| Word | Definition |
| coral reef | a submerged ridge of coral formed by the skeletons of small sea animals in the ocean |
| federal republic | government in which powere is divided between the national government and the state government |
| glacier | giant, slowly moving ice |
| newsprint | thin paper used for printing newspapers |
| navigble | wide and deep enough to allow the passage of ships |
| fossil fuels | coal, oil, or natural gas used as power |
| immigrants | people who move to a new country to make a new home |
| suburb | smaller city that surrounds a city |
| representative democracy | a government in which voters choose leaders who make and enforce laws |
| prime minister | the official head of a government |
| dominion | self governing nation that accepts the British monarch as head of state |
| colony | overseas territory or settlement tied to a parent country |
| free enterprise system | economic system in which people start and run businesses with limited government intervention |
| cordillera | group of mountain ranges that run side by side |
| urban | city dwellers |
| bilingual | speaking two languages |
| acid rain | rain containing huge amounts of chemical pollutants |
| rural | countryside, farm areas |
| recycling | reusing materials instead of throwing them out |
| prairie | rolling, inland grassy area with fertile soil |
| landfill | the areas where trash companies dump the waste they collect |
| tundra | huge, rolling, treeless plains in which only the top few inches of ground thaw in the summer |
| megalopolis | a huge uraban area |
| parlimentary democracy | voters elect representatives |
| free trade | taking down trade barriers so that goos flow freely amoung countries |
| secede | withdraw from a group |
| provinces | regional political divisions |
| service industry | a business that provides services to people instead of producing goods |
| autonomy | the group's right to govern itself |
| contiguous | joined together or touching inside a common boundry |
