What do we really know about our country? Oh sure we know a little history, like the fact that we broke away from Britain in 1776 and we know that we fought a great civil war, but there is so much more to know about America, or should I say The United States of America to be more precise? Let's take a further peek into this country of ours.

The United States of America wasn't recognized by the world until the Treaty of Paris in 1783. In the 19th and 20th century we added 37 more states to our country. I wonder if we will add any more in the 21st century? Some say that Puerto Rico might become a state someday, but it doesn't look like it right now. It could turn out that some other place might desire statehood and might get it. While it doesn't look like this could ever happen to Cuba, one never knows what the future holds. They have been getting friendlier lately and the entire political scene could change there in future years and they are close to our mainland.

One of the things that we have, that make this country great, is our access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As a matter fact, California which has a lot of trade with the countries in the Pacific, is said to have the 7th biggest economy in the world. Over 10% of the population of the U.S. lives in California. California is known as the Golden State. It has a landmass of 155,973 square miles and is the 3rd largest state in the country. Here is something that I find strange about it, the state flower is the Golden Poppy. Hey we all know what comes from poppies, don't we?

The United States highway network consists of over four million miles of roads and streets, yet all these authorities do not agree. One states that there are 5.7 million miles of paved highway in the US. Local governments have jurisdiction over more than 75% of all the nation's highways. The Federal government has jurisdiction over only about 4%. There are now some foreign countries that own a few of our toll roads. In 2006 truckers were called upon to boycott a road in Indiana that was owned by a Spanish company. I guess we shouldn't be too surprised at this since foreign companies control some of our ports.

Death Valley has the hottest temperatures in the country, I guess that is why it got this name. As hot as it is, there are hotels in it. To give you an idea of where some are, they are located in the extremely hot sounding areas of Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells. Wow, thank goodness for air conditioning. I guess you have to hope that the power never goes out, or they may find your bones bleached in the sun, like one of those old steer skulls you see in the old western movies. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was in Alaska. You already figured this out, didn't you? The temperature was almost -80 degrees Fahrenheit and was recorded at Prospect Creek Camp in the Endicott Mountains in 1971.

The busiest port in the United States is the port of Los Angeles. The world's busiest container port was the port of New York/New Jersey prior to 1985. The Los Angeles port has 7,500 acres of land and 43 miles of waterfront. It is located on San Pedro Bay, in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles. Over 16,000 people work there. In 2004, the Port of New York/New Jersey handled the 3rd largest amount of shipping in this country.

It is said that there is only one state that has no poisonous snakes and that state is Hawaii. Well in a way that statement is correct for two reasons:
1. There are no poisonous snakes anywhere only venomous ones
2. In the entire history of Hawaii only 20 venomous snakes have been found and they were sea snakes.

When we look at the map of the United States, we see state economies. To give you an idea of how powerful each state's economy is, I will tell you what state's economies compare to which which country. .
California - France
New York - Brazil
Texas - Canada
Florida - Korea
Pennsylvania - Netherlands
Washington - Israel
Oregon - Turkey
Rhode Island - Vietnam
I thought that this was rather interesting, it demonstrates how powerful our economy really is.

If we compare our land mass with other countries here is what we get. We are about half the size of Russia. Three tenths the size of Africa, half the size of South America, a little bigger than China and over two times as large as Europe.

The United States has a huge coastline that stretches over 12,380 miles. Even with this huge coastline, Canada has the most coastline. The U.S. had the highest Gross Domestic Product in 2005, but Luxembourg had the highest Gross Domestic Product per capita. That year the U.S. had the most startup companies, but Israel had the most startup companies per capita. For the same year, the U.S. had by far the largest military budget with an outrageous ADMITTED budget of $518,100,000,000, but Oman was said to have the largest military budget as a percentage of their Gross Domestic Product. It was 11.4%.

Only .0.21% of land in the United States is devoted to permanent crops. The amount of arable land is over 18%. Many papers have reported that the U.S. grain reserves have reached zero. This is because of the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act. There are now groups lobbying to create a grain reserve again. This is all happening while the world food supply has gone down to dangerous levels. The U.S. is the world's single largest emitter of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, China and India are starting to catch up. The U.S. is the third largest country in the world. In 2007, our population was estimated at 301,139,947 people. The average age of a U.S. citizen is 36.6 years with females being 37.9 and males being 36.6. The population is said to be growing at a rate of 0.894%. In 2007 there were about three immigrants for ever 1,000 people. Life expectancy is 78 years. It is 75.15 for males and 80.97 for females.

We have a 99% literacy rate in this country. The Gross Domestic Product was $46,000 per person in 2007. The highest 10% of income consume 30% of everything. In 2005 we exported over one million barrels of oil per day, even though we had to import almost 13 million barrels. In the same year we exported almost 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas while we had to import almost 118 billion cubic meters. In 2007 our exports were $1.14 trillion, our imports were $1.987 trillion. In 2006 it was estimated that we had a reserve of foreign currency and gold of $65.89 billion, but we had a debt of $12.25 trillion. We are the people that have the biggest debt per person in the entire world. The current debt is now about 66.5% of the Gross Domestic Product and climbing. To figure out what this really means, look at your yearly paycheck. If you are fortunate enough to make $100,000 per year, you would own your creditors $66,500. Tell me that would not be a strain on your finances.

It is said that over 20% of people living in the U.S. speak a language other than English. The most educated people of any state come from Massachusetts. Thirty seven percent of adults that are 25 years or older in that state, hold at least a Bachelor's degree. The state that has the least people holding a degree was West Virginia with 16.5 percent. The state that had the most immigrants was California, with 27% of that state's population. Forty three percent of Californians speak a foreign language at home. West Virginia had the least amount of immigrants with only 1.2 percent. Only 2.3 percent of it's citizens spoke a language other than English at home.