The thirteen original states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South and North Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Rhode Island) of two hundred years ago, strung out along the Atlantic coast, are still the most densely populated, with about a quarter of the American people living there. Beginning at the Canadian border in the north, the six New England states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut) are the most “English”. Today they are more prosperous and agreeable than the rest of the American Northeast. The city of Boston and its surrounding towns in Massachusetts have replaced their old textile industry by a development of new technology so successfully that unemployment is very low. There is good coastal scenery as well, and to the north there are the shores of Maine and the lakes and mountains of Vermont with their fast-developing ski-resorts.
The southern end of New England merges into the suburbs of New York City. New York City is composed of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn (on the South of Long Island), the Bronx, Richmond and Queen’s. Immense bridges join the boroughs with each other and with the suburbs in New Jersey across the Hudson.
Eastern New York State includes the whole valley of the Hudson river, but the state extends 500 km to the west to Lakes Ontario and Erie, with Niagara Falls between them. The state is as big as England. Half of its 17 million people live in or near New York City, while the rest are mainly concentrated in the line of Hudson valley towns near the Great Lakes, leaving much of the hill and lake country empty.
Mid- Atlantic Area
To the South is the metropolis of Pennsylvania, with 5 million people in its 'metropolitan area', or city plus suburbs. Pennsylvania is the main part of the mid-Atlantic area, which includes New Jersey and Maryland, bounded at the south by the Potomac River. Here is the District of Columbia, taken out of the state of Maryland to form the national capital city of Washington, outside the jurisdiction of any state and subject only to the control of the Federal Congress.
Southwards from Washington, along the Atlantic coastal area east of the Appalachians, are the four main former slave states of the original thirteen (Virginia, South and North Carolinas and Georgia).
Behind and through the eastern states runs the range of the Appalachian mountains, beginning far south in Georgia and continuing, with slight interruptions, northwards to Vermont and Canada. Rounded hills and forests are the main feature. The highest point is only 2,000 above the sea.
Beyond the mountains the vast central plain stretches all the way to the Rocky Mountains. Half the area of the USA lies in this vast basin bounded by the Appalachians on the east and the Rocky Mountains to the west.
The Midwest
The northeastern part of this great basin is known as the Midwest. The term is confusing because it describes the northeastern quarter of the US except for the states close to the Atlantic. But in 1776 all this area was still west of the fully-settled territory of the original states. The great midwestern plain was first developed for farming. It's in this territory that the Great Lakes lie.