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United States and Canada: Sample gazetteer articles
California
called the Golden State, the Land of Milk and Honey, the El Dorado State, or the Grape State
Western state of the USA, bordered to the south by the Mexican state of Baja California, to the east by Arizona and Nevada, to the north by Oregon, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean; area 403,932 sq km/155,959 sq mi; population (2000) 33,871,600; capital Sacramento. Its nicknames refer to the gold that led to the California gold rush of 1849–56, and to the state's sunshine, orange groves, vineyards, and abundant resources. Geographically the state is diverse, with features including the Sierra Nevada mountains, desert areas, and a fertile central plains region. The San Andreas Fault extends into northwest California southward, causing tremors and occasional earthquakes from San Francisco to the southeast part of the state. The state's economy is the largest in the USA, and very significant to the country as whole. California is a leader in both agriculture, producing fruit, vegetables, cotton, beef cattle, and fish; and manufacturing, concentrated on engineering and technology. Silicon Valley is known for its electronics industries, while Hollywood is the centre of the US film industry. Tourism, the property market, and mining, including petroleum and boron, are also important to the state's economy. The largest city is Los Angeles (LA); other major cities are San Diego, San Francisco, San José, and Fresno. California is the most populous state of the USA, with over a quarter of the population being Hispanic-American. Formerly a Spanish and Mexican territory, California passed to the USA following the Mexican War (1846–48). California was admitted to the Union in 1850 as the 31st US state and is governed under a constitution dating from 1879.
Physical
California, over 770 mi/1240 km in length, has a wide range of climatic and topographic zones, though generally winters are wet and summers dry. The state can be divided into eight main land areas: the Klamath Mountains, the Coast Ranges, the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Range, the Basin and Range region, the Los Angeles ranges, and the San Diego ranges.
The Klamath Mountains in northwestern California have deep canyons, and the climate here is cooler than in the southern parts of the state. The Coast Ranges bordering the Pacific include the Diablo Range, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Santa Lucia Range. This region has higher levels of rainfall than other parts of California and is characterized by lush valleys, vineyards, and orchards. Some of California's most celebrated redwood forests are found here.
The rolling fertile Central Valley lies between the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada. Watered by the state's two longest rivers, the Sacramento, flowing north–south, and the San Joaquin, flowing southeast–northwest, the Central Valley has some of the richest farmland in the state and produces most of California's crops.
The Sierra Nevada, in the eastern part of the state, has peaks rising to 4,418 m/14,500 ft at Mount Whitney on the eastern border of Sequoia National Park. Mount Whitney is the second-highest peak in the USA (after Mount McKinley, Alaska). The Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada has spectacular glacial canyons, rivers, and waterfalls, including the Yosemite Falls, the highest waterfall in North America with a drop of 739 m/2,425 ft. The Cascade Mountains, a volcanic range, extend northwards from the Sierra Nevada and includes an active volcano, Lassen Peak (3,186 m/10,453 ft).
In the southern part of the state is the Basin and Range region, a lava plateau with large areas of desert, including the Mojave Desert and the Colorado Desert. Death Valley, on the Nevada border, lies 85 m/280 ft below sea level and is the lowest point in North America.
The Los Angeles ranges extend east–west and include the Santa Ynez, Santa Monica, San Gabriel Mountains, and San Bernardino mountains. The southwestern tip of California is occupied by the San Diego ranges, including the Santa Ana, Agua Tibia, Laguna, and Vallecito mountains, extending into the Mexican peninsula known as Baja California.
California's coast has two major bays at San Francisco, the world's largest landlocked harbour, and at San Diego, with two lesser bays at Humboldt and Monterey. The coastline extends 1,352 km/840 mi, with wide sandy beaches and steep cliffs. The
Sacramento–San Joaquin system empties into San Francisco Bay. Huge, offshore underwater volcanoes lie off the coast, with tops 8 km/5 mi across.
To the southeast, the Colorado River forms the border between southern California and Arizona, and is an important source of water for both states. In the southern part of the state California has resorted to extensive irrigation and water transport projects to service its dense population and agriculture; major schemes include the California Aqueduct, Central Valley Project, All-American Canal, and Los Angeles Aqueduct. California has 8,000 lakes, the largest of which is Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada. Salton Sea is an artificial saltwater lake created during irrigation work on the Colorado River, and now used as a solar pond for the production of electricity.
Owing to its varied climate and habitat, California has a vast range of plants and wildlife, from giant sequoia trees, pronghorns, elk, wolverines, and condors in the mountains, to Joshua trees, poppies, coyote, and rattlesnakes in the deserts, and many different kinds of shellfish, seabirds and sea life on the coast.
Features
California's regional diversity encompasses Spanish and Mexican colonial sites and Hollywood memorabilia, areas of outstanding natural beauty and important cultural centres and museums. California's major cities – Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego – are world-renowned tourist destinations. In Los Angeles the pavements of Hollywood Boulevard are famously engraved with the names of celebrities; the city's much-filmed street Sunset Boulevard winds 40 km/25 mi through the downtown area to the Pacific Ocean and the Hollywood sign on the Hollywood Hills. This internationally recognized landmark was erected in 1923 as an advertising sign for a property development, but was altered in 1945 after Hollywood had become the world's film capital. Many visitors tour the celebrity homes of Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, and Malibu.
San Francisco, celebrated for its role in the Beat Generation and hippie movements of the 1960s, has steep hills and cable cars. The Golden Gate bridge is the most significant landmark of the Bay area. San Diego has one of the world's finest deepwater bays, and is home to Sea World and the San Diego Zoo.
In all three cities, as in many parts of the state, remnants of Spanish missions can be seen: Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in Oceanside, San Diego dates from 1798, while Mission Dolores in the Mission District of San Francisco, dating from 1776, was
rebuilt in 1782 after a fire. Others include Carmel Mission (1770), Carmel; Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1772), San Luis Obispo, and La Purísima Concepción Mission, Lompoc. Fort Ross, an early Russian settlement established in 1812 by the Russian-American Company, is situated on a scenic bluff on the Sonoma coast, near San Francisco. Monterey State Historic Park is the site of California's former capital under Spanish, Mexican, and US rule, and ten buildings dating from that period still stand, including the Custom House, built in 1827, and California's first theatre (1846–47).
The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento is the largest museum of its kind in North America. Historic gold-rush sites include Downieville and Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. California's oldest amusement park is Knott's Berry Farm,
developed from a family farm tea room and market in the 1920s. The Disneyland amusement park is situated in Orange County, Los Angeles. The University of California at Berkeley was the centre of student protest in the 1960s and has the largest university library in California. The Napa and Sonoma valleys are renowned wine country.
California has 22 national forests and eight national parks, as well as numerous state parks and forests. The Sierra Nevada includes the World Heritage Site Yosemite National Park and the Sequoia National Park, where Mount Whitney has a trail to its summit. The Redwood National Park is also a World Heritage Site. Other national parks in the state include Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Kings Canyon, Lassen Volcanic, and Channel Islands, which encompasses the islands of Anacapa, San Miguel, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Santa Barbara. The Lava Beds National Monument in Tulelake is a spectacular rugged landform created by volcanic eruptions on the Medicine Lake shield volcano, used by the American Indian Modoc during the Modoc War of 1872–73 as a natural lava fortress.
California has a coastline with wide beaches and a rich biodiversity. The Point Reyes National Seashore harbours 20% of the state's flowering plant species on its peninsula, and over 45% of the bird species in North America have been sighted there. Point Lobos State Reserve is renowned for its sea lions. Big Sur is a major tourist resort area on the mild and sunny central coast. Monterey is home to a John Steinbeck museum, celebrating the California writer who depicted the working-class life of the sardine factories of Cannery Row, Monterey, and the struggles of the state's migrant workers. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary preserves marine life in its natural habitat and the Monterey Bay Aquarium displays many kinds of aquatic life. Marine World Africa USA in Vallejo is a combination of oceanarium and wildlife park.
California's desert features include the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Red Rock Canyon State Park at the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada and the El Paso Range.
Culture
Densely populated, cosmopolitan, and dominated by a culture of creative media, Los Angeles is home to many different ethnic groups, with Hispanic-American districts, the Asian-American districts of Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and Koreatown, and a large African-American community centred on Watts. The city is famous for its television and film studios, and has many theatre companies, a symphony orchestra, and a major opera company. There is also a significant recording industry in Los Angeles; East Los Angeles is famous for hip hop and rap artists. Although by reputation the entertainment industry dominates the city's cultural life and identity, other business and international trade serve to make Los Angeles an international hub. The Los Angeles County Museum is one of the premier visual arts museums in the USA with over 150,000 works, while the J Paul Getty Museum and Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art are also important. Other collections include the Fisher Gallery at the University of Southern California, the Korean American Museum, and the Southwest Museum.
California's second-largest city, San Francisco, has a reputation for a diverse, tolerant, and progressive cultural scene, with a large gay and lesbian community. A former centre for hippy life and the Beat Generation, San Francisco has many coffee shops, bookstores, including the City Lights Bookstore, and an important rock music legacy dating from the 1960s. The visual and acoustic arts in the city reflect an experimental and alternative emphasis, although San Francisco has a growing and wealthy high-tech community. The city also has a significant Chinese-American population; Chinatown has one of the largest Chinese communities in the USA and holds a Chinese New Year celebration that has become one of San Francisco's major annual festivals. The city's Spanish and Mexican heritage is displayed at the Mexican Museum in the Fort Mason Center. San Francisco is rich in the performing arts, with the municipally-owned War Memorial Opera House and the Louise M Davies Symphony Hall staging performances by the city symphony orchestra and ballet and opera companies. Art museums include the San Francisco Museum of Art, the M H de Young Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum, the Friends of Photography/Ansel Adams Center, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, and the innovative San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Festivals and parades include the Gay Freedom Day Parade march, the Stern Grove Midsummer Music Festival, the San Francisco Jazz and Wine Festival at the Embarcadero Centre, the annual Blues Festival, Opera in the Park, and the major two-week San Francisco Jazz Festival. The San Francisco International Film Festival is held in April.
San Diego's year-round sun and beautiful beaches have given rise to a relaxed beach and surf culture. SeaWorld is an important centre for public education. The arts are also significant with many cultural organizations, writers' guilds, and artist cooperatives. The Gaslamp Quarter festivals feature prominent blues and jazz musicians. Museums include the San Diego Museum of Art, the Mingei International Museum of Folk Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Photographic Arts.
California has many other museums, including the Huntington Gallery in San Marino, with British paintings and French furniture and tapestries of the 1700s and early 1800s; the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, a prestigious collection spanning over two
thousand years of Western and Asian art; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; the Bakersfield Museum of Art, Bakersfield; the Magnes Jewish Museum, Berkeley; the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno; the Hearst Art Gallery at Saint Mary's College, Moraga Town; the Historical Glass Museum, Redlands; the Lee Institute for Japanese Art, Hanford; the Monterey Museum of Art; the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach; the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland; the Orange County Museum of Art,
Newport Beach; the San José Museum of Art, San José; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara; and the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica. Arts festivals in California include the High Desert Arts Festival in Ridgecrest, the Monterey Jazz Festival in September, and the Long Beach Blues Festival.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and Stanford University at Palo Alto are major education and cultural centres.
As well as a cosmopolitan urban culture, California also has a more traditional rural and American West heritage culture, and celebrates its agricultural wealth and prowess with many state fairs and annual festivals. The Porterville Stagecoach Stampede is held in Porterville in October and the Fortuna Rodeo is the largest three-day rodeo in the USA. The Tournament of Roses is a spectacular New Year's Day event held in Pasadena, with rose-covered floats, a beauty contest, and the Rose Bowl American football game. Other festivals include an Avocado Festival in Fallbrook, an Asparagus Festival in Stockton, a Strawberry Festival in Arroyo Grande, Whiskey Flat Days in Kernville, the annual state fair in Sacramento, and a Clam Festival in Pismo Beach.
Government
California's state constitution The constitution dates from 1849, and the current constitution was adopted in 1879 and has been amended over 350 times. The state constitution is characterized by the people's power to propose an initiative or referendum, with the agreement of 5% of the electorate in the case of a referendum or statute initiative, and 8% in the case of an amendment initiative. Electors also have the power to recall state officers with a petition of signatures equal in number to 12% of the last vote for the office in the case of a statewide officer, and 20% in the case of senators, members of the Assembly, members of the Board of Equalization, and judges of courts of appeal and trial courts.
Structure of state government The legislature has a Senate of 40 members and an Assembly of 80 members, elected for four-year terms and two-year terms respectively. Senators can serve only two consecutive terms; members of the Assembly may serve no more than three terms. Each represents one senatorial or Assembly district. Fifty-two representatives and two senators are sent to the US Congress. The state has 55 electoral votes in presidential elections. California's governor serves a four-year term with a maximum of two consecutive terms. The lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, controller, insurance commissioner, and superintendent of public instruction are the other main government posts. The State Board of Equalization, whose five members are each elected to four-year terms, administers several important tax laws.
The Supreme Court is the highest in California, with a chief justice and six associate justices appointed by the governor to 12-year terms, subject to voter approval. There are six district courts of appeal. In every county voters elect superior court judges to six-year terms.
California has about 470 incorporated cities and cities of 3,500 or more people have the constitutional right to home rule; about 80 California cities are governed in this way. Most California cities have council-manager governments, although some use the mayor-council form of government. The state has 58 counties with a five-member board of supervisors and a number of elected executive officials. The California constitution permits county home rule.
Economy
California's economy is very important to the rest of the USA. If it were classified as a separate entity it would rank the seventh-largest economy in the world. Although its main profits derive from the service industry, California ranks first among US states in both agriculture and manufacturing. The Central Valley is one of the world's most important agricultural regions. California is the leading agricultural state, producing fruit (peaches, citrus, grapes in the San Joaquin and Sacramento river valleys), nuts, wheat, vegetables, cotton, rice, and beef cattle, as well as grapes for wine. Fishing is also a major industry. California's tuna fish catch is the largest in the country; other important catches include halibut, herring, mackerel, salmon, shark, sole, and swordfish, crabs, shrimp, and squid.
California is also the leading state in the USA for manufacturing. Industry is focused on high technology and engineering, including aeroplanes, computers, electronic components, missiles, and scientific instruments. Timber, fish, and food processing are also important industries. The financial sector, particularly in Los Angeles, is internationally significant, as is the film and television industry. Many of the world's largest studios, such as Paramount Studios, Universal, Fox, and Warner Bros, are based in Los Angeles. Tourism and the leisure industry are important sources of revenue in the state.
California is also a leading mining state. Petroleum is extracted in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley and along the
coast near Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. All the USA's boron, used in boric acid and antiseptics, is mined in Inyokern, Kern, and San Bernardino counties. Other resources include diatomite, sand and gravel, sodium compounds, tungsten, gold, gypsum, magnesium compounds, molybdenum, and pumice.
History
Early inhabitants California's first inhabitants were diverse American Indian groups, separated from each other by deserts and high mountains: the Hupa of the northwest, the Maidu of the northeast and central regions, the Yuman in the south, and the Pomo in what are now Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties, north of San Francisco. The Miwok, Modoc, and Mojave peoples were also present.
Spanish-Mexican and Russian settlement Spanish sailors first landed in the 1540s and the English captain Francis Drake sighted the north Californian coast in 1579. There was no settlement, however, until an overland expedition from Mexico established a mission in 1769 at San Diego and a presidio (fortified military settlement) in 1770 at Monterey. By this time El Dorado, a name from a 16th-century Spanish romance, designating an island inhabited by Amazon warriors and rich with gold, had been applied to the Mexican peninsula of Baja California (then thought to be an island), and extended northwards to include what came to be called Alta California (Upper California).
Until the 1820s there was little further development. A system of missions and presidios was established between San Diego and San Francisco Bay. Each mission, designed to be within walking distance of the next, aimed to convert the local American Indians to
Christianity. Many American Indians died through a lack of resistance to European diseases and through being overworked in farming and mission industries. In 1812 Fort Ross became the southernmost outpost of Russian America; the bulk of the Russian American community was in Alaska. After the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which declared that any further European colonial activity would be regarded as a threat, Russia agreed to limit its territories to Alaska but did not leave the California region until the early 1840s.
Mexican rule In 1821 Mexico freed itself from Spain and California's missions were secularized. The larger lands of the
missions were given to cattle rearers as ranchos ('ranches'); the rich landowners were known as rancheros. Mexico's control over the territory remained limited, however, owing to the resistance of Californians to outside rule. In the 1830s Americans, attracted by reports from fur traders, began to filter into the area from the east. Between 1844 and 1846 the military explorer John C Frémont led two surveying expeditions that included US soldiers into the region. Although ordered out by Mexico, Frémont built a fort near Monterey and raised the US flag. Almost simultaneously, although unaware that the Mexican War had already broken out, a band of American settlers led by Ezekiel Merritt took over Sonoma, Mexico's northern headquarters, and declared the 'Bear Flag Republic' on 14 June 1846. As the Mexican War progressed, the USA occupied northern regions of California. The California Territory was ceded to the USA after the conclusion of the Mexican War in 1848.
California gold rush The discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada in January 1848 sparked the California gold rush of 1849–56 and an influx of prospectors and settlers led by the Forty-Niners. California became the 31st state on 9 September 1850 and Peter H Burnett, a Democrat, was the first state governor. More settlers arrived in the area during and after the Civil War (1861–65). The completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 linked Sacramento with the eastern USA, and fostered economic development. Railroad developers Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis P Huntington, and Leland Stanford were known as California's 'Big Four', and introduced many Chinese labourers to California in the 1860s.
In 1887 the Santa Fe Railroad reached Los Angeles, opening southern California to urban and agricultural development. California saw a depression in the 1880s, for which its rising Chinese population was blamed. Anti-Chinese riots took place in Los Angeles in 1871 and in San Francisco in 1877. A publicity campaign throughout the USA helped to move California out of its economic depression and led to a land boom and population explosion. In 1906 a major earthquake in San Francisco, followed by three days of fire, destroyed large parts of the city. Contemporary official figures gave a death toll of 700–800 people, although later studies suggest that some 3,000 died during the quake and its aftermath. Recovery was rapid, however, and California continued in general to expand and grow.
20th-century expansion The Los Angeles area in particular flourished with the growth of the film industry after 1910, oil discoveries in the early 1920s, and the development of aircraft factories and shipyards during World War II. California witnessed mass immigration during the Depression of the 1930s with an influx from the dust bowl states, such as Oklahoma. It has also been a popular destination for South American and Asian immigrants. Approximately 100,000 Californians of Japanese ancestry were interned during World War II. California became the nation's most populous state in 1962. In 1965 serious inter-ethnic riots erupted in Watts, Los Angeles, resulting in 34 deaths. The expansion of California's education system coincided with an increase in student activism, including the activities of the Free Speech Movement in 1964 at the University of California in Berkeley. Northern California benefited from the growth of the electronics industry from the 1970s in what came to be called Silicon Valley.
Contemporary California A devastating earthquake occurred in the San Francisco Bay area in 1989 and the San Fernando Valley-Los Angeles area in 1994. Storms and floods in January and March 1995 caused 26 deaths and an estimated $3.3 billion in damage. Total costs from recent natural disasters, including the fires in the south of the state in 1993, were estimated at $28.5 billion. The state's economy suffered during the early 1990s as defence industries declined. Crime reduction and policing methods in the big cities have been a major challenge in recent times. In Los Angeles racial tensions erupted in 1992 after a judge acquitted four white police officers charged with beating a black motorist; five days of rioting ensued in which 50 people died. Two of the officers concerned were later convicted in a federal trial. The issue of police corruption was also brought to the fore in November 2000 when three Los Angeles police officers were convicted of filing false reports. Air pollution regulation has become significant and, in January 2001, an energy crisis resulted in mandatory electricity blackouts following the near bankruptcy of two of the largest power utility companies in California – Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. In June 2001, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced that it would cap wholesale electricity prices in California at all times, rather than just during power emergencies.
Famous people
sport Joe DiMaggio (1914–1999), baseball player; Tiger Woods (1976– ), golfer
the arts William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), publisher; Robert Frost (1874–1963), poet; Jack London (1876–1916), writer; Isadora Duncan (1878–1927), dancer; John Steinbeck (1902–1968), writer; William Saroyan (1908–1981), author; Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962), actor; Clint Eastwood (1930– ), actor; Robert Redford (1937– ), actor; George Lucas (1944– ), filmmaker; Tom Hanks (1956– ), actor
science Luther Burbank (1849–1926), horticulturist society and education Angela Davis (1944– ), political activist
economics Mark Hopkins (1814–1878), railroad industrialist; Collis P Huntington (1821–1900), railroad industrialist; Charles Crocker (1822–1888), railroad industrialist; Henry E Huntington (1850–1927), railroad industrialist
politics and law Peter Burnett (1807–1895), first governor; Mariano Vallejo (1808–1890), military leader in colonial California; John C Frémont (1813–1890), explorer and politician; Richard Nixon (1913–1994), 37th president of the USA.
Detroit
Industrial city and port in southeastern Michigan, USA, 788 km/489 mi west of New York and 395 km/245 mi east of Chicago, situated on the Detroit River opposite the city of Windsor in Ontario, Canada; seat of Wayne County; area 370 sq km/143 sq mi (excluding neighbouring cities), metropolitan area 10,093 sq km/3,897 sq mi; population (2000 est) 951,300. Detroit is the headquarters of the automobile manufacturers Ford, Chrysler (merged with Daimler in 1991), and General Motors, hence its nickname Motown (from 'motor town'). Other manufactured products include steel, machine tools, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. It is the seventh-largest city in the USA.
Situated 29 km/18 mi above Lake Erie, Detroit is the busiest port in Michigan and is linked to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence Seaway (opened 1959); the Detroit–Windsor tunnel is a major gateway to Canada. Ambassador Bridge (1929) is North America's most-travelled international bridge.
History
Detroit was founded in 1701 by a French soldier, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, as a fur-trading centre and became the leading French settlement in the Great Lakes region. It was captured by the British in 1760 and was held as a military post until 1783; it passed to the USA in 1796. Detroit was destroyed by fire in 1805 but was soon rebuilt. It was incorporated as a city in 1815. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 helped stimulate its development. Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company here in 1903, and the city grew rapidly after the building of the first car factories. During the 1960s and 1970s Detroit became associated with the 'Motown Sound' of rock and soul music. Between 1950 and 1990 the population declined by almost half as the car factories became automated. There were serious race riots here in 1943 and 1967; its first black mayor, Coleman Young (1918–97), was elected in 1973. He served an unprecedented five terms until 1994.
Features
In the suburb of Dearborn, the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village display 80 historic buildings, including Thomas Edison's laboratory and Henry Ford's birthplace. The central courtyard of the Detroit Institute of Arts (1885) has a series of murals by the Mexican painter Diego Rivera depicting the automobile industry. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, founded 1914, became famous under
Antal Dorati. Detroit Opera House re-opened in 1996 in the restored Grand Circus Theater. Detroit is the seat of several colleges including Wayne State University (1868), the University of Detroit Mercy (1877), the Detroit College of Law (1891), and Marygrove College (1910). The Cranbrook Academy of Art is located in the suburb of Bloomfield Hills. Belle Isle Park, an island park in the Detroit River, has outdoor summer concerts, a zoo, and a botanical garden. The Renaissance Center (1977), a business complex, has a 73-story hotel – one of the tallest in the world. Tiger Stadium, home to major-league baseball team the Detroit Tigers, closed in 1999 to be replaced by Comerica Park. The US$1.2 billion Edward McMamara Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport was opened in February 2002.
Grand Canyon
Gorge in northwestern Arizona, USA, containing the Colorado River. It is 350 km/217 mi long, 6–29 km/4–18 mi wide, and reaches depths of over 1.7 km/1.1 mi. The gorge cuts through a multicoloured series of rocks – mainly limestones, sandstones, and shales, and ranging in age from the Precambrian to the Cretaceous – and various harder strata stand out as steps on its slopes. It is one of the country's most popular national parks and around 5 million tourists visit it each year.
Protected since 1893, and accessible by rail since 1901, the Grand Canyon was made a national monument in 1908, a national park in 1919, and a World Heritage Site in 1979. Most visitors approach the canyon via the more accessible South Rim; the North Rim is around 300–500 m/1,000–1,500 ft higher, and is closed during the winter. The national park has an area of 4,931 sq km/1,904 sq mi, and is bounded by Glen Canyon to the east and Lake Mead to the west. On its way through the canyon the Colorado River drops 670 m/2,200 ft through dozens of rapids.
The canyon has been formed in the past 6–8 million years by the river cutting through generally sedimentary strata; but it
reveals some of the oldest rock on the earth's surface, over 2 billion years old, at the bottom of hundreds of layers of sandstone, shale, travertine, schist, granite, and other rocks.
Lived in for hundreds of years by various American Indian groups, the area has over 500 ruin sites. The Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado became the first European to see the canyon in 1540; the US geologist John Wesley Powell travelled down the river through the gorge in 1869.
Marble Canyon, to the northeast, is now part of the park. The Coconino Plateau lies to the south, the Kaibab and other plateaux to the north. Havasu Canyon, on the Havasu Creek, enters from the south near the canyon's west end; this is home to the Havasupai reservation, with a population (1990 est) of 400.
The US National Park Service aims to ban all cars, buses, and motor homes on the Grand Canyon overlooks by 2003. The project will improve the South Rim which attracts 90% of the tourists to the area who on some days bring about 6,000 cars.
The Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, protecting the north rim of the canyon and including over 400,000 ha/1,000,000 acres of public land, was formed in 2000.
Hudson Bay
Inland sea of northeastern Canada, linked with the Atlantic Ocean by Hudson Strait and with the Arctic Ocean by Foxe Channel and the Gulf of Boothia; area 1,233,000 sq km/766,150 sq mi. It is bordered by (clockwise) the provinces of Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. The Hudson Bay area is sparsely settled, chiefly by trappers, American Indians, and Inuit.
Hudson Bay is named after English explorer Henry Hudson, who reached it in 1610. It occupies a basin in the Canadian Shield, and is mostly shallow, with low shorelines, especially in the south and west. Southampton Island lies in the northwest of the bay, and James Bay is the major inlet at its southern end. The eastern shores are rocky, with some steep bluffs and a small chain of islands. Several rivers empty into the bay, including the Churchill, Nelson, Albany, Moose, and Rupert and Severn.
The bay is ice-free and navigable during the summer, when grain is shipped from Churchill, Manitoba, but the it is obstructed by drifting ice for nine months of the year. Hudson Bay abounds in fish, and whales, dolphins, seals, and walruses also inhabit its waters and coastline. Southampton Island houses the Harry Gibbons Migratory Bird Sanctuary (1959) and the East Bay Migratory Bird Sanctuary (1959).
Labrador
Area in northeastern Canada, part of the province of Newfoundland, lying between Ungava Bay on the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the Strait of Belle Isle on the southeast; area 266,060 sq km/102,730 sq mi; population (2001 est) 27,900. The most easterly part of the North American mainland, Labrador consists primarily of a gently sloping plateau with an irregular coastline of numerous bays, fjords, inlets, and cliffs (60–120 m/200–400 ft high). Its industries include fisheries, timber and pulp, and the mining of various minerals, especially iron ore. Hydroelectric resources include Churchill Falls, where one of the world's largest underground power houses is situated (opened in 1971). There is a Canadian Air Force base at Goose Bay on Lake Melville. Many of the small coastal settlements are inhabited primarily by aboriginal groups.
The region includes much of northern Québec and the mainland area of Newfoundland. The greater part of the peninsula, the
territory of Ungava, was annexed by Québec in 1912. In 1927, in a dispute over the boundary between Québec and Newfoundland, the British Privy Council ruled in favour of Newfoundland. The accession of Newfoundland to the dominion of Canada in 1949 automatically made Labrador part of the Canadian confederation. Intensive development began here in 1954, and a railway (587 km/364 mi long) was built from the new iron-mining town of Schefferville, Québec (on the Québec–Labrador boundary), to Sept Iles, Québec. The other main development was in the Wabush Lake area further south, where the new towns of Wabush City and Labrador City, Newfoundland, are situated. The large-scale exploitation of nickel reserves at Voisey's Bay has been environmentally controversial.
Labrador, regarded as part of Vinland, was probably visited by the Vikings in the 10th or 11th centuries; traces of their stone houses and tombs have been found on the Labrador coast. The explorer Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) is supposed to have visited here in 1498, and Cortereal, the Portuguese navigator, in 1510; Jacques Cartier came here some 40 years later in search of the Northwest Passage. Labrador then fell under French rule, but the peninsula was ceded to England in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris. Moravians established missions here in the early 19th century.
Mississippi
American Indian missi 'big', sipi 'river'
River in the USA, the main arm of the great river system draining the USA between the Appalachian and the Rocky mountain ranges. The length of the Mississippi is 3,778 km/2,348 mi; with its tributary the Missouri it totals 6,020 km/3,740 mi. It has the second largest drainage basin in the world and incorporates all or part of 30 US states and two Canadian provinces. The Mississippi rises in the lake region of northern Minnesota in the basin of Lake Itasca, and drops 20 m/65 ft over the St Anthony Falls at Minneapolis. Below the tributaries of the Minnesota, Wisconsin, Des Moines, and Illinois rivers, the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi occurs at St Louis. Turning at the Ohio junction, it passes Memphis, and takes in the St Francis, Arkansas, Yazoo, and Red tributaries before reaching its delta on the Gulf of Mexico, beyond New Orleans. Altogether the Mississippi has 42 tributary streams and the whole Mississippi river system has a navigable length in excess of 25,900 km/16,100 mi.
The Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached a point on the Mississippi near present-day Memphis in 1541. The European discovery of the Mississippi proper was made by a French missionary, Jacques Marquette, in 1673. Robert de la Salle, a French explorer, reached the river's mouth in 1682 after descending from the Great Lakes. Before the coming of the railroad, river commerce was of greater importance, and the securing of the Mississippi (1861–63) in the American Civil War was a vital objective of the Union forces. The river is open to ocean-going vessels as far up as Baton Rouge, via an 11 m/7 mi channel to its huge oil refineries. Traffic on the New Orleans–Baton Rouge stretch increased by 150% during the 1960s, and the system as a whole plays a vital role in the internal communications of the USA. St Louis is the chief central port on its banks.
Waterborne commerce consists mainly of bulk commodities such as petroleum and petroleum products, grain, and iron ore. Passenger traffic was important during the 19th century; today excursion boats, especially paddle-wheel craft, provide day trips or longer cruises. The river was listed in 1994 as being in danger of ecological collapse, due to pollution from towns, mines, farms, and barge traffic, and the fact that its water flow is impeded by dams and levees (artificially raised banks). The Friends of the Mississippi River are one of a number of pressure groups set up to protect and restore the river. Levees extend over more than 1,600 mi/2,575 km of its course because of the potentially dangerous spring flooding, as in 1993. In spring, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico collides with cold fronts from the north to create tornadoes along the Red River, a western tributary.
Rocky Mountains
or Rockies
Largest North American mountain system, extending for 4,800 km/3,000 mi from the Mexican plateau near Sante Fe, north through the west-central states of the USA, and through Canada to the Alaskan border. It forms part of the Continental Divide, which separates rivers draining into the Atlantic or Arctic oceans from those flowing toward the Pacific Ocean. To the east lie the Great Plains, and to the west, the plateaux separating the Rocky Mountains from parallel Pacific coast ranges. Mount Elbert is the highest peak, 4,400 m/14,433 ft. Some geographers consider the Yukon and Alaskan ranges as part of the system, making the highest point Mount McKinley (Denali) 6,194 m/20,320 ft, and its total length 5,150 km/3,219 mi.
Many large rivers rise in the Rocky Mountains, including the Missouri. Rocky Mountain National Park (1915) in Colorado has more than 107 named peaks over 3,350 m/10,000 ft. Because of the rugged terrain, the Rocky Mountains are sparsely populated. The mountains' chief economic asset is their minerals, including coal, petroleum, natural gas, copper, and gold. Lumbering is found in the northern Rockies, and cattle and sheep are raised. The Rockies have US and Canadian national parks, which attract many tourists.
Ranges
The Rockies may be divided into four principal groups: the Canadian, and the Northern, Central, and Southern US groups. The Alaskan and Yukon ranges are sometimes included as a fifth and northernmost body of the chain.
The Canadian Rockies run 725 km/453 mi, from the US-Canadian border to the Liard River, and divide Alberta from British Columbia. It is composed of three belts: the main eastern range, the central Purcell and Selkirk mountains; and the Cariboo and Monashee mountains to the west
The US Rockies extend 1,950 km/1,219 mi, separated by river valleys into the Northern, Central and Southern sections. The Northern group runs 390 km/244 mi from the Canadian border to the Jefferson River, through Washington, Montana, and Idaho. Its chief ranges are the Lewis to the east, and the Bitterroot Range to the west.
The Central portion, extending 375 km/234 mi from the Yellowstone River to the Wyoming Basin, crosses Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. It includes five principal north–south elevations: the Windriver, Absaroka, Teton and Wasatch ranges, and the Beartooth and Bighorn mountains; and the system's only east–west range, the Uinta Mountains in Utah.
Lying mostly in Colorado, the Southern group is the highest and broadest of the system, running 690 km/431 mi from the Wyoming Basin to Santa Fe in New Mexico. It encompasses four main ranges, which form two north–south belts separated by basins; the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Front Range to the east, and the San Juan Mountains and Park Range to the west.
If included in the chain, the Alaskan and Yukon belts constitute the highest part of the Rockies, incorporating the St Elias
Mountains, near the Alaska–Yukon border, and the Wrangell and Alaska ranges.
Peaks
Nearly 750 mountains exceed 3,050 m/10,000 ft in the Canadian Rockies; 700 lie in the main eastern range and 50 in the Selkirk and Purcell mountains. The loftiest peaks are Mount Robson, which rises to 3,954 m/12,972 ft, and Mount Columbia at 3,747 m/12,293 ft in the main range; Sir Sandford, 3,533 m/11,590 ft high, in the Selkirks; and Farnham, which reaches 3,457 m/11,342 ft m in the Purcell Mountains. Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Cariboo Mountains climbs to 3,581 m/11,749 ft.
The highest point in the Northern section of the US Rockies lies in the Lewis range, where Mount Cleveland attains 3,181 m/10,436 ft. Greatest elevations in the Central group are Granite Peak (3,901 m/12,799 ft) in the Beartooth Mountains; Cloud Peak (4,019 m/13,186 ft high) in the Bighorn range; Grand Teton (4,190 m/13,747 ft) in the Tetons; Gannett Peak (4,202 m/13,793 ft) in the Windriver Mountains; and Granite Peak (3,815 m/12,518 ft) in the Absaroka range. The Southern part of the chain is the highest, with 46 summits topping 4,270 m/14,000 ft. They include Mount Elbert, which dominates Park Range, with a height of 4,400 m/14,433 ft; Longs Peak, reaching 4,345 m/14,255 ft in Front Range; the 4,386 m/14,390 ft-high Blanca Peak, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; and in the San Juan Mountains, the Uncompahgre Peak at 4,360 m/14,304 ft.
Where they are included in the system, the Alaskan and Yukon mountains contain the greatest elevations. The St Elias Mountains, on the Yukon-Alaskan border, feature Mount Logan, the highest summit in Canada at 6,050/19,850 ft; St Elias which rises to 5,488 m/18,005 ft; and Fairweather, 4663 m/15,299 ft. Mount Blackburn climbs to 4,919 m/16,138 ft in the Wrangell range. With a height of 6,194 m/20,320 ft, Mount McKinley in the Alaska Range is the loftiest point in North America.
Geology
In late Cretaceous times mountain building uplifted sedimentary beds on an ancient continental flow. This was the Larimide Revolution and resulted in the formation of the Rocky Mountains. The Rockies are in two parallel ranges trending north–south. The process of the formation of was accompanied by tectonic activity. In the south the ranges are mainly granitic; in the central area and Canada they are largely sedimentary and retain evidence of their original bedding. In some areas, the volcanic activity which accompanied mountain building has produced large batholiths (domes of igneous rock extending into the earth); one in central Idaho is 52,000 km/20,000 sq mi at 3,660 m/12,000 ft. Elsewhere, volcanic activity is still present, as in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming with its 3,000 geysers and hot springs.
Glaciers, lakes, and rivers
In the Canadian Rockies, the Columbian Icefield extends for 500 sq km/200 sq mi, straddling the Continental Divide on the Alberta–British Columbia border. Discounting the Yukon-Alaskan section, it is the largest glacier in the system. Further north, the glaciers of the southern Cariboo flow down to 1,375 m/4,511 ft.
Glaciers are vast in the Yukon–Alaska region. In the St Elias Mountains, the Malaspine Glacier stretches over an area of 3,885 sq km/1,494 sq mi. Other named glaciers include the Seward, and Logan in the St Elias range, and the Chisana and Nabesna in the Wrangell Mountains.
Lakes Louise, Moraine, O'Hara, Maligne, and others dot the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. The largest natural lakes in the USA ranges occur in Wyoming. Yellowstone Lake, lies 2,357 m/7,732 ft above sea-level, in a basin to the west of the Absaroka Range; and Jackson Lake to the east of the Tetons.
Despite the large number of rivers which rise in the system, water supply remains a problem in many areas, especially in the drier south. Water-storage reservoirs in the Rockies were some of the first constructed in the USA, and most usable dam sites have now been exploited. Hydroelectric power is generated at numerous locations.
Principal rivers include the Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Fraser, Columbia, Snake, Peace, Missouri, Arkansas, Rio Grande, and Colorado.
Communications
The Canadian Pacific Railway and Transcontinental Highway traverse the British Columbia–Alberta border through Kicking Horse Pass, 1,627 m/5,338 ft above sea-level; it is the highest point on the railroad. Continuing further east, Rogers Pass cuts through the Selkirk Mountains at an altitude 1,327 m/4,355 ft; a route subject to severe avalanches. The route across the Rockies for 300,000 emigrants in pre-railway times, from the 1840s to the 1860s, was the Oregon Trail. Between the southern and central Rockies it is only 2,135 m/7,000 ft and wagons could be hauled over without difficulty. The railway from Chicago to California takes this route. In the far north, the Alaska Highway was built across the mountains following the Liard River through the southern end of the Mackenzie Range.
Resources
Copper, iron ore, silver, gold, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and uranium are mined, and a number of the mountain basins yield oil and natural gas. The region also contains large coal reserves. Lumbering and other forest products industries are form a major part of the economy in the northernmost sections of the Rockies. Livestock is reared in the Central and Southern sections.
Visitors are attracted to the region by some of the most spectacular scenery of the North American continent, and there are numerous facilities for recreation and mountain activities, including hiking, mountain climbing, horse-riding, and winter sports.
Preservation
Much of the US Rockies is under federal control; national parks include Rocky Mountain and Mesa Verde in Colorado; Grand Teton and Yellowstone in Wyoming; and Glacier in Montana. The Canadian Rockies include the Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Glacier, Revelstoke, and Kootenay national parks. In Alaska, there are still areas of unexplored wilderness. The main environmental problems are despoliation and pollution caused by industrial activity and mineral exploitation; events such as the laying of the Alaskan oil-pipeline have highlighted these issues.
History
The American Indian inhabitants of the Rockies were mainly nomadic hunters, the cliff-dwelling Anasazi, who inhabited Colorado until about 1300 AD, being the exception. Early Spanish explorers were probably the first Europeans to view the Rockies, but the French explorer Pierre Verendrye (1685–1749) made the first recorded sighting of the Bighorn range of Wyoming in 1738. The mountains remained a barrier to trade and travel until the Union Pacific railroad crossed them in 1870. The explorations of Lewis and Clark who were commissioned to find a land route in the late 18th century, and the 19th-century geologist John Wesley Powell, opened up the region.
Route 66
Interstate highway running for a distance of some 3,640 km/2,260 mi between Chicago, Illinois, and Santa Monica, California. Designated in 1926, it has long been called the 'Main Street of America'. It is famous as the route taken by the poor Oklahoma migrants of John Steinbeck's 1939 novel Grapes of Wrath and as the subject of a popular song, written by Bobby Troup and recorded by numerous artists.
In Illinois Route 66 passes through Joliet, Bloomington, Normal, and Springfield; nowadays Interstate 55 runs beside it. From St Louis, Missouri, to Oklahoma City, its route is now parallelled for the most part by Interstate 44. It runs through Rolla, Springfield, the Ozarks, and Joplin, then through the far southeastern corner of Kansas, and in Oklahoma through Claremore and Tulsa. West of Oklahoma City, its route is today roughly that of Interstate 40 all the way to Barstow, California. On the way, it passes through El Reno and Weatherford, Oklahoma; Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle; Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, Albuquerque, Grants, and Gallup, New Mexico; Holbrook, Flagstaff, and Kingman, Arizona; and Needles and the Mojave Desert, California. From Barstow it cuts southwest (now parallelled by Interstate 15) to the Cajon Pass and San Bernardino, then west (today's Interstate 10 route) to Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
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