The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclavic state of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelagic state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands. The country has the world's third-largest land area and third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. The U.S. also possesses the world's second-largest exclusive economic zone. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and its three most populous states are California, Texas, and Florida.
United States of America | |
|---|---|
 Coat of arms | |
| Motto: "In God We Trust" Other traditional mottos:
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| Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner" | |
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| Capital | Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°1′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W |
| Largest city | New York City 40°43′N 74°0′W / 40.717°N 74.000°W |
| Official languages | None at the federal level |
| National language | English |
| Ethnic groups (2020) | By race:
By origin:
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| Religion (2023) |
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| Demonym(s) | American |
| Government | Federal presidential republic |
| Donald Trump | |
| JD Vance | |
• House Speaker | Mike Johnson |
• Chief Justice | John Roberts |
| Legislature | Congress |
| Senate | |
| House of Representatives | |
| Independence from Great Britain | |
• Declaration | July 4, 1776 |
• Confederation | March 1, 1781 |
• Recognition | September 3, 1783 |
| June 21, 1788 | |
| Area | |
• Total area | 3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,520 km2) (3rd) |
• Water (%) | 7.0 (2010) |
• Land area | 3,531,905 sq mi (9,147,590 km2) (3rd) |
| Population | |
• 2024 estimate |  340,110,988 |
• 2020 census | 331,449,281 (3rd) |
• Density | 87/sq mi (33.6/km2) (185th) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2024 estimate |
• Total |  $29.168 trillion (2nd) |
• Per capita | $86,601 (8th) |
| GDP (nominal) | 2024 estimate |
• Total | $29.168 trillion (1st) |
• Per capita | $86,601 (6th) |
| Gini (2023) |  41.6medium inequality |
| HDI (2022) | 0.927 very high (20th) |
| Currency | U.S. dollar ($) (USD) |
| Time zone | UTC−4 to −12, +10, +11 |
• Summer (DST) | UTC−4 to −10 |
| Date format | mm/dd/yyyy |
| Drives on | Right |
| Calling code | +1 |
| ISO 3166 code | US |
| Internet TLD | .us |
Paleo-Indians migrated to North America across the Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies. Spanish exploration and colonization led to the establishment in 1513 of Spanish Florida, the first European colony in what is now the continental United States. France's colony of French Florida was destroyed by the Spaniards, and permanent French colonies were founded much later. Subsequent British colonization led to the first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. The development of intensive agriculture in the rapidly expanding colonies soon led to the forced migration of enslaved Africans. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution, with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War, the country continued to expand westward across North America, resulting in the dispossession of native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the victory and preservation of the United States, slavery was abolished nationally. By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement in World War I. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War, during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence. Following the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower, wielding significant geopolitical influence globally.
The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives, a lower house based on population, and the Senate, an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while American values are based on a democratic political tradition that draws its inspiration from the European Enlightenment movement.
One of the world's most developed countries, the United States has had the largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of the global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country as well as the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries, but has high levels of wealth and income inequality. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness, productivity, innovation, human rights, and higher education. Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach. The U.S. is a founding member of the World Bank, the Organization of American States, NATO, and the United Nations, as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Etymology
The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette, on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence. The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government, with prescribed rules. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb.
"America" is the feminine form of the first word of Americus Vesputius, the Latinized name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512); it was first used as a place name by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann in 1507. Vespucci first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass and not among the Indies at the eastern limit of Asia. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to the United States, despite the usage of "the Americas" to describe the totality of North and South America.
History
Indigenous peoples
The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia over 12,000 years ago, either across the Bering land bridge or along the now-submerged Ice Age coastline. The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. In the post-archaic period, the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern, eastern, and southern regions, and the Algonquian in the Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard, while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest.Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million.
European exploration, colonization and conflict (1513–1765)
Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California. The first Spanish colony in what is now the continental United States was Spanish Florida, chartered in 1513. After several settlements failed there due to hunger and disease, Spain's first permanent town, Saint Augustine, was founded in 1565. France established its own settlements in French Florida in 1562, but they were either abandoned (Charlesfort, 1578) or destroyed by Spanish raids (Fort Caroline, 1565); permanent French settlements would be founded much later along the Great Lakes (Fort Detroit, 1701), the Mississippi River (Saint Louis, 1764) and especially the Gulf of Mexico (New Orleans, 1718). Early European colonies also included the thriving Dutch colony of New Nederland (settled 1626, present-day New York) and the small Swedish colony of New Sweden (settled 1638 in what is now Delaware). British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and the Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts, 1620). The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through the Atlantic slave trade.
The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain, and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners. The colonial population grew rapidly from Maine to Georgia, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for the development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals, fueled colonial interest in religious liberty.
American Revolution and the early republic (1765–1800)
Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance; one of the primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen, particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them. To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association, a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty, inalienable individual rights; and the sovereignty of the people; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and all hereditary political power; civic virtue; and vilification of political corruption. The Founding Fathers of the United States, who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas.
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were ratified in 1781 and established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which the country's territory would expand with the admission of new states, rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances. George Washington was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government.His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in the United States and the peaceful transfer of power.
Westward expansion and Civil War (1800–1865)
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States.Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw.Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward, many with a sense of manifest destiny. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it there. The compromise further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel. As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation. The most significant removal legislation in U.S. history was the Indian Removal Act of 1830. It culminated in the Trail of Tears (1830–1850), in which an estimated 60,000 Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River were forcibly removed and displaced to lands far to the west. The Trail of Tears resulted in anywhere from 13,200 to 16,700 deaths. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest. The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of the most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created.
During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies, though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. Spurred by an active abolitionist movement that had reemerged in the 1830s, states in the North enacted anti-slavery laws. At the same time, support for slavery had strengthened in Southern states with inventions such as the cotton gin (1793), which had long made the institution profitable for Southern elites. Throughout the 1850s, this sectional conflict regarding slavery was further inflamed by legislation in Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated the return of slaves taking refuge in non-slave states to their owners in the South. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 effectively gutted the anti-slavery requirements of the Missouri Compromise. Finally, in its Dred Scott decision of 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against a slave brought into non-slave territory and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. These events exacerbated tensions between North and South that would culminate in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, while the other states remained in the Union. War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter. After the January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, many freed slaves joined the Union army. The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House. The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect the rights of African Americans. National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads, spurred growth in the American frontier.
Post–Civil War era (1865–1917)
From 1865 through 1917, an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City, and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England. During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North.Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867.
The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics. African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations. A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson, emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country, which would be reinforced by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation.
An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by a few prominent industrialists, largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition.Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry. These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest, creating the environment for labor unions to begin to flourish. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant reforms.
Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in the Spanish–American War. (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.)American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War. The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.
Rise as a superpower (1917–1945)
The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage. During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with the New Deal, a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations. All were intended to protect against future economic depressions.
Initially neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the "Four Policemen" who met to plan the post-war world, alongside the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence.
Cold War (1945–1991)
After World War II, the United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs. The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race, which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II. The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism. The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality. It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975).A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower.
Contemporary (1991–present)
The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history, a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates, and advances in technology. Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web, the evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998.
In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait. The September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror, and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in the 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack, when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état. In May-August 2021, the 2021 Taliban offensive ended the War in Afghanistan one year after the United States–Taliban deal.
Geography
The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km2).The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region.
The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi River System, the world's fourth-longest river system, runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.
The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona, carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon, a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape.
The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera, is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland.
Climate
With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid. Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon, Washington, and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii, the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical.
States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley. Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest, droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as the most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable.
Biodiversity and conservation
The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians, and around 91,000 insect species.
There are 63 national parks, and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas, managed by the National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States.Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes.
Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy, air and water pollution, biodiversity, logging and deforestation, and climate change. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues. The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 35th among 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index.
Government and politics
The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions. The U.S. is the world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization. It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document.
National government
Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances.
- The U.S. Congress, a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment. The Senate has 100 members (2 from each state), elected for a six-year term. The House of Representatives has 435 members, each elected for a two-year term; all representatives serve one congressional district of equivalent population. Congressional districts are drawn by each state legislature and are contiguous within the state. The Congress also organizes a collection of committees, each of which handles a specific task or duty. One of Congress's foremost non-legislative functions is the power to investigate and oversee the executive branch.Congressional oversight is usually delegated to committees and is facilitated by Congress's subpoena power.
- The U.S. president is the head of state, commander-in-chief of the military, chief executive of the federal government, and has the ability to veto legislative bills from the U.S. Congress before they become law. However, presidential vetoes can be overridden by a two-thirds supermajority vote in both chambers of Congress. The president appoints the members of the Cabinet, subject to Senate approval, and names other officials who administer and enforce federal laws through their respective agencies. The president also has clemency power for federal crimes and can issue pardons. Finally, the president has the right to issue expansive "executive orders", subject to judicial review, in a number of policy areas. Candidates for president campaign with a vice-presidential running mate. Both candidates are elected together, or defeated together, in a presidential election. Unlike other votes in American politics, this is technically an indirect election in which the winner will be determined by the U.S. Electoral College. There, votes are officially cast by individual electors selected by their state legislature. In practice, however, each of the 50 states chooses a group of presidential electors who are required to confirm the winner of their state's popular vote. Each state is allocated two electors plus one additional elector for each congressional district, which in effect combines to equal the number of elected officials that state sends to Congress. The District of Columbia, with no representatives or senators, is allocated three electoral votes. Both the president and the vice president serve a four-year term, and the president may be reelected to the office only once, for one additional four-year term.
- The U.S. federal judiciary, whose judges are all appointed for life by the president with Senate approval, consists primarily of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. courts of appeals, and the U.S. district courts. The U.S. Supreme Court interprets laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has nine members led by the Chief Justice of the United States. The members are appointed by the sitting president when a vacancy becomes available. The first level in the federal courts is federal district court for any case under "original jurisdiction", such as federal statutes, the Constitution, or treaties. There are twelve federal circuits that divide the country into different regions for federal appeals courts. After a federal district court has decided a case, it can then be appealed to a United States court of appeal. The next and highest court in the system is the Supreme Court of the United States.
The three-branch system is known as the presidential system, in contrast to the parliamentary system, where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States, especially in the Americas.
Political parties
The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then, the United States has operated as a de facto two-party system, though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican. The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative.
Subdivisions
In the American federal system, sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in the states are also represented by local elected governments, which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and further divided into municipalities. The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government.Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations.
Foreign relations
The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has the world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024[update]. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and home to the United Nations headquarters. The United States is a member of the G7,G20, and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with the United States, except Iran,North Korea, and Bhutan. Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan.
The United States has a "Special Relationship" with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada,Australia,New Zealand,the Philippines,Japan,South Korea,Israel, and several European Union countries (France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement. In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau through the Compact of Free Association. It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India, but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014, the U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion.
Military
The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense, which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of the six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime.
The United States spent $916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country, making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of the country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons—the second-largest share after Russia.
The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces. The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.
State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor. They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933, which created the Guard and provides for the integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force.
Law enforcement and criminal justice
There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws.State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions.
There is no unified "criminal justice system" in the United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems [held] almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities. Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under a year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined.
As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in the world, with almost 2 million people incarcerated. An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher".
Economy
The U.S. has been the world's largest economy nominally since about 1890. The 2023 nominal U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $27 trillion was the highest in the world, constituting over 25% of the global economy or 15% at purchasing power parity (PPP). From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7. The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP,second when adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPP), and ninth by PPP-adjusted GDP per capita. It possesses the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. As of February 2024, the total U.S. federal government debt was $34.4 trillion.
Of the world's 500 largest companies by revenue, 136 are headquartered in the U.S. as of 2023, which is the highest number of any country. The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and is the world's foremost reserve currency, backed by the country's dominant economy, its military, the petrodollar system, and its linked eurodollar and large U.S. treasuries market.Several countries use it as their official currency, and in others it is the de facto currency. The U.S. has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA. It ranked second in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2019, after Singapore. Although the United States has reached a post-industrial level of development and is often described as having a service economy, it remains a major industrial power. As of 2021[update], the U.S. is the second-largest manufacturing country after China.
New York City is the world's principal financial center and the epicenter of the world's largest metropolitan economy. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, both located in New York City, are the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume. The United States is at or near the forefront of technological advancement and innovation in many economic fields, especially in artificial intelligence; electronics and computers; pharmaceuticals; and medical, aerospace and military equipment. The country's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. The largest trading partners of the United States are the European Union, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second-largest exporter. It is by far the world's largest exporter of services.
Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states, and the fourth-highest median household income as of 2023, up from sixth-highest in 2013. With personal consumption expenditures of over $18.5 trillion in 2023, the U.S. has a heavily consumer-driven economy and is by far the world's largest consumer market.Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated; the richest 10% of the adult population own 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom 50% own just 2%.Income inequality in the U.S. remains at record highs, with the top fifth of earners taking home more than half of all income and giving the U.S. one of the widest income distributions among OECD members. The U.S. ranks first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires, with 735 billionaires and nearly 22 million millionaires as of 2023. There were about 582,500 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in 2022, with 60% staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. In 2022, 6.4 million children experienced food insecurity.Feeding America estimates that around one in five, or approximately 13 million, children experience hunger in the U.S. and do not know where they will get their next meal or when. As of 2022,[update] 37.9 million people, or 11.5% of the U.S. population, were living in poverty.
The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high-income countries. It is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation nationally and is one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right. The United States has a higher percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed country, largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at-risk workers.
Science, technology, spaceflight and energy
The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid-20th century. Methods for producing interchangeable parts and the establishment of a machine tool industry enabled the large-scale manufacturing of U.S. consumer products in the late 19th century. By the early 20th century, factory electrification, the introduction of the assembly line, and other labor-saving techniques created the system of mass production. The United States is widely considered to be the leading country in the development of artificial intelligence technology. In 2022, the United States was (after China) the country with the second-highest number of published scientific papers. In 2021, the U.S. ranked second (also after China) by the number of patent applications, and third by trademark and industrial design applications (after China and Germany), according to World Intellectual Property Indicators. In 2023 and 2024, the United States ranked third (after Switzerland and Sweden) in the Global Innovation Index. The U.S. has the highest total research and development expenditure of any country and ranks ninth as a percentage of GDP. In 2023, the United States was ranked the second most technologically advanced country in the world (after South Korea) by Global Finance magazine.
The United States has maintained a space program since the late 1950s, beginning with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. NASA's Apollo program (1961–1972) achieved the first crewed Moon landing with the 1969 Apollo 11 mission; it remains one of the agency's most significant milestones. Other major endeavors by NASA include the Space Shuttle program (1981–2011), the Voyager program (1972–present), the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes (launched in 1990 and 2021, respectively), and the multi-mission Mars Exploration Program (Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance). NASA is one of five agencies collaborating on the International Space Station (ISS); U.S. contributions to the ISS include several modules, including Destiny (2001), Harmony (2007), and Tranquility (2010), as well as ongoing logistical and operational support. The United States private sector dominates the global commercial spaceflight industry. Prominent American spaceflight contractors include Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX. NASA programs such as the Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Resupply Services, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and NextSTEP have facilitated growing private-sector involvement in American spaceflight.
As of 2023[update], the United States receives approximately 84% of its energy from fossil fuel, and the largest source of the country's energy came from petroleum (38%), followed by natural gas (36%), renewable sources (9%), coal (9%), and nuclear power (9%). The United States constitutes less than 4% of the world's population, but consumes around 16% of the world's energy. The U.S. ranks as the second-highest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Transportation
The U.S. Department of Transportation and its divisions provide regulation, supervision, and funding for all aspects of transportation except for customs, immigration, and security. (The latter remain the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.) Each U.S. state has its own department of transportation, which builds and maintains state highways. Depending upon the state, this department might also directly operate or supervise other modes of transportation.
Aviation law is almost entirely the jurisdiction of the federal government; the Federal Aviation Administration regulates all aspects of civil aviation, air traffic management, certification and compliance, and aviation safety. Vehicle traffic laws, however, are enacted and enforced by state and local authorities, with the exception of roads located on federal property (national parks, military bases) or in the unorganized U.S. territories. The United States Coast Guard is the primary enforcer of law and security on U.S. waterways, inland as well as coastal, but economic jurisdiction over coastal tidelands is shared between state and federal governments. The country's inland waterways are the world's fifth-longest, totaling 41,009 km (25,482 mi).
Passenger and freight rail systems, bus systems, water ferries, and dams may be under either public or private ownership and operation. U.S. civilian airlines are all privately owned. Most U.S. airports are owned and operated by local government authorities, and there are also some private airports. The Transportation Security Administration has provided security at most major airports since 2001.
Commercial railroads and trains were the dominant mode of transportation in the U.S. until the mid-twentieth century. The introduction of jet airplanes and airports serving the same major routes accelerated a decline in demand for interstate and intercity rail passenger service by the 1960s. The completion of the Interstate Highway System also hastened the sharp curtailment of passenger service by the railroads. These significant developments led to the creation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, now called Amtrak, by the U.S. federal government in 1971. Amtrak helps to maintain limited intercity rail passenger service in most parts of the country. It serves most major U.S. cities, but outside the Northeast, California, and Illinois it typically runs only a few trains per day. More frequent Amtrak service is available in regional corridors between certain major cities, particularly the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston; between New York City and Albany; in metropolitan Chicago; and in parts of California and the Pacific Northwest. Amtrak does not serve several major U.S. destinations, including Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona.
The American civil airline industry is entirely owned by corporations and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by US Airways. Of the world's 50 busiest passenger airports, 16 are in the United States, including the top five and the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As of 2022[update], there are 19,969 airports in the U.S., of which 5,193 are designated as "public use", including for general aviation and other activities.
The overwhelming majority of roads in the United States are owned and maintained by state and local governments. Roads maintained only by the U.S. federal government are generally only found on federal lands (such as national parks) or at federal facilities (like military bases). The Interstate Highway System, with its large, open freeways linking the states, is partly funded by the federal government but owned and maintained by the state government hosting its section of the interstate. Some states fund and build their own large expressways—often called "parkways" or "turnpikes"—that generally use tolls to pay for construction and maintenance. Likewise, some privately owned roads may use tolls for this purpose.
Public transportation in the United States includes bus, commuter rail, ferry, and sometimes airline service. Public transit systems serve areas of higher population density where demand is greatest. Many U.S. cities, towns, and suburbs are car-dependent, however, and suburban public transit is less common and service far less frequent. Most U.S. urban areas have some form of public transit, notably city buses, while the largest (e.g. New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon) operate extensive systems that also include subways or light rail. Most public transit service in the United States is run by local governments, but national and regional commuter lines serve major U.S. urban corridors.
Personal transportation in the United States is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of public roads, making it the longest in the world. The country's rail transport network, also the longest in the world at 182,412.3 mi (293,564.2 km), handles mostly freight. Of the world's 50 busiest container ports, four are located in the United States, with the busiest in the U.S. being the Port of Los Angeles.
The Oldsmobile Curved Dash and the Ford Model T, both American cars, are considered the first mass-produced and mass-affordable cars, respectively. As of 2023, the United States is the second-largest manufacturer of motor vehicles and is home to Tesla, the world's most valuable car company. American automotive company General Motors held the title of the world's best-selling automaker from 1931 to 2008. The American automotive industry is the world's second-largest automobile market by sales, having been overtaken by China in 2010, and the U.S. has the highest vehicle ownership per capita in the world, with 910 vehicles per 1000 people. By value, the U.S. was the world's largest importer and third-largest exporter of cars in 2022.
Demographics
Population
| State | Population (millions) |
|---|---|
| California | |
| Texas | |
| Florida | |
| New York | |
| Pennsylvania | |
| Illinois | |
| Ohio | |
| Georgia | |
| North Carolina | |
| Michigan |
The U.S. Census Bureau reported 331,449,281 residents as of April 1, 2020, making the United States the third-most-populous country in the world, after China and India. The Census Bureau's official 2024 population estimate was 340,110,988, an increase of 2.6% since the 2020 census. According to the Bureau's U.S. Population Clock, on July 1, 2024, the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 16 seconds, or about 5400 people per day. In 2023, 51% of Americans age 15 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 34% had never been married. In 2023, the total fertility rate for the U.S. stood at 1.6 children per woman, and, at 23%, it had the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households in 2019.
The United States has a diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members.White Americans with ancestry from Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57.8% of the United States population.Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government. In 2022, the median age of the United States population was 38.9 years.
Language
While many languages are spoken in the United States, English is by far the most commonly spoken and written. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws, such as U.S. naturalization requirements, standardize English, and most states have declared it the official language. Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English, including Hawaii (Hawaiian), Alaska (twenty Native languages), South Dakota (Sioux), American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In total, 169 Native American languages are spoken in the United States. In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English.
According to the American Community Survey (2020), some 245.4 million people in the U.S. age five and older spoke only English at home. About 41.2 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (3.40 million), Tagalog (1.71 million), Vietnamese (1.52 million), Arabic (1.39 million), French (1.18 million), Korean (1.07 million), and Russian (1.04 million). German, spoken by 1 million people at home in 2010, fell to 857,000 total speakers in 2020.
Immigration
America's immigrant population is by far the world's largest in absolute terms. In 2022, there were 87.7 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for nearly 27% of the overall U.S. population. In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents, 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants. In 2019, the top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (24% of immigrants), India (6%), China (5%), the Philippines (4.5%), and El Salvador (3%). In fiscal year 2022, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence. In fiscal year 2024 alone, according to the Migration Policy Institute, the United States resettled 100,034 refugees, which "re-cements the United States' role as the top global resettlement destination, far surpassing other major resettlement countries in Europe and Canada".
Religion
Religious affiliation in the U.S., according to a 2023 Gallup poll:
The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion in the country and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. Religious practice is widespread, among the most diverse in the world, and profoundly vibrant. The country has the world's largest Christian population. Other notable faiths include Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, many New Age movements, and Native American religions. Religious practice varies significantly by region. "Ceremonial deism" is common in American culture.
The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power or spiritual force, engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, and consider themselves religious or spiritual. In the "Bible Belt", located within the Southern United States, evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally, whereas New England and the Western United States tend to be more secular.Mormonism—a Restorationist movement, whose members migrated westward from Missouri and Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young in 1847 after the assassination of Joseph Smith—remains the predominant religion in Utah to this day.
Urbanization
About 82% of Americans live in urban areas, including suburbs; about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. In 2022, 333 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four cities—New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—had populations exceeding two million. Many U.S. metropolitan populations are growing rapidly, particularly in the South and West.
Largest metropolitan areas in the United States 2023 MSA population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Region | Pop. | Rank | Name | Region | Pop. | ||
 New York  Los Angeles | 1 | New York | Northeast | 19,498,249 | 11 | Boston | Northeast | 4,919,179 |  Chicago  Dallas–Fort Worth |
| 2 | Los Angeles | West | 12,799,100 | 12 | Riverside–San Bernardino | West | 4,688,053 | ||
| 3 | Chicago | Midwest | 9,262,825 | 13 | San Francisco | West | 4,566,961 | ||
| 4 | Dallas–Fort Worth | South | 8,100,037 | 14 | Detroit | Midwest | 4,342,304 | ||
| 5 | Houston | South | 7,510,253 | 15 | Seattle | West | 4,044,837 | ||
| 6 | Atlanta | South | 6,307,261 | 16 | Minneapolis–Saint Paul | Midwest | 3,712,020 | ||
| 7 | Washington, D.C. | South | 6,304,975 | 17 | Tampa–St. Petersburg | South | 3,342,963 | ||
| 8 | Philadelphia | Northeast | 6,246,160 | 18 | San Diego | West | 3,269,973 | ||
| 9 | Miami | South | 6,183,199 | 19 | Denver | West | 3,005,131 | ||
| 10 | Phoenix | West | 5,070,110 | 20 | Baltimore | South | 2,834,316 | ||
Health
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), average American life expectancy at birth was 78.4 years in 2023 (75.8 years for men and 81.1 years for women). This was a gain of 0.9 year from 77.5 years in 2022, and the CDC noted that the new average was largely driven by "decreases in mortality due to COVID-19, heart disease, unintentional injuries, cancer and diabetes". Starting in 1998, life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans' "health disadvantage" gap has been increasing ever since. The U.S. has one of the highest suicide rates among high-income countries.Approximately one-third of the U.S. adult population is obese and another third is overweight. The U.S. healthcare system far outspends that of any other country, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP, but attains worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer countries for reasons that are debated. The United States is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance. Government-funded healthcare coverage for the poor (Medicaid) and for those age 65 and older (Medicare) is available to Americans who meet the programs' income or age qualifications. In 2010, former President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.Abortion in the United States is not federally protected, and is illegal or restricted in 17 states.
Education
American primary and secondary education (known in the U.S. as K-12, "kindergarten through 12th grade") is decentralized. School systems are operated by state, territorial, and sometimes municipal governments and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. In general, children are required to attend school or an approved homeschool from the age of five or six (kindergarten or first grade) until they are 18 years old. This often brings students through the 12th grade, the final year of a U.S. high school, but some states and territories allow them to leave school earlier, at age 16 or 17. The U.S. spends more on education per student than any country in the world, an average of $18,614 per year per public elementary and secondary school student in 2020–2021. Among Americans age 25 and older, 92.2% graduated from high school, 62.7% attended some college, 37.7% earned a bachelor's degree, and 14.2% earned a graduate degree. The U.S. literacy rate is near-universal. The country has the most Nobel Prize winners of any country, with 411 (having won 413 awards).
U.S. tertiary or higher education has earned a global reputation. Many of the world's top universities, as listed by various ranking organizations, are in the United States, including 19 of the top 25. American higher education is dominated by state university systems, although the country's many private universities and colleges enroll about 20% of all American students. Local community colleges generally offer coursework and degree programs covering the first two years of college study. They often have more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition.
As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. spends more per student than the OECD average, and Americans spend more than all nations in combined public and private spending. Colleges and universities directly funded by the federal government do not charge tuition and are limited to military personnel and government employees, including: the U.S. service academies, the Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges. Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place,student loan debt increased by 102% between 2010 and 2020, and exceeded $1.7 trillion as of 2022.
Culture and society
Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying political belief in an "American Creed" emphasizing consent of the governed, liberty, equality under the law, democracy, social equality, property rights, and a preference for limited government. Culturally, the country has been described as having the values of individualism and personal autonomy, as well as having a strong work ethic,competitiveness, and voluntary altruism towards others. According to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans donated 1.44% of total GDP to charity—the highest rate in the world by a large margin. The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. It has acquired significant cultural and economic soft power.
Nearly all present Americans or their ancestors came from Europe, Africa, or Asia (the "Old World") within the past five centuries.Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl, with immigrants contributing to, and often assimilating into, mainstream American culture. The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants. Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate. While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition as well.
The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities is an agency of the United States federal government that was established in 1965 with the purpose to "develop and promote a broadly conceived national policy of support for the humanities and the arts in the United States, and for institutions which preserve the cultural heritage of the United States." It is composed of four sub-agencies:
- National Endowment for the Arts
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- Institute of Museum and Library Services
- Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities
The United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country under the First Amendment, which protects flag desecration, hate speech, blasphemy, and lese-majesty as forms of protected expression. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured. They are the "most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the Internet without government censorship". The U.S. is a socially progressive country with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality.LGBT rights in the United States are advanced by global standards.
Literature
Colonial American authors were influenced by John Locke and various other Enlightenment philosophers.The American Revolutionary Period (1765–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. Shortly before and after the Revolutionary War, the newspaper rose to prominence, filling a demand for anti-British national literature. An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy, published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture by criticizing predecessors such as Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts, and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement;Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the nineteenth century American Renaissance include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson.Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). As literacy rates rose, periodicals published more stories centered around industrial workers, women, and the rural poor.Naturalism, regionalism, and realism were the major literary movements of the period.
While modernism generally took on an international character, modernist authors working within the United States more often rooted their work in specific regions, peoples, and cultures. Following the Great Migration to northern cities, African-American and black West Indian authors of the Harlem Renaissance developed an independent tradition of literature that rebuked a history of inequality and celebrated black culture. An important cultural export during the Jazz Age, these writings were a key influence on Négritude, a philosophy emerging in the 1930s among francophone writers of the African diaspora. In the 1950s, an ideal of homogeneity led many authors to attempt to write the Great American Novel, while the Beat Generation rejected this conformity, using styles that elevated the impact of the spoken word over mechanics to describe drug use, sexuality, and the failings of society. Contemporary literature is more pluralistic than in previous eras, with the closest thing to a unifying feature being a trend toward self-conscious experiments with language. As of 2024, there have been 12 American laureates for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Mass media
Media is broadly uncensored, with the First Amendment providing significant protections, as reiterated in New York Times Co. v. United States. The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX). The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. Cable television offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches. As of 2021[update], about 83% of Americans over age 12 listen to broadcast radio, while about 40% listen to podcasts. As of 2020[update], there were 15,460 licensed full-power radio stations in the U.S. according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Much of the public radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR, incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.
U.S. newspapers with a global reach and reputation include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today.About 800 publications are produced in Spanish. With few exceptions, newspapers are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or, in an increasingly rare situation, by individuals or families. Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers, such as The Village Voice in New York City and LA Weekly in Los Angeles. The five most popular websites used in the U.S. are Google, YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo, and Facebook—all of them American-owned.
As of 2022[update], the video game market of the United States is the world's largest by revenue. There are 444 publishers, developers, and hardware companies in California alone.
Theater
The United States is well known for its theater. Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater. By the middle of the 19th century America had created new distinct dramatic forms in the Tom Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel show. The central hub of the American theater scene is the Theater District in Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway.
Many movie and television celebrities have gotten their big break working in New York productions. Outside New York City, many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons. The biggest-budget theatrical productions are musicals. U.S. theater has an active community theater culture.
The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theater. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award.
Visual arts
Folk art in colonial America grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves. It was distinct from Europe's tradition of high art, which was less accessible and generally less relevant to early American settlers. Cultural movements in art and craftsmanship in colonial America generally lagged behind those of Western Europe. For example, the prevailing medieval style of woodworking and primitive sculpture became integral to early American folk art, despite the emergence of Renaissance styles in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The new English styles would have been early enough to make a considerable impact on American folk art, but American styles and forms had already been firmly adopted. Not only did styles change slowly in early America, but there was a tendency for rural artisans there to continue their traditional forms longer than their urban counterparts did—and far longer than those in Western Europe.
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the visual arts tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.
Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new and individualistic styles, which would become known as American modernism. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, James Van Der Zee, Ansel Adams, and Gordon Parks.
The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is the largest art museum in the United States and the fourth-largest in the world.
Music
American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, mainland Europe, or Africa. The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music in particular have influenced American music.Banjos were brought to America through the slave trade. Minstrel shows incorporating the instrument into their acts led to its increased popularity and widespread production in the 19th century. The electric guitar, first invented in the 1930s, and mass-produced by the 1940s, had an enormous influence on popular music, in particular due to the development of rock and roll.
Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz grew from blues and ragtime in the early 20th century, developing from the innovations and recordings of composers such as W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington increased its popularity early in the 20th century.Country music developed in the 1920s, rock and roll in the 1930s, and bluegrass and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of the country's most celebrated songwriters. The musical forms of punk and hip hop both originated in the United States in the 1970s.
The United States has the world's largest music market with a total retail value of $15.9 billion in 2022. Most of the world's major record companies are based in the U.S.; they are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Mid-20th-century American pop stars, such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, became global celebrities and best-selling music artists, as have artists of the late 20th century, such as Michael Jackson,Madonna,Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey, and the early 21st century, such as Eminem,Britney Spears,Lady Gaga,Katy Perry,Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
Fashion
The United States is the world's largest apparel market by revenue. Apart from professional business attire, American fashion is eclectic and predominantly informal. Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing; however, sneakers, jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps are emblematic of American styles. New York, with its fashion week, is considered to be one of the "Big Four" global fashion capitals, along with Paris, Milan, and London. A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan's Garment District has been synonymous with American fashion since its inception in the early 20th century.
The headquarters of many designer labels reside in Manhattan. Labels cater to niche markets, such as preteens. New York Fashion Week is one of the most influential fashion weeks in the world, and occurs twice a year; while the annual Met Gala in Manhattan is commonly known as the fashion world's "biggest night".
Cinema
The U.S. film industry has a worldwide influence and following. Hollywood, a district in northern Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city, is also metonymous for the American filmmaking industry. The major film studios of the United States are the primary source of the most commercially successful and most ticket-selling movies in the world. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, although in the 21st century an increasing number of films are not made there, and film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization. The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929, and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944.
The industry peaked in what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s, with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures. In the 1970s, "New Hollywood", or the "Hollywood Renaissance", was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period. The 21st century has been marked by the rise of American streaming platforms, which came to rival traditional cinema.
Cuisine
Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup. Of the most enduring and pervasive examples are variations of the native dish called succotash. Early settlers and later immigrants combined these with foods they were familiar with, such as wheat flour, beef, and milk, to create a distinctive American cuisine.New World crops, especially pumpkin, corn, potatoes, and turkey as the main course are part of a shared national menu on Thanksgiving, when many Americans prepare or purchase traditional dishes to celebrate the occasion.
Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, doughnuts, french fries, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs, and American pizza derive from the recipes of various immigrant groups.Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos preexisted the United States in areas later annexed from Mexico, and adaptations of Chinese cuisine as well as pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are all widely consumed. American chefs have had a significant impact on society both domestically and internationally. In 1946, the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angell and Frances Roth. This would become the United States' most prestigious culinary school, where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers.
The United States restaurant industry was projected at $899 billion in sales for 2020, and employed more than 15 million people, representing 10% of the nation's workforce directly. It is the country's second-largest private employer and the third-largest employer overall. The United States is home to over 220 Michelin star-rated restaurants, 70 of which are in New York City alone.Wine has been produced in what is now the United States since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in what is now New Mexico in 1628. In the modern U.S., wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84 percent of all U.S. wine. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.
The American fast-food industry developed alongside the nation's car culture. American restaurants developed the drive-in format in the 1920s, which they began to replace with the drive-through format by the 1940s. American fast-food restaurant chains, such as McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts and many others, have numerous outlets around the world.
Sports
The most popular spectator sports in the U.S. are American football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. While most major U.S. sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, many of which have become popular worldwide.Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact. The market for professional sports in the United States was approximately $69 billion in July 2013, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.
American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States; the National Football League has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world, and the Super Bowl is watched by tens of millions globally. However, baseball has been regarded as the U.S. "national sport" since the late 19th century. After American football, the next four most popular professional team sports are basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. Their premier leagues are, respectively, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and the National Hockey League. The most-watched individual sports in the U.S. are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR and IndyCar.
On the collegiate level, earnings for the member institutions exceed $1 billion annually, and college football and basketball attract large audiences, as the NCAA March Madness tournament and the College Football Playoff are some of the most watched national sporting events. In the U.S., the intercollegiate sports level serves as a feeder system for professional sports. This differs greatly from practices in nearly all other countries, where publicly and privately funded sports organizations serve this function.
Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were the first-ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe. The Olympic Games will be held in the U.S. for a ninth time when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,968 medals (1,179 gold) at the Olympic Games, the most of any country.
In international professional competition, the U.S. men's national soccer team has qualified for eleven World Cups, while the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament four times each. The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will co-host, along with Canada and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was also hosted by the United States. Its final match was watched by 90,185, setting the world record for most-attended women's sporting event at the time.
See also
- Lists of U.S. state topics
- Outline of the United States
Notes
- Twenty-eight of the 50 states recognize only English as an official language. The State of Hawaii recognizes both Hawaiian and English as official languages, the State of Alaska officially recognizes 20 Alaska Native languages alongside English, and the State of South Dakota recognizes English and all Sioux dialects as official languages. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have no official language.
- English is the de facto language. For more information, see Languages of the United States.
- The historical and informal demonym Yankee has been applied to Americans, New Englanders, or northeasterners since the 18th century.
- At 3,531,900 sq mi (9,147,590 km2), the United States is the third-largest country in the world by land area, behind Russia and China. By total area (land and water), it is the third-largest, behind Russia and Canada, if its coastal and territorial water areas are included. However, if only its internal waters are included (bays, sounds, rivers, lakes, and the Great Lakes), the U.S. is the fourth-largest, after Russia, Canada, and China.
Coastal/territorial waters included: 3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,517 km2)
Only internal waters included: 3,696,100 sq mi (9,572,900 km2) - Excludes Puerto Rico and the other unincorporated islands because they are counted separately in U.S. census statistics
- After adjustment for taxes and transfers
- See Time in the United States for details about laws governing time zones in the United States.
- See Date and time notation in the United States.
- The U.S. Virgin Islands use left-hand traffic.
- The five major territories outside the union of states are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The seven undisputed island areas without permanent populations are Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll. U.S. sovereignty over the unpopulated Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island, Serranilla Bank, and Wake Island is disputed.
- The U.S. Census Bureau's latest official population estimate of 340,110,988 residents (2024) is for the 50 states and the District of Columbia; it excludes the 3.6 million residents of the five major U.S. territories and outlying islands. The Census Bureau also provides a continuously updated but unofficial population clock: www.census.gov/popclock
- European colonies were also established by the Dutch and the Swedes, and small Russian settlements were founded in Alaska.
- The U.S. had expanded through acquisitions like the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).
- Based on purchasing power
- Including agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization
- The official U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual has prescribed specific usages for "U.S." and "United States" as part of official names. In "formal writing (treaties, Executive orders, proclamations, etc.); congressional bills; legal citations and courtwork; and covers and title pages", "United States" is always used. In a sentence containing the name of another country, "United States" must be used. Otherwise, "U.S." is used preceding a government organization or as an adjective, but "United States" is used as an adjective preceding non-governmental organizations (e.g. United States Steel Corporation).
- Americus comes from the Medieval Latin name Emericus (for Saint Emeric of Hungary), itself derived from the Old High German name Emmerich.
- From the late 15th century, the Columbian exchange had been catastrophic for native populations throughout the Americas. It is estimated that up to 95 percent of the indigenous populations, especially in the Caribbean, perished from infectious diseases during the years following European colonization; remaining populations were often displaced by European expansion.
- New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
- Per the U.S. Constitution, Amendment Twenty-three, proposed by the U.S. Congress on June 16, 1960, and ratified by the States on March 29, 1961
- A country's total exports are usually understood to be goods and services. Based on this, the U.S. is the world's second-largest exporter, after China. However, if primary income is included, the U.S. is the world's largest exporter.
- These population figures are official 2024 annual estimates (rounded off) from the U.S. Census Bureau.
- This figure, like most official data for the United States as a whole, excludes the five unincorporated territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands) and minor island possessions.
- Inupiaq, Siberian Yupik, Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Alutiiq, Unanga (Aleut), Denaʼina, Deg Xinag, Holikachuk, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Gwichʼin, Tanana, Upper Tanana, Tanacross, Hän, Ahtna, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian
- Also known less formally as Obamacare
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The United States of America USA commonly known as the United States U S or America is a country primarily located in North America It is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district Washington D C The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south with the semi exclavic state of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelagic state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands The country has the world s third largest land area and third largest population exceeding 340 million The U S also possesses the world s second largest exclusive economic zone Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York Los Angeles and Chicago and its three most populous states are California Texas and Florida United States of AmericaFlag Coat of armsMotto In God We Trust Other traditional mottos E pluribus unum Latin Out of many one Annuit cœptis Latin Providence favors our undertakings Novus ordo seclorum Latin New order of the ages Anthem The Star Spangled Banner source source track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track track Show globe states and D C only Show the U S and its territoriesShow territories with their exclusive economic zoneCapitalWashington D C 38 53 N 77 1 W 38 883 N 77 017 W 38 883 77 017Largest cityNew York City 40 43 N 74 0 W 40 717 N 74 000 W 40 717 74 000Official languagesNone at the federal levelNational languageEnglishEthnic groups 2020 By race 61 6 White 12 4 Black 6 Asian 1 1 Native American 0 2 Pacific Islander 10 2 two or more races 8 4 other By origin 81 3 non Hispanic or Latino 18 7 Hispanic or LatinoReligion 2023 67 Christianity 33 Protestantism 22 Catholicism 1 Mormonism 11 other Christian22 unaffiliated2 Judaism6 other religion3 unansweredDemonym s AmericanGovernmentFederal presidential republic PresidentDonald Trump Vice PresidentJD Vance House SpeakerMike Johnson Chief JusticeJohn RobertsLegislatureCongress Upper houseSenate Lower houseHouse of RepresentativesIndependence from Great Britain DeclarationJuly 4 1776 1776 07 04 ConfederationMarch 1 1781 1781 03 01 RecognitionSeptember 3 1783 1783 09 03 ConstitutionJune 21 1788 1788 06 21 Area Total area3 796 742 sq mi 9 833 520 km2 3rd Water 7 0 2010 Land area3 531 905 sq mi 9 147 590 km2 3rd Population 2024 estimate340 110 988 2020 census331 449 281 3rd Density87 sq mi 33 6 km2 185th GDP PPP 2024 estimate Total 29 168 trillion 2nd Per capita 86 601 8th GDP nominal 2024 estimate Total 29 168 trillion 1st Per capita 86 601 6th Gini 2023 41 6 medium inequalityHDI 2022 0 927 very high 20th CurrencyU S dollar USD Time zoneUTC 4 to 12 10 11 Summer DST UTC 4 to 10Date formatmm dd yyyyDrives onRightCalling code 1ISO 3166 codeUSInternet TLD us Paleo Indians migrated to North America across the Bering land bridge more than 12 000 years ago and formed various civilizations and societies Spanish exploration and colonization led to the establishment in 1513 of Spanish Florida the first European colony in what is now the continental United States France s colony of French Florida was destroyed by the Spaniards and permanent French colonies were founded much later Subsequent British colonization led to the first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607 The development of intensive agriculture in the rapidly expanding colonies soon led to the forced migration of enslaved Africans Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4 1776 Following its victory in the 1775 1783 Revolutionary War the country continued to expand westward across North America resulting in the dispossession of native inhabitants As more states were admitted a North South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America which fought the Union in the 1861 1865 American Civil War With the victory and preservation of the United States slavery was abolished nationally By 1900 the country had established itself as a great power a status solidified after its involvement in World War I After Japan s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the U S entered World War II Its aftermath left the U S and the Soviet Union as the world s two superpowers and led to the Cold War during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence Following the Soviet Union s collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991 the U S emerged as the world s sole superpower wielding significant geopolitical influence globally The U S national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches legislative executive and judicial It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives a lower house based on population and the Senate an upper house based on equal representation for each state Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states while American values are based on a democratic political tradition that draws its inspiration from the European Enlightenment movement One of the world s most developed countries the United States has had the largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15 of the global economy in 2023 It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country as well as the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries but has high levels of wealth and income inequality The U S ranks among the world s highest in economic competitiveness productivity innovation human rights and higher education Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach The U S is a founding member of the World Bank the Organization of American States NATO and the United Nations as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council EtymologyThe first documented use of the phrase United States of America is a letter from January 2 1776 Stephen Moylan a Continental Army aide to General George Washington wrote to Joseph Reed Washington s aide de camp seeking to go with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper The Virginia Gazette on April 6 1776 By June 1776 the United States of America appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776 The term United States and the initialism U S used as nouns or as adjectives in English are common short names for the country The initialism USA a noun is also common United States and U S are the established terms throughout the U S federal government with prescribed rules The States is an established colloquial shortening of the name used particularly from abroad stateside is the corresponding adjective or adverb America is the feminine form of the first word of Americus Vesputius the Latinized name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci 1454 1512 it was first used as a place name by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann in 1507 Vespucci first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass and not among the Indies at the eastern limit of Asia In English the term America rarely refers to topics unrelated to the United States despite the usage of the Americas to describe the totality of North and South America HistoryIndigenous peoples Cliff Palace a settlement of ancestors of the Native American Pueblo peoples in present day Montezuma County Colorado built between c 1200 and 1275 The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia over 12 000 years ago either across the Bering land bridge or along the now submerged Ice Age coastline The Clovis culture which appeared around 11 000 BC is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas Over time indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated and some such as the Mississippian culture developed agriculture architecture and complex societies In the post archaic period the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern eastern and southern regions and the Algonquian in the Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500 000 to nearly 10 million European exploration colonization and conflict 1513 1765 The 1750 colonial possessions of Britain in pink and purple France in blue and Spain in orange in present day Canada and the United States Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492 leading to Spanish speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California The first Spanish colony in what is now the continental United States was Spanish Florida chartered in 1513 After several settlements failed there due to hunger and disease Spain s first permanent town Saint Augustine was founded in 1565 France established its own settlements in French Florida in 1562 but they were either abandoned Charlesfort 1578 or destroyed by Spanish raids Fort Caroline 1565 permanent French settlements would be founded much later along the Great Lakes Fort Detroit 1701 the Mississippi River Saint Louis 1764 and especially the Gulf of Mexico New Orleans 1718 Early European colonies also included the thriving Dutch colony of New Nederland settled 1626 present day New York and the small Swedish colony of New Sweden settled 1638 in what is now Delaware British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony 1607 and the Plymouth Colony Massachusetts 1620 The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies While European settlers in what is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans they also engaged in trade exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles including conversion to Christianity Along the eastern seaboard settlers trafficked African slaves through the Atlantic slave trade The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners The colonial population grew rapidly from Maine to Georgia eclipsing Native American populations by the 1770s the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas The colonies distance from Britain allowed for the development of self governance and the First Great Awakening a series of Christian revivals fueled colonial interest in religious liberty American Revolution and the early republic 1765 1800 Declaration of Independence a portrait by John Trumbull depicting the Committee of Five presenting the draft of the Declaration to the Continental Congress on June 28 1776 in Philadelphia Following their victory in the French and Indian War Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs resulting in colonial political resistance one of the primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord igniting the American Revolutionary War At the Second Continental Congress the colonies appointed George Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration was adopted on July 4 1776 The political values of the American Revolution included liberty inalienable individual rights and the sovereignty of the people supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy aristocracy and all hereditary political power civic virtue and vilification of political corruption The Founding Fathers of the United States who included Washington Jefferson John Adams Benjamin Franklin Alexander Hamilton John Jay James Madison Thomas Paine and many others were inspired by Greco Roman Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were ratified in 1781 and established a decentralized government that operated until 1789 After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris 1783 through which the U S gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River north to present day Canada and south to Spanish Florida The Northwest Ordinance 1787 established the precedent by which the country s territory would expand with the admission of new states rather than the expansion of existing states The U S Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles It went into effect in 1789 creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances George Washington was elected the country s first president under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics concerns about the power of the more centralized government His resignation as commander in chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country s first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in the United States and the peaceful transfer of power Westward expansion and Civil War 1800 1865 Historical territorial expansion of the United StatesDivision of the states during the American Civil War Union states Border states Confederate states Territories The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States Lingering issues with Britain remained leading to the War of 1812 which was fought to a draw Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819 In the late 18th century American settlers began to expand westward many with a sense of manifest destiny The Missouri Compromise of 1820 which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it there The compromise further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 30 parallel As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans the federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation The most significant removal legislation in U S history was the Indian Removal Act of 1830 It culminated in the Trail of Tears 1830 1850 in which an estimated 60 000 Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River were forcibly removed and displaced to lands far to the west The Trail of Tears resulted in anywhere from 13 200 to 16 700 deaths These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845 and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U S control of the present day American Northwest Victory in the Mexican American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California Nevada Utah and much of present day Colorado and the American Southwest The California gold rush of 1848 1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast leading to even more confrontations with Native populations One of the most violent the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants lasted into the early 1870s just as additional western territories and states were created During the colonial period slavery had been legal in the American colonies though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution Spurred by an active abolitionist movement that had reemerged in the 1830s states in the North enacted anti slavery laws At the same time support for slavery had strengthened in Southern states with inventions such as the cotton gin 1793 which had long made the institution profitable for Southern elites Throughout the 1850s this sectional conflict regarding slavery was further inflamed by legislation in Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated the return of slaves taking refuge in non slave states to their owners in the South The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 effectively gutted the anti slavery requirements of the Missouri Compromise Finally in its Dred Scott decision of 1857 the Supreme Court ruled against a slave brought into non slave territory and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional These events exacerbated tensions between North and South that would culminate in the American Civil War 1861 1865 Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America while the other states remained in the Union War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter After the January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation many freed slaves joined the Union army The war began to turn in the Union s favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union s victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House The Reconstruction era followed the war After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect the rights of African Americans National infrastructure including transcontinental telegraph and railroads spurred growth in the American frontier Post Civil War era 1865 1917 source source source source source source source source An Edison Studios film showing immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in New York Harbor a major point of entry for European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States including 24 4 million from Europe Most came through the port of New York City and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish Irish and Italian populations while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest At the same time about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England During the Great Migration millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics African Americans endured a period of heightened overt racism following Reconstruction a time often called the nadir of American race relations A series of Supreme Court decisions including Plessy v Ferguson emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked sundown towns in the Midwest and segregation in communities across the country which would be reinforced by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England France and Germany combined This fostered the amassing of power by a few prominent industrialists largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition Tycoons led the nation s expansion in the railroad petroleum and steel industries The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality slum conditions and social unrest creating the environment for labor unions to begin to flourish This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era which was characterized by significant reforms Pro American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy the islands were annexed in 1898 That same year Puerto Rico the Philippines and Guam were ceded to the U S by Spain after the latter s defeat in the Spanish American War The Philippines was granted full independence from the U S on July 4 1946 following World War II Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U S territories American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War The U S Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917 Rise as a superpower 1917 1945 The 1945 Trinity nuclear test part of the Manhattan Project and the first detonation of a nuclear weapon The two world wars permanently ended a national policy of U S isolationism and left the United States as a superpower The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers In 1920 a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women s suffrage During the 1920s and 30s radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression which President Franklin D Roosevelt responded to with the New Deal a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations All were intended to protect against future economic depressions Initially neutral during World War II the U S began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan s attack on Pearl Harbor The U S developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 ending the war The United States was one of the Four Policemen who met to plan the post war world alongside the United Kingdom Soviet Union and China The U S emerged relatively unscathed from the war with even greater economic power and international political influence Cold War 1945 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan sign the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at the White House in 1987 After World War II the United States entered the Cold War where geopolitical tensions between the U S and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs The U S utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR s sphere of influence and prevailed in the Space Race which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969 Domestically the U S experienced economic growth urbanization and population growth following World War II The civil rights movement emerged with Martin Luther King Jr becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s The Great Society plan of President Lyndon B Johnson s administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad reaching laws policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism The counterculture movement in the U S brought significant social changes including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft leading to the end of conscription in 1973 and wide opposition to U S intervention in Vietnam with the U S totally withdrawing in 1975 A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world s sole superpower Contemporary 1991 present The Twin Towers in New York City during the September 11 attacks in 2001 The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history a dramatic decline in U S crime rates and advances in technology Throughout this decade technological innovations such as the World Wide Web the evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore s law rechargeable lithium ion batteries the first gene therapy trial and cloning either emerged in the U S or were improved upon there The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990 while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998 In the Gulf War of 1991 an American led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait The September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 by the pan Islamist militant organization al Qaeda led to the war on terror and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq The U S housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression Coming to a head in the 2010s political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U S Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self coup d etat In May August 2021 the 2021 Taliban offensive ended the War in Afghanistan one year after the United States Taliban deal GeographyA topographic map of the United States The United States is the world s third largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3 119 885 square miles 8 080 470 km2 The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest The Mississippi River System the world s fourth longest river system runs predominantly north south through the heart of the country The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west interrupted by a highland region in the southeast The Grand Canyon in Arizona The Rocky Mountains west of the Great Plains extend north to south across the country peaking at over 14 000 feet 4 300 m in Colorado Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua Sonoran and Mojave deserts In the northwest corner of Arizona carved by the Colorado River over millions of years is the Grand Canyon a steep sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate colorful landscape The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the State of California about 84 miles 135 km apart At an elevation of 20 310 feet 6 190 5 m Alaska s Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska s Alexander and Aleutian Islands and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains the Yellowstone Caldera is the continent s largest volcanic feature In 2021 the United States had 8 of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10 of cropland Climate The Koppen climate types of the United States With its large size and geographic variety the United States includes most climate types East of the 100th meridian the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south The western Great Plains are semi arid Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate The climate is arid in the Southwest Mediterranean in coastal California and oceanic in coastal Oregon Washington and southern Alaska Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar Hawaii the southern tip of Florida and U S territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes and most of the world s tornadoes occur in the country mainly in Tornado Alley Overall the United States receives more high impact extreme weather incidents than any other country Extreme weather became more frequent in the U S in the 21st century with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s In the American Southwest droughts became more persistent and more severe The regions considered as the most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable Biodiversity and conservation The bald eagle the national emblem of the United States since 1782 and officially declared the national bird in 2024 The U S is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species about 17 000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska and over 1 800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii few of which occur on the mainland The United States is home to 428 mammal species 784 birds 311 reptiles 295 amphibians and around 91 000 insect species There are 63 national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks forests and wilderness areas managed by the National Park Service and other agencies About 28 of the country s land is publicly owned and federally managed primarily in the Western States Most of this land is protected though some is leased for commercial use and less than one percent is used for military purposes Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non renewable resources and nuclear energy air and water pollution biodiversity logging and deforestation and climate change The U S Environmental Protection Agency EPA is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental related issues The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964 with the Wilderness Act The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act In 2024 the U S ranked 35th among 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index Government and politicsThe U S Capitol Building the seat of legislative government is home to both chambers of the U S Congress the Senate in left wing of building and the House of Representatives right wing The White House the residence and workplace of the U S president and the offices of the presidential staffThe Supreme Court Building which houses the nation s highest court The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district Washington D C It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions The U S is the world s oldest surviving federation and its presidential system of national government has been adopted in whole or in part by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization It is a liberal representative democracy in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law The Constitution of the United States serves as the country s supreme legal document National government Composed of three branches all headquartered in Washington D C the federal government is the national government of the United States It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances The U S Congress a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives makes federal law declares war approves treaties has the power of the purse and has the power of impeachment The Senate has 100 members 2 from each state elected for a six year term The House of Representatives has 435 members each elected for a two year term all representatives serve one congressional district of equivalent population Congressional districts are drawn by each state legislature and are contiguous within the state The Congress also organizes a collection of committees each of which handles a specific task or duty One of Congress s foremost non legislative functions is the power to investigate and oversee the executive branch Congressional oversight is usually delegated to committees and is facilitated by Congress s subpoena power The U S president is the head of state commander in chief of the military chief executive of the federal government and has the ability to veto legislative bills from the U S Congress before they become law However presidential vetoes can be overridden by a two thirds supermajority vote in both chambers of Congress The president appoints the members of the Cabinet subject to Senate approval and names other officials who administer and enforce federal laws through their respective agencies The president also has clemency power for federal crimes and can issue pardons Finally the president has the right to issue expansive executive orders subject to judicial review in a number of policy areas Candidates for president campaign with a vice presidential running mate Both candidates are elected together or defeated together in a presidential election Unlike other votes in American politics this is technically an indirect election in which the winner will be determined by the U S Electoral College There votes are officially cast by individual electors selected by their state legislature In practice however each of the 50 states chooses a group of presidential electors who are required to confirm the winner of their state s popular vote Each state is allocated two electors plus one additional elector for each congressional district which in effect combines to equal the number of elected officials that state sends to Congress The District of Columbia with no representatives or senators is allocated three electoral votes Both the president and the vice president serve a four year term and the president may be reelected to the office only once for one additional four year term The U S federal judiciary whose judges are all appointed for life by the president with Senate approval consists primarily of the U S Supreme Court the U S courts of appeals and the U S district courts The U S Supreme Court interprets laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional The Supreme Court has nine members led by the Chief Justice of the United States The members are appointed by the sitting president when a vacancy becomes available The first level in the federal courts is federal district court for any case under original jurisdiction such as federal statutes the Constitution or treaties There are twelve federal circuits that divide the country into different regions for federal appeals courts After a federal district court has decided a case it can then be appealed to a United States court of appeal The next and highest court in the system is the Supreme Court of the United States The three branch system is known as the presidential system in contrast to the parliamentary system where the executive is part of the legislative body Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States especially in the Americas Political parties U S state governments governor and legislature by party control as of 2024 update Democratic control Republican control Split control The Constitution is silent on political parties However they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti Federalist parties Since then the United States has operated as a de facto two party system though the parties in that system have been different at different times The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative Subdivisions In the American federal system sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government national and state People in the states are also represented by local elected governments which are administrative divisions of the states States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents and further divided into municipalities The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U S capital Washington D C The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations Foreign relations The United Nations headquarters has been situated along the East River in Midtown Manhattan since 1952 in 1945 the United States was a founding member of the UN The United States has an established structure of foreign relations and it has the world s second largest diplomatic corps as of 2024 update It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and home to the United Nations headquarters The United States is a member of the G7 G20 and OECD intergovernmental organizations Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates official representatives in the country Likewise nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with the United States except Iran North Korea and Bhutan Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U S it maintains close unofficial relations The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia India and Japan The United States has a Special Relationship with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada Australia New Zealand the Philippines Japan South Korea Israel and several European Union countries France Italy Germany Spain and Poland The U S works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues and with countries in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States Mexico Canada Free Trade Agreement In South America Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States The U S exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia the Marshall Islands and Palau through the Compact of Free Association It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated Since 2014 the U S has become a key ally of Ukraine it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia s 2022 invasion Military The Pentagon the headquarters of the U S Department of Defense in Arlington County Virginia is one of the world s largest office buildings with over 6 5 million square feet 600 000 m2 of floor space The president is the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff The Department of Defense which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington D C administers five of the six service branches which are made up of the U S Army Marine Corps Navy Air Force and Space Force The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime The United States spent 916 billion on its military in 2023 which is by far the largest amount of any country making up 37 of global military spending and accounting for 3 4 of the country s GDP The U S has 42 of the world s nuclear weapons the second largest share after Russia The United States has the third largest combined armed forces in the world behind the Chinese People s Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries State defense forces SDFs are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state s governor They are distinct from the state s National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities A state s National Guard personnel however may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933 which created the Guard and provides for the integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U S Army and since 1947 the U S Air Force Law enforcement and criminal justice J Edgar Hoover Building the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI in Washington D C There are about 18 000 U S police agencies from local to national level in the United States Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions The state police departments have authority in their respective state and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI and the U S Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties such as protecting civil rights national security and enforcing U S federal courts rulings and federal laws State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions There is no unified criminal justice system in the United States The American prison system is largely heterogenous with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal state local and tribal levels In 2023 these systems held almost 2 million people in 1 566 state prisons 98 federal prisons 3 116 local jails 1 323 juvenile correctional facilities 181 immigration detention facilities and 80 Indian country jails as well as in military prisons civil commitment centers state psychiatric hospitals and prisons in the U S territories Despite disparate systems of confinement four main institutions dominate federal prisons state prisons local jails and juvenile correctional facilities Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes including pretrial detainees State prisons run by the official department of correction of each state hold sentenced people serving prison time usually longer than one year for felony offenses Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial they also hold those serving short sentences typically under a year Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined As of January 2023 the United States has the sixth highest per capita incarceration rate in the world 531 people per 100 000 inhabitants and the largest prison and jail population in the world with almost 2 million people incarcerated An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U S homicide rates were 7 times higher than in other high income countries driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher EconomyThe U S dollar the most used currency in international transactions and the world s foremost reserve currency The U S has been the world s largest economy nominally since about 1890 The 2023 nominal U S gross domestic product GDP of more than 27 trillion was the highest in the world constituting over 25 of the global economy or 15 at purchasing power parity PPP From 1983 to 2008 U S real compounded annual GDP growth was 3 3 compared to a 2 3 weighted average for the rest of the G7 The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP second when adjusted for purchasing power parities PPP and ninth by PPP adjusted GDP per capita It possesses the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries As of February 2024 the total U S federal government debt was 34 4 trillion Microsoft the world s biggest company by market capitalization has its global headquarters in Redmond Washington north of Seattle Of the world s 500 largest companies by revenue 136 are headquartered in the U S as of 2023 which is the highest number of any country The U S dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and is the world s foremost reserve currency backed by the country s dominant economy its military the petrodollar system and its linked eurodollar and large U S treasuries market Several countries use it as their official currency and in others it is the de facto currency The U S has free trade agreements with several countries including the USMCA It ranked second in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2019 after Singapore Although the United States has reached a post industrial level of development and is often described as having a service economy it remains a major industrial power As of 2021 update the U S is the second largest manufacturing country after China The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street the world s largest stock exchange by market capitalization New York City is the world s principal financial center and the epicenter of the world s largest metropolitan economy The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq both located in New York City are the world s two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume The United States is at or near the forefront of technological advancement and innovation in many economic fields especially in artificial intelligence electronics and computers pharmaceuticals and medical aerospace and military equipment The country s economy is fueled by abundant natural resources a well developed infrastructure and high productivity The largest trading partners of the United States are the European Union Mexico Canada China Japan South Korea the United Kingdom Vietnam India and Taiwan The United States is the world s largest importer and the second largest exporter It is by far the world s largest exporter of services Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states and the fourth highest median household income as of 2023 up from sixth highest in 2013 With personal consumption expenditures of over 18 5 trillion in 2023 the U S has a heavily consumer driven economy and is by far the world s largest consumer market Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated the richest 10 of the adult population own 72 of the country s household wealth while the bottom 50 own just 2 Income inequality in the U S remains at record highs with the top fifth of earners taking home more than half of all income and giving the U S one of the widest income distributions among OECD members The U S ranks first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires with 735 billionaires and nearly 22 million millionaires as of 2023 There were about 582 500 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U S in 2022 with 60 staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program In 2022 6 4 million children experienced food insecurity Feeding America estimates that around one in five or approximately 13 million children experience hunger in the U S and do not know where they will get their next meal or when As of 2022 update 37 9 million people or 11 5 of the U S population were living in poverty The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high income countries It is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation nationally and is one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right The United States has a higher percentage of low income workers than almost any other developed country largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at risk workers Science technology spaceflight and energy The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid 20th century Methods for producing interchangeable parts and the establishment of a machine tool industry enabled the large scale manufacturing of U S consumer products in the late 19th century By the early 20th century factory electrification the introduction of the assembly line and other labor saving techniques created the system of mass production The United States is widely considered to be the leading country in the development of artificial intelligence technology In 2022 the United States was after China the country with the second highest number of published scientific papers In 2021 the U S ranked second also after China by the number of patent applications and third by trademark and industrial design applications after China and Germany according to World Intellectual Property Indicators In 2023 and 2024 the United States ranked third after Switzerland and Sweden in the Global Innovation Index The U S has the highest total research and development expenditure of any country and ranks ninth as a percentage of GDP In 2023 the United States was ranked the second most technologically advanced country in the world after South Korea by Global Finance magazine U S astronaut Buzz Aldrin saluting the American flag on the Moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission the United States is the only country that has landed crews on the lunar surface The United States has maintained a space program since the late 1950s beginning with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA in 1958 NASA s Apollo program 1961 1972 achieved the first crewed Moon landing with the 1969 Apollo 11 mission it remains one of the agency s most significant milestones Other major endeavors by NASA include the Space Shuttle program 1981 2011 the Voyager program 1972 present the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes launched in 1990 and 2021 respectively and the multi mission Mars Exploration Program Spirit and Opportunity Curiosity and Perseverance NASA is one of five agencies collaborating on the International Space Station ISS U S contributions to the ISS include several modules including Destiny 2001 Harmony 2007 and Tranquility 2010 as well as ongoing logistical and operational support The United States private sector dominates the global commercial spaceflight industry Prominent American spaceflight contractors include Blue Origin Boeing Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman and SpaceX NASA programs such as the Commercial Crew Program Commercial Resupply Services Commercial Lunar Payload Services and NextSTEP have facilitated growing private sector involvement in American spaceflight As of 2023 update the United States receives approximately 84 of its energy from fossil fuel and the largest source of the country s energy came from petroleum 38 followed by natural gas 36 renewable sources 9 coal 9 and nuclear power 9 The United States constitutes less than 4 of the world s population but consumes around 16 of the world s energy The U S ranks as the second highest emitter of greenhouse gases Transportation Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport serving the Atlanta metropolitan area is the world s busiest airport by passenger traffic with over 75 million passengers in 2021 The U S Department of Transportation and its divisions provide regulation supervision and funding for all aspects of transportation except for customs immigration and security The latter remain the responsibility of the U S Department of Homeland Security Each U S state has its own department of transportation which builds and maintains state highways Depending upon the state this department might also directly operate or supervise other modes of transportation Aviation law is almost entirely the jurisdiction of the federal government the Federal Aviation Administration regulates all aspects of civil aviation air traffic management certification and compliance and aviation safety Vehicle traffic laws however are enacted and enforced by state and local authorities with the exception of roads located on federal property national parks military bases or in the unorganized U S territories The United States Coast Guard is the primary enforcer of law and security on U S waterways inland as well as coastal but economic jurisdiction over coastal tidelands is shared between state and federal governments The country s inland waterways are the world s fifth longest totaling 41 009 km 25 482 mi Passenger and freight rail systems bus systems water ferries and dams may be under either public or private ownership and operation U S civilian airlines are all privately owned Most U S airports are owned and operated by local government authorities and there are also some private airports The Transportation Security Administration has provided security at most major airports since 2001 Interchange between Interstate 10 and Interstate 45 in Houston Texas Commercial railroads and trains were the dominant mode of transportation in the U S until the mid twentieth century The introduction of jet airplanes and airports serving the same major routes accelerated a decline in demand for interstate and intercity rail passenger service by the 1960s The completion of the Interstate Highway System also hastened the sharp curtailment of passenger service by the railroads These significant developments led to the creation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation now called Amtrak by the U S federal government in 1971 Amtrak helps to maintain limited intercity rail passenger service in most parts of the country It serves most major U S cities but outside the Northeast California and Illinois it typically runs only a few trains per day More frequent Amtrak service is available in regional corridors between certain major cities particularly the Northeast Corridor between Washington D C Philadelphia New York City and Boston between New York City and Albany in metropolitan Chicago and in parts of California and the Pacific Northwest Amtrak does not serve several major U S destinations including Las Vegas and Phoenix Arizona The American civil airline industry is entirely owned by corporations and has been largely deregulated since 1978 while most major airports are publicly owned The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U S based American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by US Airways Of the world s 50 busiest passenger airports 16 are in the United States including the top five and the busiest Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport As of 2022 update there are 19 969 airports in the U S of which 5 193 are designated as public use including for general aviation and other activities The overwhelming majority of roads in the United States are owned and maintained by state and local governments Roads maintained only by the U S federal government are generally only found on federal lands such as national parks or at federal facilities like military bases The Interstate Highway System with its large open freeways linking the states is partly funded by the federal government but owned and maintained by the state government hosting its section of the interstate Some states fund and build their own large expressways often called parkways or turnpikes that generally use tolls to pay for construction and maintenance Likewise some privately owned roads may use tolls for this purpose Public transportation in the United States includes bus commuter rail ferry and sometimes airline service Public transit systems serve areas of higher population density where demand is greatest Many U S cities towns and suburbs are car dependent however and suburban public transit is less common and service far less frequent Most U S urban areas have some form of public transit notably city buses while the largest e g New York Chicago Atlanta Philadelphia Boston San Francisco and Portland Oregon operate extensive systems that also include subways or light rail Most public transit service in the United States is run by local governments but national and regional commuter lines serve major U S urban corridors Personal transportation in the United States is dominated by automobiles which operate on a network of 4 million miles 6 4 million kilometers of public roads making it the longest in the world The country s rail transport network also the longest in the world at 182 412 3 mi 293 564 2 km handles mostly freight Of the world s 50 busiest container ports four are located in the United States with the busiest in the U S being the Port of Los Angeles The Oldsmobile Curved Dash and the Ford Model T both American cars are considered the first mass produced and mass affordable cars respectively As of 2023 the United States is the second largest manufacturer of motor vehicles and is home to Tesla the world s most valuable car company American automotive company General Motors held the title of the world s best selling automaker from 1931 to 2008 The American automotive industry is the world s second largest automobile market by sales having been overtaken by China in 2010 and the U S has the highest vehicle ownership per capita in the world with 910 vehicles per 1000 people By value the U S was the world s largest importer and third largest exporter of cars in 2022 DemographicsPopulation The 10 most populous U S states 2024 estimates State Population millions California 39 4Texas 31 3Florida 23 4New York 19 9Pennsylvania 13 1Illinois 12 7Ohio 11 9Georgia 11 2North Carolina 11 0Michigan 10 1 The U S Census Bureau reported 331 449 281 residents as of April 1 2020 making the United States the third most populous country in the world after China and India The Census Bureau s official 2024 population estimate was 340 110 988 an increase of 2 6 since the 2020 census According to the Bureau s U S Population Clock on July 1 2024 the U S population had a net gain of one person every 16 seconds or about 5400 people per day In 2023 51 of Americans age 15 and over were married 6 were widowed 10 were divorced and 34 had never been married In 2023 the total fertility rate for the U S stood at 1 6 children per woman and at 23 it had the world s highest rate of children living in single parent households in 2019 The United States has a diverse population 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members White Americans with ancestry from Europe the Middle East or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57 8 of the United States population Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second largest group and are 18 7 of the United States population African Americans constitute the country s third largest ancestry group and are 12 1 of the total U S population Asian Americans are the country s fourth largest group composing 5 9 of the United States population The country s 3 7 million Native Americans account for about 1 and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government In 2022 the median age of the United States population was 38 9 years Language Most spoken languages in the U S While many languages are spoken in the United States English is by far the most commonly spoken and written Although there is no official language at the federal level some laws such as U S naturalization requirements standardize English and most states have declared it the official language Three states and four U S territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English including Hawaii Hawaiian Alaska twenty Native languages South Dakota Sioux American Samoa Samoan Puerto Rico Spanish Guam Chamorro and the Northern Mariana Islands Carolinian and Chamorro In total 169 Native American languages are spoken in the United States In Puerto Rico Spanish is more widely spoken than English According to the American Community Survey 2020 some 245 4 million people in the U S age five and older spoke only English at home About 41 2 million spoke Spanish at home making it the second most commonly used language Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese 3 40 million Tagalog 1 71 million Vietnamese 1 52 million Arabic 1 39 million French 1 18 million Korean 1 07 million and Russian 1 04 million German spoken by 1 million people at home in 2010 fell to 857 000 total speakers in 2020 Immigration The Mexico United States border wall between San Diego left and Tijuana right America s immigrant population is by far the world s largest in absolute terms In 2022 there were 87 7 million immigrants and U S born children of immigrants in the United States accounting for nearly 27 of the overall U S population In 2017 out of the U S foreign born population some 45 20 7 million were naturalized citizens 27 12 3 million were lawful permanent residents 6 2 2 million were temporary lawful residents and 23 10 5 million were unauthorized immigrants In 2019 the top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico 24 of immigrants India 6 China 5 the Philippines 4 5 and El Salvador 3 In fiscal year 2022 over one million immigrants most of whom entered through family reunification were granted legal residence In fiscal year 2024 alone according to the Migration Policy Institute the United States resettled 100 034 refugees which re cements the United States role as the top global resettlement destination far surpassing other major resettlement countries in Europe and Canada Religion The template Pie chart is being considered for merging Religious affiliation in the U S according to a 2023 Gallup poll Protestantism 33 Catholicism 22 Non specific Christian 11 Judaism 2 Mormonism 1 Other religion 6 Unaffiliated 22 Unanswered 3 The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion in the country and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment Religious practice is widespread among the most diverse in the world and profoundly vibrant The country has the world s largest Christian population Other notable faiths include Judaism Buddhism Hinduism Islam many New Age movements and Native American religions Religious practice varies significantly by region Ceremonial deism is common in American culture The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power or spiritual force engage in spiritual practices such as prayer and consider themselves religious or spiritual In the Bible Belt located within the Southern United States evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally whereas New England and the Western United States tend to be more secular Mormonism a Restorationist movement whose members migrated westward from Missouri and Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young in 1847 after the assassination of Joseph Smith remains the predominant religion in Utah to this day Urbanization About 82 of Americans live in urban areas including suburbs about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50 000 In 2022 333 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100 000 nine cities had more than one million residents and four cities New York City Los Angeles Chicago and Houston had populations exceeding two million Many U S metropolitan populations are growing rapidly particularly in the South and West vte Largest metropolitan areas in the United States 2023 MSA population estimates from the U S Census BureauRank Name Region Pop Rank Name Region Pop New York Los Angeles 1 New York Northeast 19 498 249 11 Boston Northeast 4 919 179 Chicago Dallas Fort Worth2 Los Angeles West 12 799 100 12 Riverside San Bernardino West 4 688 0533 Chicago Midwest 9 262 825 13 San Francisco West 4 566 9614 Dallas Fort Worth South 8 100 037 14 Detroit Midwest 4 342 3045 Houston South 7 510 253 15 Seattle West 4 044 8376 Atlanta South 6 307 261 16 Minneapolis Saint Paul Midwest 3 712 0207 Washington D C South 6 304 975 17 Tampa St Petersburg South 3 342 9638 Philadelphia Northeast 6 246 160 18 San Diego West 3 269 9739 Miami South 6 183 199 19 Denver West 3 005 13110 Phoenix West 5 070 110 20 Baltimore South 2 834 316 Health The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest medical complex in the world In 2018 it employed 120 000 people and treated 10 million patients According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC average American life expectancy at birth was 78 4 years in 2023 75 8 years for men and 81 1 years for women This was a gain of 0 9 year from 77 5 years in 2022 and the CDC noted that the new average was largely driven by decreases in mortality due to COVID 19 heart disease unintentional injuries cancer and diabetes Starting in 1998 life expectancy in the U S fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries and Americans health disadvantage gap has been increasing ever since The U S has one of the highest suicide rates among high income countries Approximately one third of the U S adult population is obese and another third is overweight The U S healthcare system far outspends that of any other country measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP but attains worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer countries for reasons that are debated The United States is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance Government funded healthcare coverage for the poor Medicaid and for those age 65 and older Medicare is available to Americans who meet the programs income or age qualifications In 2010 former President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Abortion in the United States is not federally protected and is illegal or restricted in 17 states Education Some 77 of American college students attend public institutions such as the University of Virginia founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 American primary and secondary education known in the U S as K 12 kindergarten through 12th grade is decentralized School systems are operated by state territorial and sometimes municipal governments and regulated by the U S Department of Education In general children are required to attend school or an approved homeschool from the age of five or six kindergarten or first grade until they are 18 years old This often brings students through the 12th grade the final year of a U S high school but some states and territories allow them to leave school earlier at age 16 or 17 The U S spends more on education per student than any country in the world an average of 18 614 per year per public elementary and secondary school student in 2020 2021 Among Americans age 25 and older 92 2 graduated from high school 62 7 attended some college 37 7 earned a bachelor s degree and 14 2 earned a graduate degree The U S literacy rate is near universal The country has the most Nobel Prize winners of any country with 411 having won 413 awards U S tertiary or higher education has earned a global reputation Many of the world s top universities as listed by various ranking organizations are in the United States including 19 of the top 25 American higher education is dominated by state university systems although the country s many private universities and colleges enroll about 20 of all American students Local community colleges generally offer coursework and degree programs covering the first two years of college study They often have more open admission policies shorter academic programs and lower tuition As for public expenditures on higher education the U S spends more per student than the OECD average and Americans spend more than all nations in combined public and private spending Colleges and universities directly funded by the federal government do not charge tuition and are limited to military personnel and government employees including the U S service academies the Naval Postgraduate School and military staff colleges Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place student loan debt increased by 102 between 2010 and 2020 and exceeded 1 7 trillion as of 2022 Culture and societyThe Statue of Liberty Liberty Enlightening the World on Liberty Island in New York Harbor was an 1866 gift from France that has become an iconic symbol of the American Dream Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying political belief in an American Creed emphasizing consent of the governed liberty equality under the law democracy social equality property rights and a preference for limited government Culturally the country has been described as having the values of individualism and personal autonomy as well as having a strong work ethic competitiveness and voluntary altruism towards others According to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation Americans donated 1 44 of total GDP to charity the highest rate in the world by a large margin The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups traditions and values It has acquired significant cultural and economic soft power Nearly all present Americans or their ancestors came from Europe Africa or Asia the Old World within the past five centuries Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as a homogenizing melting pot and a heterogeneous salad bowl with immigrants contributing to and often assimilating into mainstream American culture The American Dream or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility plays a key role in attracting immigrants Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society scholars identify significant differences between the country s social classes affecting socialization language and values Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition as well The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities is an agency of the United States federal government that was established in 1965 with the purpose to develop and promote a broadly conceived national policy of support for the humanities and the arts in the United States and for institutions which preserve the cultural heritage of the United States It is composed of four sub agencies National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Humanities Institute of Museum and Library Services Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities The United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country under the First Amendment which protects flag desecration hate speech blasphemy and lese majesty as forms of protected expression A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured They are the most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the Internet without government censorship The U S is a socially progressive country with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality LGBT rights in the United States are advanced by global standards Literature Mark Twain whom William Faulkner called the father of American literature Colonial American authors were influenced by John Locke and various other Enlightenment philosophers The American Revolutionary Period 1765 1783 is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin Alexander Hamilton Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson Shortly before and after the Revolutionary War the newspaper rose to prominence filling a demand for anti British national literature An early novel is William Hill Brown s The Power of Sympathy published in 1791 Writer and critic John Neal in the early to mid nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture by criticizing predecessors such as Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement Henry David Thoreau author of Walden was influenced by this movement The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe and authors of slave narratives such as Frederick Douglass Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter 1850 explored the dark side of American history as did Herman Melville s Moby Dick 1851 Major American poets of the nineteenth century American Renaissance include Walt Whitman Melville and Emily Dickinson Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady 1881 As literacy rates rose periodicals published more stories centered around industrial workers women and the rural poor Naturalism regionalism and realism were the major literary movements of the period While modernism generally took on an international character modernist authors working within the United States more often rooted their work in specific regions peoples and cultures Following the Great Migration to northern cities African American and black West Indian authors of the Harlem Renaissance developed an independent tradition of literature that rebuked a history of inequality and celebrated black culture An important cultural export during the Jazz Age these writings were a key influence on Negritude a philosophy emerging in the 1930s among francophone writers of the African diaspora In the 1950s an ideal of homogeneity led many authors to attempt to write the Great American Novel while the Beat Generation rejected this conformity using styles that elevated the impact of the spoken word over mechanics to describe drug use sexuality and the failings of society Contemporary literature is more pluralistic than in previous eras with the closest thing to a unifying feature being a trend toward self conscious experiments with language As of 2024 there have been 12 American laureates for the Nobel Prize in Literature Mass media Comcast Center in Philadelphia headquarters of Comcast one of the world s largest telecommunications companies and media conglomerates Media is broadly uncensored with the First Amendment providing significant protections as reiterated in New York Times Co v United States The four major broadcasters in the U S are the National Broadcasting Company NBC Columbia Broadcasting System CBS American Broadcasting Company ABC and Fox Broadcasting Company FOX The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities Cable television offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches As of 2021 update about 83 of Americans over age 12 listen to broadcast radio while about 40 listen to podcasts As of 2020 update there were 15 460 licensed full power radio stations in the U S according to the Federal Communications Commission FCC Much of the public radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 U S newspapers with a global reach and reputation include The Wall Street Journal The New York Times The Washington Post and USA Today About 800 publications are produced in Spanish With few exceptions newspapers are privately owned either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers by small chains that own a handful of papers or in an increasingly rare situation by individuals or families Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers such as The Village Voice in New York City and LA Weekly in Los Angeles The five most popular websites used in the U S are Google YouTube Amazon Yahoo and Facebook all of them American owned As of 2022 update the video game market of the United States is the world s largest by revenue There are 444 publishers developers and hardware companies in California alone Theater Broadway theaters in Theater District Manhattan The United States is well known for its theater Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater By the middle of the 19th century America had created new distinct dramatic forms in the Tom Shows the showboat theater and the minstrel show The central hub of the American theater scene is the Theater District in Manhattan with its divisions of Broadway off Broadway and off off Broadway Many movie and television celebrities have gotten their big break working in New York productions Outside New York City many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons The biggest budget theatrical productions are musicals U S theater has an active community theater culture The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances One is also given for regional theater Several discretionary non competitive awards are given as well including a Special Tony Award the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre and the Isabelle Stevenson Award Visual arts American Gothic 1930 by Grant Wood is one of the most famous American paintings and is widely parodied Folk art in colonial America grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves It was distinct from Europe s tradition of high art which was less accessible and generally less relevant to early American settlers Cultural movements in art and craftsmanship in colonial America generally lagged behind those of Western Europe For example the prevailing medieval style of woodworking and primitive sculpture became integral to early American folk art despite the emergence of Renaissance styles in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries The new English styles would have been early enough to make a considerable impact on American folk art but American styles and forms had already been firmly adopted Not only did styles change slowly in early America but there was a tendency for rural artisans there to continue their traditional forms longer than their urban counterparts did and far longer than those in Western Europe The Hudson River School was a mid 19th century movement in the visual arts tradition of European naturalism The 1913 Armory Show in New York City an exhibition of European modernist art shocked the public and transformed the U S art scene Georgia O Keeffe Marsden Hartley and others experimented with new and individualistic styles which would become known as American modernism Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz Edward Steichen Dorothea Lange Edward Weston James Van Der Zee Ansel Adams and Gordon Parks The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects including Frank Lloyd Wright Philip Johnson and Frank Gehry The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is the largest art museum in the United States and the fourth largest in the world Music American folk music encompasses numerous music genres variously known as traditional music traditional folk music contemporary folk music or roots music Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles mainland Europe or Africa The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African American music in particular have influenced American music Banjos were brought to America through the slave trade Minstrel shows incorporating the instrument into their acts led to its increased popularity and widespread production in the 19th century The electric guitar first invented in the 1930s and mass produced by the 1940s had an enormous influence on popular music in particular due to the development of rock and roll The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville Tennessee Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and old time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences Jazz grew from blues and ragtime in the early 20th century developing from the innovations and recordings of composers such as W C Handy and Jelly Roll Morton Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington increased its popularity early in the 20th century Country music developed in the 1920s rock and roll in the 1930s and bluegrass and rhythm and blues in the 1940s In the 1960s Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of the country s most celebrated songwriters The musical forms of punk and hip hop both originated in the United States in the 1970s The United States has the world s largest music market with a total retail value of 15 9 billion in 2022 Most of the world s major record companies are based in the U S they are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America RIAA Mid 20th century American pop stars such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley became global celebrities and best selling music artists as have artists of the late 20th century such as Michael Jackson Madonna Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey and the early 21st century such as Eminem Britney Spears Lady Gaga Katy Perry Taylor Swift and Beyonce Fashion Haute couture fashion models on the catwalk during New York Fashion Week The United States is the world s largest apparel market by revenue Apart from professional business attire American fashion is eclectic and predominantly informal Americans diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing however sneakers jeans T shirts and baseball caps are emblematic of American styles New York with its fashion week is considered to be one of the Big Four global fashion capitals along with Paris Milan and London A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan s Garment District has been synonymous with American fashion since its inception in the early 20th century The headquarters of many designer labels reside in Manhattan Labels cater to niche markets such as preteens New York Fashion Week is one of the most influential fashion weeks in the world and occurs twice a year while the annual Met Gala in Manhattan is commonly known as the fashion world s biggest night Cinema The iconic Hollywood Sign in the Hollywood Hills often regarded as the symbol of the American film industry The U S film industry has a worldwide influence and following Hollywood a district in northern Los Angeles the nation s second most populous city is also metonymous for the American filmmaking industry The major film studios of the United States are the primary source of the most commercially successful and most ticket selling movies in the world Since the early 20th century the U S film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood although in the 21st century an increasing number of films are not made there and film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization The Academy Awards popularly known as the Oscars have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929 and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944 The industry peaked in what is commonly referred to as the Golden Age of Hollywood from the early sound period until the early 1960s with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures In the 1970s New Hollywood or the Hollywood Renaissance was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post war period The 21st century has been marked by the rise of American streaming platforms which came to rival traditional cinema Cuisine A Thanksgiving dinner with roast turkey mashed potatoes pickles corn candied yams cranberry jelly shrimps stuffing green peas deviled eggs green salad and apple sauce Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to foods such as turkey sweet potatoes corn squash and maple syrup Of the most enduring and pervasive examples are variations of the native dish called succotash Early settlers and later immigrants combined these with foods they were familiar with such as wheat flour beef and milk to create a distinctive American cuisine New World crops especially pumpkin corn potatoes and turkey as the main course are part of a shared national menu on Thanksgiving when many Americans prepare or purchase traditional dishes to celebrate the occasion Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie fried chicken doughnuts french fries macaroni and cheese ice cream hamburgers hot dogs and American pizza derive from the recipes of various immigrant groups Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos preexisted the United States in areas later annexed from Mexico and adaptations of Chinese cuisine as well as pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are all widely consumed American chefs have had a significant impact on society both domestically and internationally In 1946 the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angell and Frances Roth This would become the United States most prestigious culinary school where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers The United States restaurant industry was projected at 899 billion in sales for 2020 and employed more than 15 million people representing 10 of the nation s workforce directly It is the country s second largest private employer and the third largest employer overall The United States is home to over 220 Michelin star rated restaurants 70 of which are in New York City alone Wine has been produced in what is now the United States since the 1500s with the first widespread production beginning in what is now New Mexico in 1628 In the modern U S wine production is undertaken in all fifty states with California producing 84 percent of all U S wine With more than 1 100 000 acres 4 500 km2 under vine the United States is the fourth largest wine producing country in the world after Italy Spain and France The American fast food industry developed alongside the nation s car culture American restaurants developed the drive in format in the 1920s which they began to replace with the drive through format by the 1940s American fast food restaurant chains such as McDonald s Kentucky Fried Chicken Dunkin Donuts and many others have numerous outlets around the world Sports American football is the most popular sport in the United States in this September 2022 National Football League game the Jacksonville Jaguars play the Washington Commanders at FedExField The most popular spectator sports in the U S are American football basketball baseball soccer and ice hockey While most major U S sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices basketball volleyball skateboarding and snowboarding are American inventions many of which have become popular worldwide Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact The market for professional sports in the United States was approximately 69 billion in July 2013 roughly 50 larger than that of all of Europe the Middle East and Africa combined American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States the National Football League has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world and the Super Bowl is watched by tens of millions globally However baseball has been regarded as the U S national sport since the late 19th century After American football the next four most popular professional team sports are basketball baseball soccer and ice hockey Their premier leagues are respectively the National Basketball Association Major League Baseball Major League Soccer and the National Hockey League The most watched individual sports in the U S are golf and auto racing particularly NASCAR and IndyCar On the collegiate level earnings for the member institutions exceed 1 billion annually and college football and basketball attract large audiences as the NCAA March Madness tournament and the College Football Playoff are some of the most watched national sporting events In the U S the intercollegiate sports level serves as a feeder system for professional sports This differs greatly from practices in nearly all other countries where publicly and privately funded sports organizations serve this function Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States The 1904 Summer Olympics in St Louis Missouri were the first ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe The Olympic Games will be held in the U S for a ninth time when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics U S athletes have won a total of 2 968 medals 1 179 gold at the Olympic Games the most of any country In international professional competition the U S men s national soccer team has qualified for eleven World Cups while the women s national team has won the FIFA Women s World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament four times each The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will co host along with Canada and Mexico the 2026 FIFA World Cup The 1999 FIFA Women s World Cup was also hosted by the United States Its final match was watched by 90 185 setting the world record for most attended women s sporting event at the time See alsoLists of U S state topics Outline of the United StatesNotesTwenty eight of the 50 states recognize only English as an official language The State of Hawaii recognizes both Hawaiian and English as official languages the State of Alaska officially recognizes 20 Alaska Native languages alongside English and the State of South Dakota recognizes English and all Sioux dialects as official languages Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have no official language English is the de facto language For more information see Languages of the United States The historical and informal demonym Yankee has been applied to Americans New Englanders or northeasterners since the 18th century At 3 531 900 sq mi 9 147 590 km2 the United States is the third largest country in the world by land area behind Russia and China By total area land and water it is the third largest behind Russia and Canada if its coastal and territorial water areas are included However if only its internal waters are included bays sounds rivers lakes and the Great Lakes the U S is the fourth largest after Russia Canada and China Coastal territorial waters included 3 796 742 sq mi 9 833 517 km2 Only internal waters included 3 696 100 sq mi 9 572 900 km2 Excludes Puerto Rico and the other unincorporated islands because they are counted separately in U S census statistics After adjustment for taxes and transfers See Time in the United States for details about laws governing time zones in the United States See Date and time notation in the United States The U S Virgin Islands use left hand traffic The five major territories outside the union of states are American Samoa Guam the Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico and the U S Virgin Islands The seven undisputed island areas without permanent populations are Baker Island Howland Island Jarvis Island Johnston Atoll Kingman Reef Midway Atoll and Palmyra Atoll U S sovereignty over the unpopulated Bajo Nuevo Bank Navassa Island Serranilla Bank and Wake Island is disputed The U S Census Bureau s latest official population estimate of 340 110 988 residents 2024 is for the 50 states and the District of Columbia it excludes the 3 6 million residents of the five major U S territories and outlying islands The Census Bureau also provides a continuously updated but unofficial population clock www census gov popclock European colonies were also established by the Dutch and the Swedes and small Russian settlements were founded in Alaska The U S had expanded through acquisitions like the Louisiana Purchase 1803 and the Mexican American War 1846 1848 Based on purchasing power Including agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization The official U S Government Publishing Office Style Manual has prescribed specific usages for U S and United States as part of official names In formal writing treaties Executive orders proclamations etc congressional bills legal citations and courtwork and covers and title pages United States is always used In a sentence containing the name of another country United States must be used Otherwise U S is used preceding a government organization or as an adjective but United States is used as an adjective preceding non governmental organizations e g United States Steel Corporation Americus comes from the Medieval Latin name Emericus for Saint Emeric of Hungary itself derived from the Old High German name Emmerich From the late 15th century the Columbian exchange had been catastrophic for native populations throughout the Americas It is estimated that up to 95 percent of the indigenous populations especially in the Caribbean perished from infectious diseases during the years following European colonization remaining populations were often displaced by European expansion New Hampshire Massachusetts Connecticut Rhode Island New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware Maryland Virginia North Carolina South Carolina and Georgia Per the U S Constitution Amendment Twenty three proposed by the U S Congress on June 16 1960 and ratified by the States on March 29 1961 A country s total exports are usually understood to be goods and services Based on this the U S is the world s second largest exporter after China However if primary income is included the U S is the world s largest exporter These population figures are official 2024 annual estimates rounded off from the U S Census Bureau This figure like most official data for the United States as a whole excludes the five unincorporated territories Puerto Rico Guam the U S Virgin Islands American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands and minor island possessions Inupiaq Siberian Yupik Central Alaskan Yup ik Alutiiq Unanga Aleut Denaʼina Deg Xinag Holikachuk Koyukon Upper Kuskokwim Gwichʼin Tanana Upper Tanana Tanacross Han Ahtna Eyak Tlingit Haida and Tsimshian Also known less formally as ObamacareReferences36 U S C 302 The Great Seal of the United States PDF U S Department of State Bureau of Public Affairs 2003 Retrieved February 12 2020 An Act To make The Star Spangled Banner the national anthem of the United States of America H R 14 71st United States Congress March 3 1931 2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country United States Census Retrieved August 13 2021 Race and Ethnicity in the United States 2010 Census and 2020 Census United States Census Retrieved August 13 2021 A Breakdown of 2020 Census Demographic Data NPR August 13 2021 Staff June 8 2007 In Depth Topics A to Z Religion Gallup Inc Retrieved July 1 2024 Compton s Pictured Encyclopedia and Fact index Ohio 1963 p 336 The Water Area of Each State United States Geological Survey 2018 Retrieved January 29 2024 Areas of the 50 states and the District of Columbia but not Puerto Rico nor other island territories per State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates Census gov August 2010 Retrieved March 31 2020 reflect base feature updates made in the MAF TIGER database through August 2010 National Population Totals and Components of Change April 1 2020 to July 1 2024 United States Census Bureau Retrieved December 20 2024 U S Census Bureau Today Delivers State Population Totals for Congressional Apportionment United States Census Retrieved April 26 2021 The 2020 census is as of April 1 2020 World Economic Outlook Database October 2024 Edition United States www imf org International Monetary Fund October 22 2024 Retrieved October 22 2024 Income in the United States 2023 Census gov p 53 Retrieved December 15 2024 Human Development Report 2023 24 PDF United Nations Development Programme March 13 2024 Retrieved March 13 2024 The Difference Between us vs com Cozab January 3 2022 Archived from the original on April 16 2023 Retrieved August 11 2023 Common Core Document to U N Committee on Human Rights U S State Department December 30 2011 Item 22 27 80 Retrieved April 6 2016 U S Insular Areas application of the U S Constitution PDF U S General Accounting Office Report November 1997 pp 1 6 39n Archived from the original PDF on November 3 2013 Retrieved April 6 2016 China The World Factbook Retrieved June 10 2016 United States Encyclopaedia Britannica Archived from the original on December 19 2013 Retrieved January 31 2010 DeLear Byron July 4 2013 Who coined United States of America Mystery might have intriguing answer The Christian Science Monitor Boston Massachusetts Fay John July 15 2016 The forgotten Irishman who named the United States of America IrishCentral com According to the NY Historical Society Stephen Moylan was the man responsible for the earliest documented use of the phrase United States of America But who was Stephen Moylan A PLANTER April 6 1776 To the inhabitants of Virginia The Virginia Gazette Vol 5 no 1287 Williamsburg Virginia Dixon and Hunter s Archived from the original on December 19 2014 A Planter s Address to the Inhabitants of Virginia American Archives Northern Illinois University Retrieved May 25 2024 Safire 2003 p 199 Mostert 2005 p 18 Davis 1996 p 7 Is USA A Noun Or Adjective Dictionary com March 9 2017 U S Government Publishing Office Style Manual January 12 2017 pp 222 223 Retrieved September 3 2020 The States Longman dictionary Retrieved September 27 2024 Stateside Merriam Webster September 27 2024 Retrieved October 4 2024 Amerigo Vespucci Encyclopaedia Britannica Archived from the original on July 10 2012 Retrieved July 7 2011 Sider Sandra 2007 Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe Oxford University Press p 226 ISBN 978 0 19 533084 7 Szalay Jessie September 20 2017 Amerigo Vespucci Facts Biography amp Naming of America Live Science Retrieved June 23 2019 Allen Erin July 4 2016 How Did America Get Its Name Library of Congress Blog Retrieved September 3 2020 Wilson Kenneth G 1993 The Columbia guide to standard American English New York Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 231 06989 2 Cliff Palace at Colorado Encyclopedia Retrieved January 31 2024 Erlandson Rick amp Vellanoweth 2008 p 19 Savage 2011 pp 55 58 Waters amp Stafford 2007 pp 1122 1126 Flannery 2015 pp 173 185 Lockard 2010 p 315 Johansen Bruce 2006 The Native Peoples of North America A History Volume 1 Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0 8135 3899 0 Thornton 1998 p 34 Perdue amp Green 2005 p 40 Haines Haines amp Steckel 2000 p 12 Ralph H Vigil January 1 2006 The Expedition and the Struggle for Justice In Patricia Kay Galloway ed The Hernando de Soto Expedition History Historiography and discovery in the Southeast U of Nebraska Press p 329 ISBN 0 8032 7132 8 cite book author Charles M Hudson title Knights of Spain Warriors of the Sun Hernando de Soto and the South s Ancient Chiefdoms url https books google com books id eapFDwAAQBAJ amp pg PA130 7Cdate 15 January 2018 publisher University of Georgia Pres Davis Frederick T 1932 The Record of Ponce de Leon s Discovery of Florida 1513 The QUARTERLY Periodical of THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY XI 1 5 6 Florida Center for Instructional Technology 2002 Pedro Menendez de Aviles Claims Florida for Spain A Short History of Florida University of South Florida Not So Fast Jamestown St Augustine Was Here First NPR February 28 2015 Retrieved March 5 2021 Petto Christine Marie 2007 When France Was King of Cartography The Patronage and Production of Maps in Early Modern France Lexington Books p 125 ISBN 978 0 7391 6247 7 Seelye James E Jr Selby Shawn 2018 Shaping North America From Exploration to the American Revolution 3 volumes ABC CLIO p 344 ISBN 978 1 4408 3669 5 Bellah Robert Neelly Madsen Richard Sullivan William M Swidler Ann Tipton Steven M 1985 Habits of the Heart Individualism and Commitment in American Life University of California Press p 220 ISBN 978 0 520 05388 5 OL 7708974M Remini 2007 pp 2 3 Johnson 1997 pp 26 30 Ripper 2008 p 6 Ehrenpreis Jamie E Ehrenpreis Eli D April 2022 A Historical Perspective of Healthcare Disparity and Infectious Disease in the Native American Population The American Journal of the Medical Sciences 363 4 288 294 doi 10 1016 j amjms 2022 01 005 ISSN 0002 9629 PMC 8785365 PMID 35085528 Joseph 2016 p 590 Stannard 1993 p xii Ripper 2008 p 5 Calloway 1998 p 55 Thomas Hugh 1997 The Slave Trade The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440 1870 Simon and Schuster pp 516 ISBN 0 684 83565 7 Bilhartz Terry D Elliott Alan C 2007 Currents in American History A Brief History of the United States M E Sharpe ISBN 978 0 7656 1817 7 Wood Gordon S 1998 The Creation of the American Republic 1776 1787 UNC Press Books p 263 ISBN 978 0 8078 4723 7 Ratcliffe Donald 2013 The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy 1787 1828 Journal of the Early Republic 33 2 220 doi 10 1353 jer 2013 0033 ISSN 0275 1275 S2CID 145135025 Walton 2009 pp 38 39 Walton 2009 p 35 Otis James 1763 The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved ISBN 978 0 665 52678 7 Foner Eric 1998 The Story of American Freedom 1st ed W W Norton pp 4 5 ISBN 978 0 393 04665 6 story of American freedom Fabian Young Alfred Nash Gary B Raphael Ray 2011 Revolutionary Founders Rebels Radicals and Reformers in the Making of the Nation Random House Digital pp 4 7 ISBN 978 0 307 27110 5 Yick Wo vs Hopkins 118 U S 356 370 Richard Buel Securing the Revolution Ideology in American Politics 1789 1815 1972 Becker et al 2002 ch 1 Republicanism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy June 19 2006 Retrieved September 20 2022 Miller Hunter ed British American Diplomacy The Paris Peace Treaty of September 30 1783 The Avalon Project at Yale Law School Shōsuke Satō History of the land question in the United States Johns Hopkins University 1886 p 352 Foner 2020 p 524 OpenStax 2014 8 1 Foner 2020 pp 538 540 Boyer 2007 pp 192 193 OpenStax 2014 8 3 Louisiana Purchase PDF National Park Service Retrieved March 1 2011 Harriss Joseph A How the Louisiana Purchase Changed the World Smithsonian Magazine Retrieved June 25 2024 Wait Eugene M 1999 America and the War of 1812 Nova Publishers p 78 ISBN 978 1 56072 644 9 War of 1812 Naval History and Heritage Command April 10 2024 Retrieved June 25 2024 permanent dead link Klose Nelson Jones Robert F 1994 United States History to 1877 Barron s Educational Series p 150 ISBN 978 0 8120 1834 9 Carlisle Rodney P Golson J Geoffrey 2007 Manifest destiny and the expansion of America Turning Points in History Series Santa Barbara Calif ABC CLIO p 238 ISBN 978 1 85109 834 7 OCLC 659807062 McPherson 1988 p 41 46 Hammond John Craig March 2019 President Planter Politician James Monroe the Missouri Crisis and the Politics of Slavery Journal of American History 105 4 843 867 doi 10 1093 jahist jaz002 Frymer Paul 2017 Building an American empire the era of territorial and political expansion Princeton New Jersey Princeton University Press ISBN 978 1 4008 8535 0 OCLC 981954623 Calloway Colin G 2019 First peoples a documentary survey of American Indian history 6th ed Boston Bedford St Martin s Macmillan Learning ISBN 978 1 319 10491 7 OCLC 1035393060
