North American geography

• North American Geography


  Understanding the geography of America is really important to understanding history
• Many US citizens wanted to settle land in the West
• European settlers initially lived only on the east coast
• Geographical regions of America

  • Great Plains
  • High Plains
  • Great Lakes
  • Appalachian Mountains
  • Coastal Plain
  • Rocky Mountains
  • Gulf of Mexico
  • Atlantic Ocean
• Geographical obstacles separated the East from the West Coast
• Great Plains


  • Have a hostile climate
  • Become drier and more desert-like the further west you go
  • Early settlers called it the 'Great American Desert'
• The Great Plains have little rainfall
• There is a huge difference in weather between summer and winter on the Great Plains
• Rocky Mountains


  • Form a barrier across America
  • Early settlers viewed the Great Plains as wild and unsuitable for living and farming due to the climate, lack of rainfall and hard ground
• Attitudes towards the Great Plains would change between 1830 and 1870
• Understanding these changing attitudes is important for understanding America's expansion
• Neither side of the Rockies is heavily wooded, especially in the South
• West of the Rockies is the Plateau region, which is fairly flat but has areas of desert
• Water can be trapped by only evaporating in the Plateau region, creating the Great Salt Lake
• America's plains and mountains made it hard to get to the West Coast
• Understanding geography is really important in the story of America's expansion
• Great Plains


  
  
• A region in central North America covering parts of the United States and Canada, known for its flat and rolling prairies.
• Hostile climate


  
  
• The Great Plains have a continental climate with extreme temperature changes between summer and winter, prone to droughts, strong winds, and thunderstorms.
• Become drier and more desert-like the further west you go


  
  
• The climate becomes progressively drier, turning into a desert-like landscape as you travel west across the Great Plains due to the rain shadow effect caused by the Rocky Mountains.
• Early settlers called it the 'Great American Desert'