- annexed: added to another country (When you add a building to a school it is sometimes called an ????
- basin: low areas surrounded by mountains or other higher land
- bilingual: having the ability to speak two different languages
- center-pivot irrigation: a type of irrigation that waters crops using sprinkler systems on huge turning wheels
- colonies: territories controlled by other countries
- contiguous: areas whose borders are continually touching each other, side by side
- Continental Divide: the top of the Rocky Mountains that divides North America's rivers into the ones that flow eastward and the ones that flow westward
- Corn Belt: the area of the Midwestern U.S. from Ohio to Iowa where growing corn is important
- Dairy Belt: the area of the Midwestern U.S. north of the Corn Belt where dairy farming with cows is important
- diversify: to do different things, like to grow different kinds of crops, instead of just one
- megalopolis: a group of large cities that have grown together into one big city area
- plantations: very large farms that where crops are planted and grown
- second-growth forests: the trees that grow in an area after the first trees in an area have been cut down
- strip mining: the type of mining that digs out and takes off the soil and rock to get to the coal or other resources beneath the soil
- textiles: cloth products
- trade deficit: when countries spend more money buying goods from other countries than they make selling goods to other countries
- Wheat Belt: the area of the U.S. Great Plains region in which wheat farming is important