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The United States and
Canada Today
Chapter Focus
Section 1 Living in the United
States and Canada
Section 2 People and Their
Environment
Chapter Assessment
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Skyline of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Geographic Setting
The climate and landforms of the
United States and Canada allow a
variety of economic activities to
flourish. As they use the area’s
resources, however, people
drastically alter the region’s
environment.
Chapter Objectives
• Compare the economies of the
United States and Canada. 
• Investigate the challenges of
conserving resources in the United
States and Canada.
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the information.
Geographic Themes
• Section 1 Living in the United
States and Canada
PLACE The United States and
Canada have highly developed
economies based on agriculture,
industry, and the provision of
services. 
• Section 2 People and Their
Environment
HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTION The people and
governments of the United States and
Canada face challenges in conserving
the resources on which they depend.
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the information.
Living in the United States
and Canada
Read to Discover…
• how agriculture and industry affect the
economies of the United States and
Canada. 
• how a nation’s surplus leads to trade. 
• what methods of transportation and
communication are most important to
the United States and Canada. 
Key Terms
free enterprise, truck farming, contour
plowing, crop rotation, service industry,
interdependent, North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
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information. Additional lecture notes appear on the following slides.
Living in the United States
and Canada
Identify and Locate
Midwest, Wheat Belt, Corn Belt, California,
Utah, New York, Toronto, St. Lawrence
River, Ohio River 
Section Objectives
1. Discuss how agriculture and industry
affect the economies of the United
States and Canada. 
2. Explain how a nation’s surplus leads
to trade. 
3. Specify what methods of transportation
and communication are most important
to the United States and Canada.
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information. Additional lecture notes appear on the following slides.
Introduction
• The United States and Canada have
highly developed economies and are
among the world’s top 10 economic
powers. 
• Their economies are based on free
enterprise, or capitalism, which allows
individuals to own, operate, and profit
from their own businesses. 
• Many natural resources and the use of
advanced technology have boosted the
economic growth of the United States
and Canada.
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the information.
HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
Agriculture
• Farmers in the United States and
Canada produce a wide variety of
agricultural goods. 
• Different parts of the region support
different products.
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Many Climates, Many Products
• About 55 percent of the farmland in
the United States is used for the
grazing of livestock. 
• Beef is one of the most important
agricultural products in the United
States. 
• Cattle, raised in the western parts of
the Prairie Provinces, provide most
important agricultural products in
Canada.
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Many Climates, Many Products (cont.)
• The north central part of the United
States and the Canadian provinces of
Quebec and Ontario also support
dairy farming and raising hogs and
chickens. 
• The three most important grains in the
world–wheat, corn, and rice–are grown
in the United States and Canada. 
• In the United States, the Great Plains
has been called the Wheat Belt because
so much wheat is grown there.
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Many Climates, Many Products (cont.)
• Corn, grown by Native Americans long
before the arrival of Europeans, thrives
in the United States and Canada. 
• The United States alone grows more
than 40 percent of the world’s corn. 
• Southern farmers in the United States
grow soybeans, tobacco, peanuts, and
cotton. 
• Midwest farmers bring oats, sorghum,
and barley to market.
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Many Climates, Many Products (cont.)
• In Canada, barley, flaxseed, oats, and
rye thrive in a belt north of Canada’s
wheat-growing areas. 
• Southern Ontario produces a variety
of specialty crops, such as soybeans
and tobacco. 
• Potatoes are an important crop in the
Canadian provinces of Prince Edward
Island and New Brunswick.
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Many Climates, Many Products (cont.)
• Truck farms–farms located near large
cities that ship vegetables quickly to
market–in the northeastern United States
produce vegetables such as tomatoes,
cabbages, and string beans. 
• Fruit-growing areas in the United States
include the Great Lakes region,
California, Florida, and Texas. 
• Important fruit-growing areas in Canada
are southeastern British Columbia, the
St. Lawrence River valley, and areas of
Quebec and Ontario.
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Agriculture and Technology
• Technology boosts agricultural
production in the United States and
Canada. 
• Modern methods of irrigation improve
the harvest. 
• Farmers also try to conserve precious
soil by contour plowing, or plowing
along the natural curves of the land to
keep topsoil from washing away with
rainwater runoff.
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Agriculture and Technology (cont.)
• Crop rotation, in which farmers grow
different crops in succession on the
same land, helps preserve the soil’s
nutrients. 
• Advances in pesticides and chemical
fertilizers increase crop yields. 
• Inventions of farm machinery such as the
tractor, the reaper, the thresher, and
eventually the combine–a combination of
reaper and thresher–have made farmers
more efficient. 
• Owners of smaller farms often cannot
afford this new equipment.
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Agriculture and Technology (cont.)
• As a result, the size of the region’s farms
has tripled over the last 70 years. 
• Less than 2.5 percent of the United
States’s population and only about 3
percent of all Canadians still make
their living through farming. 
• New technologies have enabled
farmers to grow surplus crops for
export, thus enriching the economies
of their nations.
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HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
Manufacturing and Service
Industries
• The United States and Canada are world
leaders in manufactured goods largely
because of technologies such as
robotics and computerized automation. 
• About one in seven workers in the
United States and Canada makes a
living in manufacturing. 
• Transportation equipment, including
airplanes, cars, and their parts, ranks
near the top of both nations’
manufacturing industries.
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HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
Manufacturing and Service
Industries (cont.)
• Transportation equipment and
machinery are the United States’s
largest exports. 
• Food processing is big business in
both the United States and Canada. 
• Canada’s manufacture of wood pulp,
paper, and newsprint makes it a world
leader in wood-related industries.
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HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
Manufacturing and Service
Industries (cont.)
• Service industries provide services
such as financial help, distribution and
sale of goods, credit cards, financial
investment, education, health care, and
tourism. 
• In the United States and Canada,
service industries employ more people
than any other kind of industry,
account for most of the gross
domestic product, and are growing at
a fast rate.
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MOVEMENT
Trade and Interdependence
• In a modern economy, surpluses
produced by agriculture and industry
can be traded with others inside a
nation’s boundaries or between two
countries.
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the information.
Foreign Trade
• Trade makes up an important part of
the economies of the United States
and Canada. 
• The United States leads the world in
trade, supplying one-tenth of all goods
exported worldwide and importing an
even higher percentage. 
• The United States exports cotton,
soybeans, tobacco, wheat, aircraft,
spacecraft, computers, and electrical
equipment. 
• The United States imports raw materials
such as copper, nickel, and petroleum.
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the information.
Foreign Trade (cont.)
• Canada exports transportation
equipment, wood and wood products,
ores, petroleum, grain, and fish. 
• Canada’s most important imports are
cars and car parts, industrial
machinery, computers, and textiles. 
• The United States and Canada are
major trading partners. 
• The United States trades more with
Ontario than with the entire nation of
Japan, the United States’s secondlargest trading partner.
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Foreign Trade (cont.)
• Imports from and exports to Canada
account for about 20 percent of the
United States’s total trade. 
• Trade with the United States accounts
for 70 percent of Canada’s exports
and imports. 
• Huge trade revenues–totaling billions
of dollars for each nation–lead to an
interdependence between nations.
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Interdependence
• The economies of the United States and
Canada have become increasingly
interdependent, or reliant on each
other, during the last few decades. 
• Countries often worry about increased
interdependence and may restrict trade,
hoping to become more self-reliant. 
• The early 1990s saw significant steps
taken toward the elimination of remaining
trade barriers and the creation of a free
trade pact called the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
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MOVEMENT
Transportation and
Communications
• The United States and Canada lead
the world in transportation and
communications systems. 
• The many methods of moving people
and goods and of exchanging
information are very efficient and
depend on the latest technology.
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An Economy on the Move
• The United States and Canada have
excellent roadway systems. 
• The Federal Interstate Highway System
in the United States is a network of
freeways designed to link 90 percent of
the country’s cities that have populations
greater than 50,000. 
• In Canada the freeway system includes
the Trans-Canada Highway–a two-lane
highway that extends from British
Columbia to Newfoundland.
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An Economy on the Move (cont.)
• Automobile manufacturing and sales
are important businesses in both
countries. 
• Industry in the United States and
Canada has always relied heavily on
the railroads. 
• United States railroad lines carry about
35 percent of the freight transported in
the country each year. 
• About 30 percent of Canada’s freight
moves over that nation’s rails.
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An Economy on the Move (cont.)
• About 15 percent of all United States
freight travels the nation’s inland
waterways–canals, rivers, and lakes that
can be used by boats, mainly barges. 
• The Mississippi River, together with
the Ohio and its tributaries, is the
United States’s busiest inland
waterway. 
• Canada’s most important waterways
are the Great Lakes and the St.
Lawrence Seaway.
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the information.
An Economy on the Move (cont.)
• Completed in 1959, the St. Lawrence
Seaway is a system of canals and locks
that opened a shipping lane from the
Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. 
• Pipelines are another important
means of freight transportation in the
United States and Canada. 
• Pipelines carry such cargo as natural
gas, oil, gasoline, and kerosene.
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An Economy on the Move (cont.)
• The Trans-Alaska Pipeline carries oil
from the northern lands of Alaska
southward to the port of Valdez. 
• In Canada the Interprovincial Pipeline
and the slightly shorter Trans-Canada
Pipeline transport petroleum and
natural gas from Alberta to Montreal.
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the information.
Dependable Communications
Networks
• Advanced communications systems
help provide the United States and
Canada with ways to share information
and exchange ideas. These systems
include… 
– government-supported postal systems. 
– telephones. 
– computers. 
– microwave relays. 
– communications satellites
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Dependable Communications
Networks (cont.)
• Telecommunications systems, such
as television and radio, reach large
audiences and send and receive
messages over long distances. 
• In the United States, most
telecommunications systems are
owned privately and are regulated by
the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC).
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Dependable Communications
Networks (cont.)
• The Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission
regulates and licenses all electronic
communications systems in Canada. 
• Written materials are another vital
form of mass communications in
both countries, as thousands of
private publishers produce
newspapers, books, and magazines.
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the information.
Where is the United States Corn Belt?
The Corn Belt is in the northern Great
Plains, from Ohio to Nebraska.
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the answer.
How have advances in farm
machinery affected the owners of
small farms?
They cannot afford new and bigger
equipment, and they cannot compete
with owners of large farms.
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the answer.
People and Their Environment
Read to Discover…
• how pollution can cause international
problems. 
• how the overuse of natural resources is
affecting the economies of the region. 
Key Terms
acid rain, smog, eutrophication, bycatch
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People and Their Environment
Identify and Locate
Adirondack Mountains, Los Angeles,
Cleveland, Pacific Northwest, Grand
Banks 
Section Objectives
1. Understand how pollution can cause
international problems. 
2. Examine how overuse of natural
resources is affecting the economies
of the region.
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information. Additional lecture notes appear on the following slides.
Introduction
• As the people of the United States
and Canada look to the future, they
confront many challenges. 
• While the nations have created mighty
economies, they have sometimes lost
sight of the importance of preserving
and utilizing resources. 
• Some harm has come from humanmade pollutants and the overuse of
natural resources.
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the information.
HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
Pollution
• To thrive, plants and animals need
clean air, uncontaminated water, and
wholesome nutrients. 
• Pollution–the introduction of harmful
materials into the environment–
threatens the environment by
damaging the quality of air, water,
and land. 
• While there are natural pollutants,
such as active volcanoes, man-made
pollution is interfering with nature’s
ability to adjust.
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Acid Rain
• Acid rain–precipitation that carries
abnormally high amounts of acidic
material–affects plants and fish. 
• Acidic material is created when the
chemicals emitted by cars, factories,
and power plants react with the water
vapor in the air. Acid rain… 
– corrodes stone and metal buildings and
bridges. 
– damages crops. 
– pollutes the soil. 
– damages and kills lakes.
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Acid Rain (cont.)
• Because emissions that help create acid
rain are carried by the wind, the United
States and Canada have worked
together to solve this problem. 
• In 1991 the governments signed a
pact to reduce by half the 1980 level
of emissions that contribute to acid
rain by the end of the century.
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Smog
• Smog, a haze caused by the sun’s
interaction with exhaust gases, kills
plants and harms people. 
• To deal with the problem of smog,
many governments have passed laws
regulating car emissions. 
• California and several other states are
requiring 10 percent of all cars sold
within their borders to be “zero–
emission” by 2003.
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Pollution and the Great Lakes
• Acid rain, sewage, and industrial and
agricultural wastes pollute water systems
in the United States and Canada. 
• The waters of the Great Lakes… 
– have been used as dumping sites as cities
and industries grew up along the shores. 
– have been exposed to the effects of
thermal pollution, the release of heated
industrial water. 
– have been damaged by the runoff from
farms using chemical fertilizers and
pesticides.
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Pollution and the Great Lakes
• A result of all this pollution is the
speedup of eutrophication–the
process in which a lake, or other body
of water, becomes rich in dissolved
nutrients. 
• The governments of Canada and the
United States have passed legislation
designed to decrease the pollution in the
Great Lakes region and other waters. 
• Some progress has been made in
bringing the waters of the Great Lakes
and other bodies of water to their natural
state.
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HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
Overuse of Resources
• As pioneers struggled to settle, they
destroyed much of the forest lands
that stood before them. 
• At the same time, fishing fleets from
many European nations filled their
holds with fish. 
• As these activities continued without
regard to conservation, two resources
on which the economies of the United
States and Canada depend have been
seriously depleted.
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Logging
• Wood and wood products are
important economic contributors to
this region. 
• The United States leads all other
nations by producing 15 percent of the
world’s wood, and Canada supplies
more than 5 percent. 
• The United States Forest Service is
charged with monitoring the
harvesting of logs from public lands.
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Logging (cont.)
• Some conservation leaders claim that
the Forest Service is putting lumber
profits above other concerns, including
recreation and preservation of wildlife
habitats. 
• There is concern that the Forest
Service’s approval of clearcutting–the
cutting down of all trees in a forest–
and the building of roads to bring the
lumber out are destroying the natural
ecosystems.
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Logging (cont.)
• One alternative to clearcutting is
called sustainable forestry, a method
in which certain trees in a forest are
targeted for harvesting while other
trees are left untouched. 
• Trees harvested this way can be taken
from the forest by mule or horse; no
new roads would need to be built, and
the area’s natural ecosystem and old
growth would be preserved.
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Fishing
• The abundance of fish in the oceans
along the Atlantic Coast was in part
responsible for original European
settlement of this region. 
• By the mid-1900s, fishing by ships
from many nations had depleted the
fish population, requiring a fishery
conservation zone to be defined. 
• In 1992 the Canadian government
lowered cod-fishing quotas by 35
percent and announced the temporary
closing of Newfoundland’s east coast
cod fishery.
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Fishing (cont.)
• A combination of pollution and
overfishing also has damaged the
fishing industry in the United States. 
• Waste in the fishing industry also is
partly responsible for the depletion of
fish populations. 
• High-tech trawlers sweep the oceans
for fish, often catching unwanted fish
species, marine mammals, and birds. 
• This dead bycatch is simply tossed
overboard.
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the information.
Where are this region’s old-growth
forests located?
The region’s old-growth forests are in
the Pacific Northwest.
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the answer.
Why has acid rain made it necessary
for the governments of the United
States and Canada to work together?
The problem of acid rain crosses
national borders, and much of
Canada’s acid rain comes from U.S.
industries.
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the answer.
Section 1 Summary
• The rich soils, plentiful waters, and varied
climates of farms in the United States and
Canada encourage the production of a wide
variety of meats, grains, vegetables, and
fruits. 
• Advanced farming technologies have
increased crop yield and farm size but
decreased the number of farm workers. 
• The culture region of the United States and
Canada is a world leader in the production of
manufactured goods, but its service
industries employ more people than its
factories.
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the information.
Section 1 Summary (cont.)
• The many agricultural and manufactured
products of the United States and Canada
help the region lead the world in trade. 
• Complex networks for transportation and
communications support the peoples and
economies of the region.
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the information.
Section 2 Summary
• Pollutants include acid rain and smog, both
caused by emissions from factories and cars. 
• The water supply in the United States and
Canada is polluted by industry wastes,
agricultural chemicals, and sewage. 
• Pollution of the waters severely impacts the
fish population and also speeds up
eutrophication. 
• Logging, especially of public lands, is
endangering the old-growth forests of the
Pacific Northwest. 
• Overfishing and waste in the fishing industry
have seriously depleted the fish population,
resulting in economic hardship for areas
dependent on the sea.
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the information.
_________
Truck farms are located near large
cities so that vegetables grown on
them can be shipped to urban markets.
Education, health care, and tourism
are examples of service
_____________.
industries
To preserve nutrients, farmers
practice __________
crop rotation by growing
different crops in succession, or they
let land lie fallow.
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the answers.
In recent decades, the economies of
the United States and Canada have
become increasingly interdependent
___________.
____________
Contour
plowing keeps topsoil from
washing way.
____________
Free enterprise refers to an economic
system that allows individuals to own,
operate, and profit from their own
businesses.
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the answers.
______
NAFTA was developed to eliminate
trade barriers.
Pollution partly created by car
emissions includes _______
____.
acid rain and smog
The ______
bycatch snared by trawlers’
nets is thrown overboard.
___________
Eutrophication can eventually turn
a body of water into dry land.
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the answers.
What country is Canada’s chief
trade partner?
The United States is Canada’s
chief trade partner.
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the answer.
How has acid rain affected lakes in
the United States and Canada?
It has killed life in thousands of
lakes and damaged thousands
more.
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the answer.
Match the letters on the map
with the places and physical
features of the United States
and Canada.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Midwest
Prairie Provinces
California
New York
Toronto
St. Lawrence
River
7. Ohio River
8. Alaska
9. Texas
10. Pacific Northwest
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the answers.
Explain the relationship between
environment and economy in the
United States and Canada.
Both nations have highly developed
economies based on agriculture and
industry. Natural resources support both
economic activities. The overuse and/or
abuse of natural resources impacts
agricultural and industrial production and
affects employment.
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the answer.
Map and Graph Skills
Reading a Cartogram
After listening to the introduction, take a few
moments to read “Reviewing the Skill”
on page 144 in your textbook.
What value determines the
relative sizes of countries on
this cartogram?
population
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How has the relative size of
Canada been changed on
the cartogram (in comparison
to a conventional land-area
map)?
It is much smaller because
it has a relatively small
population.
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Space Bar to display the answers.
Use the MindJogger videoquiz as a preview,
review, or both.
Click the Videodisc button to play the
MindJogger video if you have a
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computer.
Disc 1
Side B
Chapter 7
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