United States, or America is a country in North America made up of a federal republic of 50 states. The contiguous United States or conterminous, also known as the ‘lower 48’, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states on the continent of North America. It has a land border to the north with Canada and the south with Mexico. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The state of Alaska, is separated from the contiguous United States by Canada at the north western extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii, is an archipelago in the mid Pacific Ocean.

The center of the United States is a great sprawling interior lowland, to its east the Appalachian Mountains are low, almost unbroken and the west the Rocky Mountains.

The country has a wide choice of tourist destinations, ranging from the skyscrapers of Manhattan and Chicago, to the natural wonders of its natural parks Yellowstone and Alaska, to the canyon lands of the south-west, to the warm, sunny beaches of Florida, Hawaii and Southern California.