America is one beautiful country strategically located between two oceans, the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. A beautiful country strategically located between two friendly neighbours, Canada in the north and Mexico in the south. I am from Zambia (Africa) a country located in the tropics that enjoys twelve months of sunshine annually. Now living in Canada a country of nine months of winter, a joke here, I look at America from a unique perspective.
When you hear us at Thursday with Chrispin Ntungo (TwCN), or anyone for that matter, describe America as beautiful, what comes to your mind? From our perspective, we think that there are two ways to describe the beauty of a country. The first is its natural environment, that is, the physical characteristics including landforms, climate, soils, and vegetation. The second is the result of human influence or development, often called culture. Our interest here is mainly in the natural environment. Basically we aim to point out how America is naturally well-endowed and how as a nation it has relentlessly exploited its natural resources for economic development and human advancement.
For once allow me to recall my high school geography. I attended high school in Zambia. One of my favourite subjects was geography. It was then that I learnt about North America, including Canada and the United States of America (U.S.A.). Generally speaking natural landforms, climate, soils, and vegetation have significant implication for human activity. There is no place where this is more so than America. In developing America, early settlers exploited the physical environment including natural resources for economic development. Economic activity dictated where new comers to America would settle and where cities would develop, and what type of economic activity would be predominant, whether it would be agricultural, mining, manufacturing, transportation or service.
In America, I see a country that has the best of all that nature offers, including physical characteristics such as landforms, climate, soils, vegetation and natural resources. Considering land features alone, America has all features but tropical rainforests. America has ice and snow, high barren areas, tundra and alpine, needle leaf trees or taiga, broadleaf trees, grasslands, dry scrub and desert. The northern part of mainland America, for example, experiences ice and snow. Ice and snow gives American people the opportunity to enjoy winter activities and sports, including skiing, skating, and hockey.
Furthermore, in its northerly and farthest state Alaska (and I have been there by the way), America experiences the best of winters, if winter can ever be best. In addition, Alaska offers an abundance of natural resources, including wild life, oil, natural gas and minerals. While some people may consider Alaska as too remote and too cold, the American people in Alaska are mainly natives who are unique and have there own culture. Therefore, they are able to endure the winter, find ways to enjoy it and significantly contribute to the development of the state and America.
In contrast, the southern part of America offers the best that tropical weather has to offer. The region enjoys abundant sunshine allowing the people to grow fruits, enjoy life on beaches, and enjoy such sports as golf and athletics throughout the year. American countryside is one that I love to describe as gorgeous. Moving from east to west, I enjoy seeing the low coastal lands of the east, and moving over the array of a diverse landscape, including the Appalachian Mountains, the plains of mid America, the dessert in Colorado and the breath taking Rocky Mountains in the west part of the country. The landscape as described above is too simplistic in some ways. Geographers do a better job of describing it.
Interposing the American physical and natural environment with human activity, geographers have divided and described America in fourteen regions namely,
- Megalopolis
- Manufacturing Core
- Bypassed East
- Appalachia and the Ozarks
- Deep South
- Southern Coastlands
- Agricultural Core
- Great Plains and Prairies
- Empty Interior
- Southwest Border Area
- California
- North Pacific Coast
- Northlands
- Hawaii
It is not the intent of the writer to give a lecture on these regions, but rather to simply highlight how any kind of physical environment can be exploited and used for appropriate economic activity. Such economic activity needs to be encouraged and supported by government policy. And the American government has done a good job in ensuring that every part of America’s natural endowment is economically utilized.
Much of the countryside is well developed. The Midwest is characterized by an extension of the prairies from Canada. Hence it is a rich agricultural landscape with crops such as grain being predominant as well as food processing and manufacturing industries. The western and southern part of America is characterized by climate favourable to fruit production. Hence, it is rich in fruits and vegetables. In supermarkets you encounter such fruits as California oranges and grapes. The same is true for the sunny south like Florida where you find mainly Florida oranges.
The coastal areas are characterized by beaches that attract tourists from the interior of America as well as from around the world. These areas also have marine based industries such as fishing, fish processing plants and shipping.
You would think that because of the Rocky Mountains America would have a huge challenge balancing development between the east and the west. Far from it. The American government took the initiative years back and put in place amazing infrastructure that links the east and the west. The infrastructure includes a sophisticated highway network, railway lines and air transportation. Consequently, the natural environment coupled with human economic activity has made America amazingly beautiful making every individual American proud.
Deservedly so, the endowment of abundant natural resources, coupled with well planned and coordinated human activity, is indeed one secret behind America’s might. TwCN.
