Geography of North America

Describe the main geographical features of the North American continent, including its mountains, rivers, and natural resources.

There are ten countries on the continent of North America and about 13 different nations and territorial islands in the Caribbean Sea.
Countries south of Mexico (Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama) are often referred to as Central America.
Panama marks the end point of North America and the beginning of South America.
Larger island countries in the Caribbean Sea include Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are part of the United States, while the British Virgin Islands are part of the United Kingdom.

North America has a large land mass that spans across the Arctic regions.
Some of northern Canada lies within the Arctic Circle at $66^{\circ}34'$ North latitude.
Polar darkness occurs during the winter months, peaking on December 22nd.
Polar sunlight occurs during the summer months, peaking on June 21st.
This is due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis toward and away from the sun.
To the north of Canada lies the frozen Arctic Ocean and the North Pole at $90^{\circ}$ North.
The Canadian Shield is a large sheet of rock stretching from the St. Lawrence River in Eastern Canada to the Great Lakes in Southern Canada and the northern United States. There is only a thin layer of soil, limiting farming.
Most of the population of Eastern Canada lives in the lower regions.
Western Canada and the US State of Alaska have long, high mountain ranges, coastal forests, and rivers rich with fisheries.
The Canadian Rockies and the Denali Range in Alaska have the highest mountain peaks in North America.

The Appalachian mountain range stretches from the Northeast to the South, where it gives way to a large coastal plain that spans from the Atlantic Ocean across the northern areas of the Gulf of Mexico into the Great Plains.
The Great Plains are a rich agricultural area with topsoil that extends from southern Canada down through the middle of the United States.
The Western United States is divided from the Great Plains by the Rocky Mountains.
Northern California has long agricultural valleys and forests that stretch up the northwest coastal mountain ranges, with the Cascade Mountain Range extending toward British Columbia in Canada.
The upper areas of the Northwest are quite wet with rain forests and a large amount of precipitation from rain.
The rest of the Far West has a dry climate with extreme cold winters in the northern areas near the Rocky Mountains, but hot dry summers.
The southwestern United States remains hot and dry through most of the year.

The Central Mexican Plateau is in the southern half of North America.
It has rich valleys set between the long Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range and volcanic mountains that surround the great plain of Mexico City.
Mexico’s eastern coastline borders the Gulf of Mexico.
The Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico’s southeast was the location of many of Mexico’s earliest sites of civilization, belonging to the Olmec and Mayan civilizations.
Mexico’s western coast borders the Pacific Ocean, where the climate is drier, and the area is sheltered from most tropical storms that seasonally arise in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Central American countries of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama are smaller in size and have a tropical climate.