Geography of North America
The continent has always been the inescapable empire. North America has the most impressive geography on the planet from a food, capital, security point of view. Americans are not important because “who” they are, but, “where” they are.
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Capital
The North American core is the Greater Mississippi Basin. First; moving good by water is greatly cheaper than moving it by land. The continent's intercostal waterways have a longer navigable river, then the rest of the planet put together. The Mississippi river is also a network of rivers which adds greatly to the population integration across the land mass. The connected river systems are the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Red, Arkansas and the Missouri. Another important feature is the head of navigation. The head is the highest point of navigability, and in the Mississippi, its north of Minneapolis.
Why do I focus on rivers and not coasts?
1st; Rivers have, per definition, two banks and therefore interacts with twice as much land as a coast.
2nd; Tidal waves don’t affect rivers which are huge cost saving due to the maintenance of supporting infrastructure.
3rd; Rising sea levels due to storms don’t affect riverports compared to coastal.
The continent has also the largest portion of natural deep-water ports and protected bays in the western hemisphere due to the barrier islands along the East and Gulf coasts. The islands provide shelter for Mississippi barges along the coast from the Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande in Texas. The barrier islands create “a river feature” in the ocean that improves political and economic unification with the Greater Mississippi Basin and the East/Gulf coasts. Examples of the natural ports are the San Francisco-, Galveston-, Biscayne-, Chesapeake-, Delaware- and New York Bay. Additionally, there is the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Long Island and Puget Sound.
Additionally, the Great Lakes are not naturally navigable due to the and the Niagara Falls and winter freezing. This led to the construction of canals and other hydro-engineering to levitate the system. Therefore, the Lakes are today navigable. The continents have now another navigable river-like system that gives access to the North-Eastern interior parts of the US and Canada. Furthermore, the St. Lawrence Seaway is world class, with a little engineering, it connects the Great lakes to the wider oceans. However, the Canadian prairie provinces do not have access to any navigable river and this makes the integration with the US much cheaper and easier because they have a river system close to the border.
Furthermore, the south is too mountainous to have any navigable river which has affected Mexico’s economic development due to high transportation costs for the hilly country. This also limits the number of natural ports in the region and economic opportunity.
Whoever controls the continents core, will inevitably control or influence the Great Lakes region and the East Coast. That country will eventually be a world power due to the extreme capital generation of the intercostal waterways. North America is therefore poised to be one of the largest economic and political space on the planet.
Food
The size of the continent makes its northern part fully arctic and its southern part fully tropical. In the center lies the planet’s largest continuous arable land: The American Midwest. The agricultural zones directly overlay the Mississippi river network where food output gets easily transported around the landmass very cost effective. This cheap food access gives way to a large population base and a large growth potential. Russia, for example, has large problems with transportation on the Russian Grain Belt where crops can rot before they reach the markets. The Americans do not in the slightest have this problem, due to the intercostal waterways where the majority of farms is within 200 km of a river. In addition, road and rail are also used to collect products to the river, however, this is mostly around the Northeast-Midwest and the Canadian prairies.
Furthermore, the north has a tough terrain with agricultural difficulties. The so-called Canadian Shield is a place where the glaciers pulled off the topsoils and the temperature is mostly too cold and therefore can’t support large agriculture zones. Most of the northern Canada is within the arctic circle which is too cold for large-scale agriculture. Therefore; Most of the “Great White North” is wilderness.
In addition, the south is an extension of the American Rocky Mountains with a dry and tropical climate that makes is hard to support large agriculture zones. Most people in the area live in the mountains around the capital, Mexico City, where the average temperature is cooler due to the high elevation. Therefore; most of Mexico can’t produce large-scale and cost effective agricultural products.
Security
There are today three major countries in North America; Canada, The United States, and Mexico. Also, there are several countries in Central America and the Caribbean. The Atlantic and the Pacific are vast oceans that isolate North America from Asia and Europe. The continent is, therefore, secure from any land invasions from an outside power. Only a rising Eurasian hegemony could theoretically threaten the continent. The potential candidates are therefore the European Union, former Soviet Union, China, and India. No other continent can theoretically impose its will on the North American core.
Lakes and thick forests separate the US-Canada populations and the deserts divide the US-Mexican people. However, the US-Canadian geographic barrier has been lower and integration between the US-Canadian cultures is much larger compared to the US-Mexican. It can, therefore, be hard to separate Americans and Canadians from a crowd. This limit any aggression between the Canadian and US governments.
Internally, thanks to the interconnected river network, political and cultural integration were easy for the United States. For example, the lack of integration could be seen on the North European plain where the rivers flow from the mountain straight to the ocean. Different cultures could, therefore, from around different rivers on the same plane. This usually leads to wars where one country’s borderland is other people’s heartland. Basic security is therefore not provided and this leads to large defense costs to protect the land border. Food and security related wars have therefore been common in Europe. Nevertheless, the Mississippi puts all in the same boat where they have a common interest and the same economic system. Only in the South where the river is more like a European river have political integration been difficult.
Cuba is the only country that can theoretically block shipments from the Greater Mississippi Basin, through the Florida- and Yucatan straits. This is the only piece of geography that the United States is obsessed with in the western hemisphere. The US was prepared to go to nuclear war over this issue.
