America’s geography uniquely overlaps:
- Remarkably fertile soil
- Rivers for transport
- Vast fossil fuel caches
- Forests
- Minerals
- The world’s best ports
All these exist within the same continental system. Many countries have some of these, but no other has them all so perfectly, geographically stacked.
The U.S. enjoys a staggering number of natural deepwater, all-weather harbors, one of the most important geographic advantages in world history.
- America is home to arguably all three of the world’s largest and best natural harbors: San Francisco Bay, Chesapeake Bay and New York Bay.
- The nation also has dozens of other excellent natural harbors, from Portland Harbor, Maine, to Key West, Florida, on its Atlantic Coast and from the Port of Valdez, Alaska, to San Diego Bay, California, on its Pacific Coast.
- U.S. coastal shipping is shielded in an extraordinary way by barrier islands off the East Coast and the Gulf of America that block rough water and form intracoastal waterways where even small vessels can travel and port facilities can operate in all but the angriest weather.
The U.S. not only inherited good farmland, it inherited some of the planet’s most productive and geographically concentrated agricultural terrain.
- For thousands of years, central North America was covered by prairie ecosystems. Unlike forests, prairie grasses regenerate annually and have disproportionately deep root systems. With their yearly death and regeneration, they deposited large amounts of organic matter, creating the world’s largest contiguous expanse of highly productive farmland.
- In regions like the Corn Belt, deep topsoil combines with advantageous climate conditions to yield some of the world’s most consistent large-scale agricultural output.
- Much of America’s best farmland connects to the nation’s enormous river system, allowing crops to be moved easily across the continent to coasts for export.
The people of the U.S. make up about 4 percent of the world’s population, yet they constitute 26 percent of global economic output and hold 33 percent of the world’s wealth.
- America is the world’s top oil producer, ahead of both Saudi Arabia and Russia (producing 21 percent of global oil and liquid fuels).
- America is the world’s top producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia and Iran (producing 25 percent of the world’s total).
- America ranks first in the world in lumber production. It produces 17 percent of the global total, ahead of Canada, China and Russia.
The United States has the most extensive inland waterway system in the world.
- The country has over 250,000 rivers.
- They total more than 3.5 million miles of flowing water.
- More valuable than the number of rivers is the way the bulk of them connect to at least one other river, creating vast networks for easy shipping.
- Chief among these is the Mississippi River’s connection to the Ohio, Red, Tennessee and Missouri rivers, forming the largest interconnected network of navigable rivers on the planet.
The U.S. is uniquely positioned between two vast oceans:
- The Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west
These are not just bodies of water—they are logistical barriers:
- Moving large invasion forces across them is slow, expensive and easily detectable.
- Sustaining supply lines over thousands of miles of ocean is extremely difficult for an invading force.
- In peacetime, these same waters connect ships in the Port of New Orleans, Delaware Bay and Puget Sound to all the best parts of the globe.
To the north and south, Canada and Mexico are relatively stable and economically integrated with the U.S. rather than militarily adversarial toward it.
America’s buffer on all sides dramatically reduces risk of invasion, and allows it to devote far fewer resources to homeland defense than most other major powers. It has strategic insulation that other major powers like Russia, Germany, France and China would kill for.
“The position of the Americans is … most extraordinary; they are the only people whose territory is bounded by two great oceans.”
— Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
See complete infographic.
