nnabis and opium poppy, mostly
for CIS consumption; some synthetic drug production for export to West;
limited government eradication program; used as transshipment point for
opiates and other illicit drugs from Africa, Latin America, and Turkey,
and to Europe and Russia; drug-related money laundering a minor, but
growing, problem

This page was last updated on 1 January 2002

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United States

Introduction

United States

Background: Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country
in 1776 and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of
America following the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th
centuries, 37 new states were added to the original 13 as the nation
expanded across the North American continent and acquired a number of
overseas possessions. The two most traumatic experiences in the nation's
history were the Civil War (1861-65) and the Great Depression of the
1930s. Buoyed by victories in World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold
War in 1991, the US remains the world's most powerful nation-state. The
economy is marked by steady growth, low unemployment and inflation,
and rapid advances in technology.

Geography United States

Location: North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and
the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico

Geographic coordinates: 38 00 N, 97 00 W

Map references: North America

Area: 470,131 sq km note: Area - comparative: about half the size
of Russia; about three-tenths the size of Africa; about half the size
of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly larger than
China; about two and a half times the size of Western Europe

Land boundaries: total: 12,034 km border countries: Canada 8,893 km
(including 2,477 km with Alaska), Mexico 3,141 km note: US Naval Base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is leased by the US and thus remains part of Cuba;
the base boundary is 29 km

Coastline: 19,924 km

Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 24 NM continental shelf: not specified
exclusive economic zone: 200 NM territorial sea: 12 NM

Climate: mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic
in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the Mississippi River,
and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest; low winter temperatures
in the northwest are ameliorated occasionally in January and February
by warm chinook winds fr