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California
I'd like to inform you about the dreamland California situated in the south west of the
USA. this "Golden State" -how California is also called has got about 35 million
inhabitants and with its 411047 km² it's the third largest state of the USA.
Let's start with the wonderful national parks it has got. I'm not gonna tell you much
about them, only about the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. They're really
famous for the largest and oldest trees on earth standing there. Well, the biggest one
you can see there is the 3.000-year-old General Sherman tree. It's 84m tall. the trees
growing there are devided into two groups: the ones which are called Redwoods, the
others are the Mammoth trees.
When talking about natural beauty you should not forget Death Valley. The 230 km
long desert at the border between California and Nevada is 86m below sea level and
the hottest place on earth in summer, when temperatures can reach 54°C! But despite
of this heat about 900 different plats grow and 200 people live there.
Everyone has surely heard about Silicon Valley. Most of the software developers of
California work there. it's a very unobtrasive valley near San Francisco, but I read
among the 2 million people who live there, there are 250 millionaires. And every day
the number rises.
Now to another story of money. In the year 1848 there was the discovery of gold in
Bodie, Californias's largest ghost town. That brought hundreds of thousands of
people to California. Bodie was a busy gold-mining town of 8.000 people. But after
no more gold was found, everybody left. 170 of the old buildings are still standing
there.
Gold was also discovered in Sacramento. It isn't as big as San Francisco for example
but it's California's capital city and very famous for the 2,7km long Golden Gate
Bridge.
Now I'll tell you sth. about Los Angeles. the metropolis L.A. is California's biggest
town, it's even bigger than Ireland! 16 million people from 140 different countries are
living there.
The most famous part of L.A. is Hollywood. Until 1903 it was a little municipality of
700 inhabitants. More and more film studios were opened and soon it has become a
real film centre. today more than 100.000 people of all over the world live there.
Sure nearly everybody has heard about the famous walk of Fame. it's 2 1/2 km long
and there are more than 1760 stars carrying names of famous people. if you are
nominated and chosen from a jury to have such a star, you have to pay 3.000 dollars
and then your name is put into a star.
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