How well do you know US geography?
From mountain ranges to the lowest point in North America, the United States has remarkable geography. Six questions, from easy to hard, each with an explanation.
Did you know?
- Lake Superior, shared with Canada, is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. It holds enough water to cover all of North and South America in about a foot of water.
- Alaska has more than 3 million lakes and about 100,000 glaciers. Its Aleutian Islands contain dozens of active volcanoes, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
- Mauna Kea in Hawaii rises about 33,500 feet (10,200 m) from its base on the ocean floor, making it taller than Mount Everest when measured from base to peak.
The shape of a continent
The United States covers a huge range of landscapes, from Arctic tundra in Alaska to tropical islands in Hawaii, and from swamps in Florida to deserts in the Southwest. This variety comes from the country's size and from geological forces that built mountains, carved canyons and shaped rivers over hundreds of millions of years.
Two great mountain systems
The Appalachians in the east are ancient mountains, once as tall as the Himalayas but eroded over time. The Rocky Mountains in the west are younger and much higher, with dozens of peaks above 14,000 feet in Colorado alone. Between them lie the broad, flat Great Plains and Central Lowlands.
The Mississippi River system
The Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and their tributaries drain about 40% of the lower 48 states. This network made rivers the highways of early America, carrying settlers, goods and trade, and it still moves huge amounts of grain and freight by barge today.
Deserts and the Great Basin
In the West, the Great Basin is a large region where rivers never reach the ocean; water collects in lakes or evaporates. Deserts such as the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan are home to unique plants like Joshua trees and saguaro cacti, adapted to extreme heat and little rain.
Extremes of height and heat
Denali in Alaska is North America's highest peak at 20,310 feet (6,190 m). Death Valley holds the record for the highest reliably measured air temperature on Earth, 134°F (56.7°C), recorded in 1913. Few countries have such dramatic extremes.
The Continental Divide
The Continental Divide runs along the Rocky Mountains and separates rivers that flow toward the Pacific from those that flow toward the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Hikers can follow it on the Continental Divide Trail, which stretches about 3,100 miles from Mexico to Canada.