minorities sharing the remaining 1 percent. While
the demonym for a New Zealand citizen is New Zealander, the informal "Kiwi" is
commonly used both internationally and by locals. The Mori loanword Pkeh usually
refers to New Zealanders of European descent, although some reject this appellation, and
some Mori use it to refer to all non-Polynesian New Zealanders.
New Zealand's fastest growing ethnic groups are Asian.
Here, lion dancers perform at the Auckland Lantern
Festival.
The Mori were the first people to reach New Zealand,
followed by the early European settlers. Following
colonisation, immigrants were predominantly from
Britain, Ireland and Australia due to restrictive policies
similar to the white Australian policies. There was also
significant Dutch, Dalmatian, Italian, and German
immigration together with indirect European immigration
through Australia, North America, South America and
South Africa. Following the Great Depression policies were relaxed and migrant diversity
increased. In 200910, an annual target of 45,00050,000 permanent residence approvals
was set by the New Zealand Immigration Servicemore than one new migrant for every
100 New Zealand residents. Twenty-three percent of New Zealand's population were born
overseas, most of whom live in the Auckland region. While most have still come from the
United Kingdom and Ireland (29 percent), immigration from East Asia (mostly mainland
China, but with substantial numbers also from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong) is
rapidly increasing the number of people from those countries. The number of fee-paying
international students increased sharply in the late 1990s, with more than 20,000 studying
in public tertiary institutions in 2002.
14
Language
English is the predominant language in New Zealand, spoken by 98 percent of the
population. New Zealand English is similar to Australian English and many speakers from
the Northern Hemisphere are unable to tell the accents apart. After the Second World War,
Mori were discouraged from speaking their own language (te reo Mori) in schools and
workplaces and it existed as a community language only in a few remote areas. It has
recently undergone a process of revitalisation, being declared one of New Zealand's
official languages in 1987, and is spoken by 4.1 percent of the population. There are now
Mori language immersion schools and two Mori Television channels, the only
nationwide television channels to have the majority of their
prime-time content delivered in Mori. Many places have
officially been given dual Maori and English names in recent
years. Samoan is the most widely spoken non-official
language (2.3 percent), followed by French, Hindi, Yue and
Northern Chinese. New Zealand Sign Language is used by
approximately 28,000 people and was made New Zealand's
third official language in 2006.
A Ratana church
Education and religion

Primary and secondary schooling is compulsory for children aged 6 to 16, with the
majority attending from the age of 5. There are 13 school years and attending public
schools is free. New Zealand has an adult literacy rate of 99 percent, and over half of the
population aged 15 to 29 hold a tertiary qualification. There are five types of governmentowned tertiary institutions: universities, colleges of education, polytechnics, specialist
colleges, and wnanga, and also private training establishments. In the adult population
14.2 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher, 30.4 percent have some form of secondary
qualification as their highest qualification and 22.4 percent have no formal qualification.
Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand. In the 2006 Census, 55.6 percent
of the population identified themselves as Christians, while another 34.7 percent indicated
that they had no religion (up from 29.6 percent in 2001) and around 4 percent affiliated
with other religions. The main Christian denominations are Anglicanism, Roman
Catholicism, Presbyterianism and Methodism. There are also significant numbers of
Christians who identify themselves with Pentecostal, Baptist, and Latter-day Saint
churches and the New Zealand-based Ratana church has adherents among Mori.
According to census figures, other significant minority religions include Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Islam.
15
List of cities in New Zealand

Rank
City Name
(June 2010 population estimates)

Region
Pop
Rank City Name
Region
Pop.
Auckland
Auckland
Region
1,354,900
Dunedin
Otago Region
116,600
Christchurch
Canterbury
Region
390,300
Palmerston ManawatuWanganui Region

North
Wellington
Wellington
Region
389,700
Nelson
Nelson
59,800
Hamilton Urban
Area
Waikato
Region
203,400
10
Rotorua
Bay of Plenty
Region
55,900
Napier-Hastings
Urban Area
Hawke's Bay
Region
124,400
11
New
Plymouth
Taranaki Region
52,200
Tauranga
Bay of
Plenty
Region
120,000
12
Whangarei
Northland Region
51,900
81,600
7. Culture
Late twentieth-century house-post depicting the navigator Kupe fighting two
sea creatures
Early Mori adapted the tropically-based east Polynesian culture in line with
the challenges associated with a larger and more diverse environment,
eventually developing their own distinctive culture. Social organisation was
largely communal with families (whanau), sub-tribes (hapu) and tribes (iwi)
ruled by a chief (rangatira) whose position was subject to the community's
approval. The British and Irish immigrants brought aspects of their own
culture to New Zealand and also influenced Mori culture, particularly with
the introduction of Christianity. However, Mori still regard their allegiance
to tribal groups as a vital part of their identity, and Mori kinship roles
resemble those of other Polynesian peoples. More recently American,
Australian, Asian and other European cultures have exerted influence on New
Zealand. Non-Mori Polynesian cultures are also apparent, with Pasifika, the
world's largest Polynesian festival, now an annual event in Auckland.
16
Cook Islands dancers at Auckland's Pasifika festival

The largely rural life in early New Zealand led to the image of
New Zealanders being rugged, industrious problem solvers.
Modesty was expected and enforced through the "tall poppy
syndrome", where high achievers received harsh criticism. At
the time New Zealand was not known as an intellectual
country. From the early 20th century until the late 1960s Mori culture was suppressed by
the attempted assimilation of Mori into British New Zealanders. In the 1960s, as higher
education became more available and cities expanded urban culture began to dominate.
Even though the majority of the population now lives in cities, much of New Zealand's art,
literature, film and humour has rural themes.
Art
As part of the resurgence of Mori culture, the traditional crafts of carving and weaving are
now more widely practised and Mori artists are increasing in number and influence. Most
Mori carvings feature human figures, generally with three fingers and either a naturallooking, detailed head or a grotesque head. Surface patterns consisting of spirals, ridges,
notches and fish scales decorate most carvings. The pre-eminent Mori architecture
consisted of carved meeting houses (wharenui) decorated with symbolic carvings and
illustrations. These buildings were originally designed to be constantly rebuilt, changing
and adapting to different whims or needs.
Mori decorated the white wood of buildings, canoes and cenotaphs using red (a mixture
of red ochre and shark fat) and black (made from soot) paint and painted pictures of birds,
reptiles and other designs on cave walls. Mori tattoos (moko) consisting of coloured soot
mixed with gum were cut into the flesh with a bone chisel. Since European arrival
paintings and photographs have been dominated by landscapes, originally not as works of
art but as factual portrayals of New Zealand. Portraits of Mori were also common, with
early painters often portraying them as "noble savages", exotic beauties or friendly natives.
The country's isolation delayed the influence of European artistic trends allowing local
artists to developed their own distinctive style of regionalism. During the 1960s and 70s
many artists combined traditional Mori and Western techniques, creating unique art
forms. New Zealand art and craft has gradually achieved an international audience, with
exhibitions in the Venice Biennale in 2001 and the "Paradise Now" exhibition in New
York in 2004.
Portrait of Hinepare of Ngti Kahungunu by Gottfried
Lindauer, showing chin moko, pounamu hei-tiki and woven
cloak
Mori cloaks are made of fine flax fibre and patterned with
black, red and white triangles, diamonds and other geometric
shapes. Greenstone was fashioned into earrings and necklaces,
with the most well-known design being the hei-tiki, a distorted
human figure sitting cross-legged with its head tilted to the
side. Europeans brought English fashion etiquette to New
Zealand, and until the 1950s most people dressed up for social
occasions. Standards have since relaxed and New Zealand
fashion has received a reputation for being casual, practical
17
and lacklustre. However, the local fashion industry has grown significantly since 2000,
doubling exports and increasing from a handful to about 50 established labels, with some
labels gaining international recognition.
Literature
Mori quickly adopted writing as a means of sharing ideas, and many of their oral stories
and poems were converted to the written form. Most early English literature was obtained
from Britain and it was not until the 1950s when local publishing outlets increased that
New Zealand literature started to become widely known. Although still largely influenced
by global trends (modernism) and events (the Great Depression), writers in the 1930s
began to develop stories increasingly focused on their experiences in New Zealand. During
this period literature changed from a journalistic activity to a more academic pursuit.
Participation in the world wars gave some New Zealand writers a new perspective on New
Zealand culture and with the post-war expansion of universities local literature flourished.
Entertainment
New Zealand music has been influenced by blues, jazz, country, rock and roll and hip hop,
with many of these genres given a unique New Zealand interpretation. Mori developed
traditional chants and songs from their ancient South-East Asian origins, and after
centuries of isolation created a unique "monotonous" and "doleful" sound. Flutes and
trumpets were used as musical instruments or as signalling devices during war or special
occasions. Early settlers brought over their ethnic music, with brass bands and choral
music being popular, and musicians began touring New Zealand in the 1860s. Pipe bands
became widespread during the early 20th century. The New Zealand recording industry
began to develop from 1940 onwards and many New Zealand musicians have obtained
success in Britain and the USA. Some artists release Mori language songs and the Mori
tradition-based art of kapa haka (song and dance) has made a resurgence.
Radio first arrived in New Zealand in 1922 and television in 1960, while the number of
New Zealand films significantly increased during the 1970s. In 1978 the New Zealand
Film Commission started assisting local film-makers and many films attained a world
audience, some receiving international acknowledgement. Deregulation in the 1980s saw a
sudden increase in the numbers of radio and television stations. New Zealand television
primarily broadcasts American and British programming, along with a large number of
Australian and local shows. The country's diverse scenery and compact size, plus
government incentives, have encouraged some producers to film big budget movies in
New Zealand. The New Zealand media industry is dominated by a small number of
companies, most of which are foreign-owned, although the state retains ownership of some
television and radio stations. Between 2003 and 2008, Reporters Without Borders
consistently ranked New Zealand's press freedom in the top twenty.
18
Sports
Intercolonial Rugby Union match

Queensland vs. New Zealand, 1907
Statue of mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary gazing

towards Aoraki / Mount Cook
Most of the major sporting codes played in New
Zealand have English origins. Golf, netball, tennis
and cricket are the four top participatory sports,
soccer is the most popular among young people and rugby union attracts the most
spectators. Victorious rugby tours to Australia and the United Kingdom in the late 1880s
and the early 1900s played an early role in instilling a national identity, although the sport's
influence has since declined. Horse racing was also a popular spectator sport and became
part of the "Rugby, Racing and Beer" culture during the 1960s. Mori participation in
European sports was particularly evident in rugby and the country's team performs a haka
(traditional Mori challenge) before international matches.
New Zealand has competitive international teams in rugby union, netball, cricket, rugby
league, and softball and has traditionally done well in triathlons, rowing, yachting and
cycling. The country has performed well on a medals-to-population ratio at Olympic
Games and Commonwealth Games. New Zealand is known for its extreme sports,
adventure tourism and strong mountaineering tradition. Other outdoor pursuits such as
cycling, fishing, swimming, running, tramping, canoeing, hunting, snowsports and surfing
are also popular. The Polynesian sport of waka ama racing has increased in popularity and
is now an international sport involving teams from all over the Pacific.
19
ORAL PRESENTATION RUBRIC

Students:
Su je t: .
Date: ..
Topi : .
CONTENT
Amount and relevance of information.
1
Command of information, clarity and capacity to recycle.
2
Critical interpretation of text or information.
3
Application of literary criticism or other technical concepts.
4
Creativity.
5
ORGANIZATION
Organization, logical sequencing, flow and transitions.
6
Variety of supporting material.
7
Clarity, appropriacy, accuracy of visual aids.
8
DELIVERY
Enthusiastic, engaged and encouraging attitude.
9
10 Spontaneity of delivery (vs. memorized repetition of info)
11 Effective eyed contact, voice clarity, volume, variety and emphasis.
LANGUAGE
12 Clarity of expression.
13 Grammatical accuracy.
14 Richness and complexity of vocabulary.
15 Use of transition devices to relate or emphasize ideas.
16 Accuracy of pronunciation.
FINAL SCORE
.
Students:
Su je t: .
Date: ..
Topi : .
CONTENT
1
2
3
4
Creativity.
5
ORGANIZATION
6
7
8
DELIVERY
9
LANGUAGE
FINAL SCORE

Students:
Su je t: .
Date: ..
Topi : .
CONTENT
1
2
3
4
Creativity.
5
ORGANIZATION
6
7
8
DELIVERY
9
LANGUAGE
FINAL SCORE
.
Students:
Su je t: .
Date: ..
Topi : .
CONTENT
1
2
3
4
Creativity.
5
ORGANIZATION
6
7
8
DELIVERY
9
LANGUAGE
FINAL SCORE
United States of America

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GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA

Prof. Jess Centeno

INSTITUCIN: IES del Atuel

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: General features

Spotlight on the USA

INSTITUCIN: IES del Atuel

McDougal Littell, American History, 2008.

G. K. Chesterton, Mi vision de Estados Unidos, Losada, 2010

National Gepgraphic Society, An Outline of the American Geography, United States

ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA ON LINE. http://www.britannica.com/

9-011 IES DEL ATUEL

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II

Select a state of the USA: ___________________________________

Exploring the tools

a. Go to the state you have selected. For example: Iowa

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II

Finally, send the map to your teachers e-mail (G): jes_centeno@hotmail.com

The dead-line is on:____________________________

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II

Human SystemsPopulation and

Human SystemsPolitical and

Global Time Zone

Comments about the use of the e-tool (this is compulsory):________________________________________

Geografa y Cultura Inglesa 2

I Walk Across America

Guys, welcome to your first assignment!

write a essay des

ri ing Rit hies itinerary. Consider the relief, weather, landmarks

Print this file before the deadline (

@ PM), Break a leg!!!!

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

Name __________________________________________________________ Date __________________________

2000 - 2004 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Edited by Foxit Reader

See this Youtube video

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

Motto: In God We Trust (official)

New York City

None at federal level

English (de facto)

Barack Obama (D)

Joe Biden (D)

Speaker of the House

John Boehner (R)

Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain

Recognized September 3, 1783

9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th)

$14.780 trillion (1st)

$14.780 trillion[3] (1st)

United States dollar ($) (USD)

.us .gov .mil .edu

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

2. Geography and environment

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

GEOGRAFA Y CULTURA INGLESA II- THE USA

The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as

In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract

Independence and expansion

Tensions between American colonials and the British during the

Name ________________________________ Date