The US economy
The United States of America is the strongest economic power in the world. The experts for economics measure this by the gross domestic product, abbreviated to GDP. The US GDP was around 18.5 trillion US dollars in 2016, and 20.54 trillion in 2018.
The majority (80 percent) is generated through services. This is typical of a service society that the western industrialized countries have been transforming into for several decades. 19.1 percent come from industry and only 0.9 percent from agriculture.
There are many reasons for the high economic output. The country’s wealth of mineral resources is just as much a part of it as fertile soils and a predominantly temperate climate. In addition, the high number of inhabitants produces a large number of buyers as well as workers and a free economic system allows entrepreneurs to become active.
The USA is the world champion when it comes to imports, i.e. the importation of goods into their country. It is the country that spends the highest amount on imports, one can also say the highest total value of goods. In exports, so what they sell to other countries, they are China in the first place. Incidentally, Germany follows in third place. To get more information on United States and Central and North America, check computerminus.
Agriculture of the USA
Only 20 percent of the country’s area is used for agriculture. However, this area is still larger than the agriculturally used area of the entire European Union.
There used to be large regions where only one variety was grown. One speaks of the Corn Belt (corn belt) and the Grain Belt (grain belt) in the Midwest, the Cotton Belt (cotton belt) in the southeast, the Dairy Belt (dairy belt) in the northeast (New England) and on the Great Lakes. This is not quite as pronounced today. Soy is grown in the Corn Belt today, for example, and many pigs and cattle are kept.
In the Midwest and the Great Plains in particular, there are large areas of cultivation, for example for corn, soybeans, wheat and sugar beet. Cotton, sugar cane, peanuts and tobacco are grown in the southeast, and they all need sufficient moisture. Because of the even higher demand for water, rice is only grown on the Mississippi and the Gulf Coast. Genetically modified varieties are mainly grown in the case of soybeans and sugar beets. Most of the animals are kept cattle, but also pigs and sheep.
There are 1.2 million farms, most of them in Texas, Missouri, and Iowa. There are small family farms, but there are also many very large farms. The average farm size is 180 hectares (in Germany: 12 hectares).
USA industry
The oldest industrial region is the so-called Manufacturing Belt (“manufacturing belt “). It is located in the northeast, between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast. The iron industry originally settled here. There are large deposits of iron ore and coal here. The natural resources were mined, cars, planes, ships and machines of all kinds were built, but also food and textiles were produced here. In the 1970s there was a crisis: more and more things were automated and production was cheaper in other countries. Unemployment grew and many companies had to close. The automotive industry and shipbuilding lost their leading position on the world market. The Manufacturing Belt became the Rust Belt.
Although the northeast is still a center of industry today, the region with the strongest growth has been the Sun Belt in the south since the 1980s. It’s always warm here. This is also where Silicon Valley is located, which is known for its computer technology located here.
Texas and the Gulf Coast region are a center of oil production. The aircraft industry relocated to the Pacific coast during the Second World War and the rocket and space technology with its locations in Seattle, Southern California, Texas and Florida, as well as shipbuilding, lives largely from government arms contracts. The film industry is located in and around Hollywood near Los Angeles.