美国各大洲简介.docVIP

ALABAMA True to its nickname, Alabama is the “Heart of Dixie,” where the Confederate constitution was formulated, but it is also a state that looks to the future. As a pioneer in the iron and steel industry, Alabama took an early lead in manufacturing in the South. It became a leader in the Space Age---Huntsville, “Rocket City, U.S.A.,” is the center for research on rockets and space vehicles. Alabama is also filled with beauty, from forests rising from the red clay soil in the north, through pine forests and rolling grasslands of the south, to the swamps and bayous in the Mobile Delta on the Gulf of Mexico. This football-mad state (the University of Alabama has won many national champions) is no longer the rural region it once was, and has become increasingly cosmopolitan. ALASKA Vast Alaska could swallow up Texas, California, and Montana, yet it is the third least populous state. It reaches so far to the west that the international date line ad be bent around it to keep all the state in the same day. Although it is generally thought of as a “frozen” land, vegetables and fruit here can grow two or three times their normal size. Alaska is so large and roads are so few that the airplane becomes the “family car.” Alaska is a land where railroads sink into the ground, where the ice barks and huge moose sometimes interfere with golf games. Celebrated for its wild grandeur and vast oil resources, Alaska has been called “America’s Last Frontier.” ARIZONA The last of the conterminous states to be admitted to the union, Arizona is renowned for its natural wonders, with its magnificent deserts, mountains, and plateaus. The most startling area of the state is of course, the Grand Canyon, which is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Long ago, ancient Indian peoples built on Arizona lands great communal cliff dwellings, /whose crumbling adobe walls remain as testimony to their culture. The state capital, Phoenix, was founded on Ind