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cattle graze. Great herds of buffalo once roamed the Plains. They were nearly all killed by settlers, who hunted them for sport.

The Great Lakes that both edge and divide Michigan give it the nation’s longest freshwater shoreline. Stretching 1,000 km northwest of New York, Detroit –the state’s largest city and the nation’s sixth largest city – was the birthplace of mass production of motor cars and today it is the headquarters of the country’s car manufacturers: General Motors, American Motors, Ford and Chrysler all have their headquarters there or in adjoining suburbs. The city is rich in educational and cultural facilities; the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is internationally known.

Minnesota (from an Indian term for sky-tinted water) is a land dotted with lakes, birthplace of the Mississippi and many other rivers. It helps attract million-odd summer tourists. There dairy farming flourishes.

A pile of stones marks the center of the North American continent at Rugby, North Dakota - the coldest state in the USA, after Alaska. South Dakota is an important agricultural state; it is also first in gold. State’s nickname is Coyote State. Here, at six thousand feet above sea level, you can see a colossal mountain carving. It shows the lifelike granite figures of four American greatest presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Gutzon Borglum spent fourteen years carving these gargantuan busts in Mount Rushmore as a lasting tribute to American leadership. In 1927, Borglum began this monumental task when he was sixty years old, a time when most men are preparing for their retirement and not for a lengthy project. Upon Borglum’s death, his son continued the project until the funding ran out. Of the four presidents, George Washington’s bust is the most prominent, looking as serious as we tend to think of him. Behind him is Thomas Jefferson, who bears a friendlier visage. Teddy Roosevelt is tucked off into the corner next to last of the four, Abraham Lincoln, whose bust is the least complete. It is unbelievable that such a monumental masterpiece should sit in a now quiet area, once the scene of deadly battles between the Sioux Indians and the white men. The same state is famous for Badlands Park, where the colorful rocks are twisted into weird spirals and ridges.

Ohio, an important manufacturing and agricultural center, is a home of eight US presidents. It gets its name from a Seneca word for the Allegheny - Ohio, “beautiful river.” It was a voice on the radio in Cleveland, Ohio, belonging to Alan Freed, that in

1951 slapped the phrase rock and roll on the latest rhythm and blues songs. The establishment damned the music as rites of a “pagan culture, capable of inducing prehistoric rhythmic trances,”, but disk jockeys gave the voice to the rebelliousness of teens all over Ohio and after 1954, New York. DJs had the power to make or break new

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talent. Cleveland’s DJ, Bill Randle, brought Elvis Presley fame outside Memphis by playing his songs every 15 minutes. Most deejays were local celebrities.

Iowa is the second richest (after California) of agricultural states. Two Iowa mechanics built a contraption called a tractor in 1901 and a farm machine industry still thrives. In 1920 Christian Nelson, a teacher and co-owner of the Nelson-Mustard Cream Co., a candy store in Onawa, Iowa, was inspired by a boy who had a terrible time deciding whether to spend his nickel on ice cream or a chocolate bar. After several-months’ experimenting Nelson discovered a way to combine the two. He dubbed his invention the “I Scream Bar.” Next Nelson teamed up with R. Stover, who later became famous for his chocolates and whose wife is credited with inventing the name “Eskimo Pie”.

Eskimo pies were an immediate hit. Nelson was hailed as an all-American, rags-to- riches hero, although, in fact, the Eskimo Pie company was plagued by problems, especially unlicensed imitators. The Eskimo Pie remains one of America’s favorite treats. Recently, sugar-free, low-fat, and yogurt Eskimo Pie products have been introduced. Iowa is also recognized for the biggest popcorn-packing plant in the USA.

Hamburgers are one of the most popular kinds of fast food in the world today. The name, however, can be misleading, as the burger is not made of ham. It is beef.

Although the name “hamburger” almost certainly comes from the town of Hamburg in

Germany, the history of the dish is unclear. In Hamburg several hundreds years ago the dish was basically a roast pork sandwich. The town of Seymour in Wisconsin is just one of several other places that claim to have created the hamburger. The story goes back to 1885, when a man called Charlie Nagreen tried to sell meat-balls at a county fair. They weren’t popular, though, as customers had difficulty eating them while walking. Nagreen came up with the idea of flattening out the meatballs and putting them in a bread roll. He called this meat sandwich a “hamburger”. Why he chose that name is unclear, and it seems likely that he was not actually the first to use it.

Wisconsin is called the nation’s Dairy Belt.; it also is the country’s largest supplier of beer (the Milwaukee area). Milwaukee is the largest city of the state. It is here, in 1901, that Bill Harley and three Davidson brothers – Walter, Arthur, and William – founded their motorcycle business in the Davidson’s backyard. Their invention is one of the symbols of today’s America, they remain the “ride of choice” for motorcycle aficionados. The commonly held image of the Harley-Davidson rider is the one of a tough and rough loner. Harley’s devoted customers wouldn’t consider riding another make. These fans have a vocabulary all their own, they proudly were Harley T-shirts, and some even sport Harley tattoos. Their motorcycles are often personalized with accessories and custom paint jobs. Early Harley riders were likely to be mechanics who

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were proud of their ability to fix their often leaky engines. But today’s Harleys are favored by motorcycle gangs ( biker gangs, hogsters). Harley fans include R.U.Bs (Rich Urban Bikers). The company sponsors H.O.G., the Harley Owners Group, a play on the fact that Harley’s super-heavyweight motorcycles are often called “hogs.”

Nebraska, once called the Great American Desert, is known for Scotts Bluff - a steep cliff rising from the prairie. It was a landmark for pioneers crossing the Plains on the way to Oregon. Chimney Rock was another landmark. Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature. Its name means “Flat River” from an Indian word for the Platte

River. Nebraska’s some 72,000 farms and ranches help make Omaha one of the world’s largest livestock markets and rail centers. The Gateway Arch rises high above St. Louis, the largest city of Missouri. It is over 630ft (192 m.) high and made of stainless steel. It was put up to commemorate the opening of the West, in memory of the pioneers who traveled west from here. Indian “people of the dugout canoes” gave their name to a river and then to a state of Missouri (nickname: Show Me State). This is the land of rich farms, a region of wooden slopes, game and hill people who retain traditions of pioneering forebears. Even today this land of Mark Twain and mules and corncob pipes is a strategic industrial and distribution center.

St. Louis is known to be a birthplace of hot dogs. Sausages may come from Frankfurt or Vienna, as the names frankfurter and wiener imply but the hot dog, a sausage served in a long bun, is an all-American creation. The first hot dog bun was actually a pair of cotton gloves that had to be returned to the vendor for the next customer. The bun we know today was probably born in the 1880s, when a St. Louis sausage vendor got tired of giving his customers gloves and put his sausages on bread instead. Americans eat about 16 billion hot dogs a year, or 65 per person. To keep up, the Oscar Mayer company rolls 36, 000 franks off its “hot dog highway” every year.

Americans did not start eating ice cream out of cones until 1904 – at the world’s fair in St. Louis, The Smithsonian recognizes Abe Doumar, a Lebanese immigrant, as the inventor. He rolled a waffle from one stall and put it ice cream in it from another and sold the combination. He then created a machine for producing the cone.

Illinois(Prairie State) spouts agricultural riches and forms an empire of industries that range from making steel to printing National Geographic magazines. Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska are known as The Corn Belt of the Central Basin. The fertile soil and the long hot summers with enough rain are a farmer’s dream. Two out of three farmers in the USA grow corn.

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Questions

1. What traditions and standards has the Midwest been influenced by? 2. How do many people refer to each other in this region? Why? 3. What nation’s second largest city is situated here? 4. Which state is the coldest in the USA? 5. Where is the colossal mountain carving and what does it feature? 6. Which state is a home of eight American presidents? 7. What is the second richest of US agricultural states? 8. How was “Eskimo Pie” invented? 9. What does the term “rags-to-riches hero” mean? 10. Whose invention is one of the symbols of today’s America? 10. What is Missouri famous for?

THE SOUTHWEST

This region is characterized by geographical variety; from humid lands of eastern

Texas(Austin) to drier prairies in Oklahoma(Oklahoma City) and Western Texas to mountains and deserts in Arizona(Phoenix), Nevada(Carson City) and New Mexico(Santa Fe). The population of the region is 11 million. For a long period the basic pattern here was one of coexistence among Spanish-Americans, Texans, and several persistent American Indian peoples. Though the inflow of people from all parts of the country has been heavy in recent years, these original patterns are still important and give the region a feeling different from the rest of the West. The four states rank in the top six in terms of percentage of Latinos. The southwest is a battleground for the country’s most urgent domestic issue: what to do about the 12 million illegal in the country. The area is rich in minerals. Cattle-breeding is also an important part of the

Southwest’s economy.

Texas and Oklahoma developed a more open, aggressive, assertive, and optimistic version of Southern culture based on the riches of livestock and oil which was discovered in the 1920s. Water is precious here. Only the Red Indians knew how to survive here. In the second half of the 1800s, Indians, cattlemen, cowboys, and farmers were fighting each other for land. Those were the days of the Old Wild West. The word Texas comes from the

Indian word meaning “friends”. The nick-name of Texas is “Lone Star State”- it is the only state that was an independent republic, recognized by the United States, before annexation. Texas is the nation’s second largest state. Its largest cities Houston (the fifth largest city of the country) and Dallas now rank alongside Atlanta and Nashville as the leading cities of the South as a region. Houston is known as the site of the Space Center. The city was founded in 1836 and named in honor of General Sam Houston, first president of the Republic of Texas. Dallas is known to be the scene of the assassination of President John F.Kennedy in 1963. The city of Austin has the biggest state capitol building in the USA and houses the University of Texas.

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Nevada (nickname: Silver State) is known to the rest of the world as the place of legalized gambling and lenient divorce. This state seems to want people to lose their money, their virginity or their bachelor status as quickly as possible. The state’s casinos, legal brothels (buildings where men pay to have sex with prostitutes) and wedding chapels are like attractive light houses in the desert. They warn people about dangers, but the violet, gold and electric lights of Las Vegas shine in the dark desert and attract gamblers, the poor, sex-hungry and romantic. In California, and most other states, you have to have a blood test and wait some time before you can get married. Nevada only requires proof of identity. Here you could be married as Mr. and Mrs. Mickey and Minnie Mouse, with Walt Disney as a witness. A wedding march across the Mojave Desert is made from Los Angeles by thousands of people eloping, stars marrying. Frank Sinatra was married at least once in a chapel, Briggite Bardot did it there, and Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford used chewing-gum wrappers to make rings for the quickly arranged wedding, though a full ceremony with champagne, video, organist, garters, bouquets, photos and everything else is provided, too. “The Chapel of Love” performing the ceremony doesn’t open until 9 a.m. But a priest could marry you at any place-even right there in the middle of the road. You may choose a 30-second ceremony at a drive-through window, similar to McDonald’s. A limo will take you to the marriage license office and back. A woman minister-cum-mistress of ceremonies will tell you about Christian virtues before pronouncing you man and wife and you will parade through your hotel casino to the fanfare of thousands of slot machines down the path of matrimony.

If America is the world capital of reinvention, then Las Vegas - Sin City - is its heart. Every year it attracts tens of thousands of new residents, looking for a new life, a big break, a second chance. And increasingly, they are looking beyond the famous casinos.

The city’s population is 1.7 million; average annual change is 2.1 percent. Size of national economy (2006) makes up $13.153 trillion. The share of Vegas residents who work in the resort industry has fallen from 26.2% to 19.8% in the last decade, as more options emerge. The casinos remain a magnet for everyone from downsized industrial workers to retirees and Latin immigrants. But the city is increasingly drawing spin-off industries in high tech, finance and manufacturing (plastic and metal products). Vegas boasts of one of the best broad-bands - telecommunications networks in the USA. It‘s estimated that 40-50 percent of the businesses it has recruited in recent years relocated from California. Bedroom communities house a growing middle class. A typically Western entrepreneurial spirit thrives here. Pensioners who fill resorts are a big source of growth. Vegas’ population has been rising faster than the fastest-growing US cities like Charlotte, North Carolina, and that poses challenges on a scale unique for the