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CONTINENT - North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico
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CAPITAL - Washington, DC .
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POPULATION - Estimated to be around 273 million people .
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CLIMATE - mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the Mississippi River, and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest; low winter temperatures in the northwest are ameliorated occasionally in January and February by warm chinook winds from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains .
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TOPOGRAPHY - world's third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) it is about one-half the size of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil).
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FLAG - thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white; there is a blue rectangle in the upper hoist-side corner bearing 50
small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternating with rows of five stars; the 50 stars represent the 50 states, the 13 stripes represent the 13 original colonies; known as Old Glory; the design and colors have been the basis for a number of other flags, including Chile, Liberia, Malaysia, and Puerto Rico .
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