United States Coloring Pages

The United States is big enough that a child in Maine and a child in Arizona grow up with completely different landscapes. These United States coloring pages take a road trip across the country, from the lobster docks of the Northeast to the desert of the Southwest, stopping at the landmarks, the wildlife and the everyday things that feel American.

The landmarks come first. The raised torch of the Statue of Liberty rises above the harbor and its ferries, the four faces of Mount Rushmore look out over a pine forest, a great suspension bridge crosses a bay in the fog, and a tall city skyline stands behind a park bench. The land itself has its own pages: a mule train winding down between layered canyon walls, a geyser erupting above steaming mineral terraces, a boardwalk between giant redwoods, a lighthouse on a rocky headland, desert buttes under a festival of hot air balloons, and a raft of paddlers dropping through whitewater.

The animals are the ones on the country's coins and in its parks: a bald eagle in the pines, a bison on the prairie, a grizzly catching a leaping salmon, a moose wading among water lilies, a roadrunner among saguaro cacti, and wild mustangs galloping through the sagebrush. A chibi eagle in a scarf and a chibi bison in a star bandana are there for the youngest.

History and everyday life fill the rest: a covered wagon crossing the plains, a gold panner at a mountain creek, a totem pole among the cedars, a paddle steamer on a wide river, a rodeo rider on a bucking horse, a barn and silo with hay bales, a tractor passing a sunflower field, an apple orchard at harvest, a pumpkin patch with a scarecrow, a log cabin with a rocking chair on the porch, a lobster boat at its dock, a diner counter with a milkshake and a slice of pie, a baseball glove and bat on a bench, a marching band drummer and fireworks over a small town park. A mandala of stars and ribbons around an eagle and a border of oak leaves, corn and stars finish the set.

Fifty states, one landscape each

The country has 50 states, and many of the places on these pages belong to one of them. A few to match on a map:

• Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota, carved between 1927 and 1941: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, each face about 60 feet tall.
• The Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor. It was a gift from France, dedicated in 1886.
• Yellowstone, in Wyoming, was the world's first national park in 1872, and holds about half of all the active geysers on Earth.
• The tallest trees in the world are the coast redwoods of northern California, some more than 370 feet high.
• The saguaro cactus grows naturally only in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and nearby Mexico.
• Lobster boats belong to Maine, and the country's biggest apple crops come from Washington State.

Two national animals

The bald eagle has been the national bird since it appeared on the Great Seal in 1782. It is not bald at all: the name comes from an old word for white, after its white head. The American bison was named the national mammal in 2016. Tens of millions once roamed the plains; by the late 1800s only a few hundred were left, and they were saved largely in Yellowstone. Today there are several hundred thousand again.

Colors of American landscapes

• Canyon walls: bands of red, orange, pink and tan, one color per layer of rock.
• Desert: warm sand, sage-green cactus, and a sky that fades from orange at the horizon to blue above.
• Redwoods: deep red-brown trunks, dark green needles, ferns in bright green.
• The bald eagle: white head and tail, dark brown body, yellow beak and feet.
• The bison: dark brown, almost black on the head and front, lighter on the back.

Easy animals and big landscapes

The simplest pages have one animal or one clear shape, like the grizzly with the salmon, the bison and the chibi eagle. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Grizzly catching salmon
• Bison on the prairie
• Mule train in the canyon

The detailed ones are packed with barn boards, orchard leaves and the mandala's stars. Lots of detail begins with:

• Eagle and stars mandala
• Barn and silo
• Mountain cabin

A road trip scrapbook

These pages make a travel journal, for a real trip or an imagined one. Print a map of the United States, and for every page colored, draw a line from home to the place it shows: the geyser to Wyoming, the lighthouse to the coast, the lobster boat to Maine. Punch the colored pages and keep them in a binder with the map on the front. Children learn geography without noticing, and a family planning a summer drive can color the stops before they go.

Printing across the country

Every page is a free PDF drawn on A4 at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" shrinks the drawing by about six percent so the whole landscape fits. The printing guide shows where the setting is. Add to pack puts a whole road trip into one file. The flag has its own collection in the American flag coloring pages, the national holiday in the 4th of July coloring pages, and the wild side in the bear coloring pages and the camping coloring pages.