States are lines people drew. The land underneath has its own regions: places where the ground is alike. You know the landform words from Plains and Plateaus. Now see them across the whole country.
Key idea
From east to west: the Coastal Plain, the Appalachian Mountains, the Central Lowland, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the high basins and plateaus (the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau), and the Pacific mountains (the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades and the Coast Ranges).
Why it works
Why are the eastern mountains low and the western ones high? Mountains form where pieces of Earth's crust push together, and then wind, water and ice slowly wear them down. The Appalachians rose hundreds of millions of years ago and have been wearing down ever since. The Rockies are much younger, so they are still tall and sharp. (Earth & Space explains how plates make mountains.)
Worked example: A drive across the country
You drive west from Virginia Beach to Denver. What land do you cross?
- Virginia Beach is on the low, flat Coastal Plain.
- You climb over the rounded Appalachian Mountains.
- You cross the low, rolling farmland of the Central Lowland.
- You climb gently across the flat Great Plains.
- At Denver, the Rockies rise right in front of you.
Answer: Coastal Plain, Appalachians, Central Lowland, Great Plains, then the Rockies.
Common mistake
People picture the land rising evenly from the Atlantic to the Pacific, like a ramp. It does not. It rises into the Appalachians, drops into the Central Lowland, climbs slowly across the Great Plains (Denver, at their western edge, is about a mile high), and then shoots up into the Rockies. West of the Rockies come high deserts and more mountains before the Pacific.