quaternary economic activity definition geography

Cuba and the Philippines later became independent countries, but Puerto Rico and Guam continue to be part of the United States. With victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, the US government gained control of the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and various Pacific islands. O’Sullivan).Īs the United States developed, it acquired external colonial possessions. Its floor shall be a hemisphere-its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God’s natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood-of “peace and good will amongst men” (John L. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High-the Sacred and the True. The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness.

Alaska and Hawaii were the last two possessions to enter into statehood, which they did in 1959. Alaska was purchased from the Russians in 1867 for only $7.2 million. Through conflicts with Mexico, large portions of the West were ceded to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. The British sold portions of the Pacific Northwest to the United States, and the exact northern boundary between the United States and Canada was settled in 1846.

Florida was acquired from Spain in 1819, and Texas was annexed in 1845. The United States negotiated with France for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, acquiring millions of acres in the central United States (see Figure 4.5 “Geopolitical Map of the Creation of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific”). Fueling the expansion was the concept of Manifest Destiny: the belief of some Americans that the new nation was divinely predestined to expand across the continent. The political geography of this nation was a product of various treaties and acquisitions that eventually resulted in the country extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. With abundant resources and opportunity, the original thirteen colonies prospered and expanded into what became the fifty US states.

Quaternary economic activity definition geography