| A | B |
|---|
| contiguous | joined together inside a common boundary |
| megalopolis | connected area of urban communities--a big city next to another big city |
| prairie | rolling inland grasslands with fertile soil |
| cordillera | mountain ranges that run side by side |
| canyon | deep valleys with steep sides |
| navigable | wide and deep enough to allow the passage of ships |
| glacier | giant sheets of ice |
| divide | high points that determine the direction that rivers flow |
| drought | long periods without rainfall |
| tornado | windstorm in the shape of a funnel cloud that touches the ground |
| hurricane | wind systems that form over the ocean |
| blizzard | severe winter storms that last several hours with high winds and heavy snow |
| landforms | physical features of the earth's surface |
| sub region | a smaller part of a region |
| locks | a gated passageway used to raise or lower boats in a waterway |
| tributaries | a smaller river that flows into a larger river |
| national park | a park that had been set aside for the public to enjoy |
| irrigation | to supply land with water through ditches or pipes |
| Continental Divide | an imaginary line through the Rocky Mountains that separates rivers that flow west and rivers that flow east |
| province | an administrative unit similar to a state |
| territory | a land administered by the national government |
| tundra | a flat, treeless plain with permanently frozen ground |
| shield | a large area of relatively flat land made up of ancient hard rock |
| colony | oversea settlement tied to a parent country |
| annex | join or add to a larger thing |
| indigenous | people who are descended from an area's first inhabitants |
| agriculture | the practice of growing crops and raising livestock |
| industry | the manufacturing and making of products to sell |
| nomadic | describes a way of life in which a person or group of people lives by moving from pace to place |
| mission | a Catholic-based community in the west |
| frontier | a region just beyond the edge of a settled area |
| Manifest Destiny | the idea that is was the right of Americans to expand westward to the Pacific ocean |
| reservation | an area of land that has been set aside for Native Americans |
| First Nations | Canadian term for Native Americans |
| civil rights | the basic rights that belong to all citizens |
| billingual | having two official languages |
| representative democracy | voters choose leaders who make and enforce laws |
| federalism | power is divided between the federal, or national government, and the state government |
| amendment | additions |
| parliamentary democracy | voters elect representatives to a lawmaking body called Parliament |
| ban | legally blocked |
| separatists | a group that wants to break away from control by a dominant group |
