If you lived in a time before airplanes, cars, trains, or even paved roads, how would you get around? Travel over land on dirt roads by foot or horse-drawn wagon would be slow and difficult. What if the roads were muddy or covered in snow? In bad weather, travel could be nearly impossible.
Before paved roads, the easiest and often quickest way to move people and goods was usually by boat. As a result, cities and towns often grew up along major water bodies. Nearly four out of every ten people in the U.S. live in a county that touches a coast. Many more live along rivers and lakes. Can you think of other reasons people might want to live near a body of water?
