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United States of America
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: «In God We Trust»[1] Other traditional mottos:[2] «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»[3]
Capital	Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W
Largest city	New York City 40°43′N 74°00′W / 40.717°N 74.000°W
National language	English (de facto)
Ethnic groups (2020)[4][5][6]	By race: 61.6% White 12.4% Black 6.0% Asian 2.9% Native American 0.2% Pacific Islander 10.2% multiracial 8.4% other By Hispanic or Latino origin: 81.3% non-Hispanic or Latino 18.7% Hispanic or Latino
Religion (2021)[7]	63% Christianity 40% Protestantism 21% Catholicism 2% other Christian 29% no religion 1% Buddhism 1% Hinduism 1% Islam 1% Judaism 2% other 2% unanswered
Demonym(s)	American[a][8]
Government	Federal presidential constitutional republic
• President	Joe Biden
• Vice President	Kamala Harris
• House Speaker	Kevin McCarthy
• Chief Justice	John Roberts
Legislature	Congress
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	House of Representatives
Independence  from Great Britain
• Declaration	July 4, 1776
• Confederation	March 1, 1781
• Recognized	September 3, 1783
• Constitution	June 21, 1788
Area
• Total area	3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,520 km2)[9] (3rd[b])
• Water (%)	4.66[10] (2015)
• Land area	3,531,905 sq mi (9,147,590 km2) (3rd)
Population
• 2022 estimate	333,287,557[11]
• 2020 census	331,449,281[c][12] (3rd)
• Density	87/sq mi (33.6/km2) (185th)
GDP (PPP)	2023 estimate
• Total	$26.855 trillion[13] (2nd)
• Per capita	$80,035[13] (8th)
GDP (nominal)	2023 estimate
• Total	$26.855 trillion[13] (1st)
• Per capita	$80,035[13] (7th)
Gini (2020)	39.4[d][14] medium
HDI (2021)	0.921[15] very high · 21st
Currency	U.S. dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone	UTC−4 to −12, +10, +11
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 to −10[e]
Date format	mm/dd/yyyy[f]
Driving side	right[g]
Calling code	+1
ISO 3166 code	US
Internet TLD	.com, .us[16]

The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands,^[h] and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is the world’s third-largest country by both land and total area.^[b] It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations.^[i] With a population of over 333 million,^[j] it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Paleo-Americans migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and are the ancestors of modern Native Americans. Colonization by Europeans began in the 16th century. The native population declined after European arrival, primarily from diseases such as smallpox and measles, becoming increasingly displaced. Great Britain’s Thirteen Colonies, in what is now the eastern U.S., quarreled with the British Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American Revolution (1765–1791). After the Revolution, the United States gained independence, the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of liberal democracy. In the late 18th century, the U.S. began expanding across North America, gradually obtaining new territories; by 1848, it spanned the continent from east to west. Sectional division surrounding slavery in the Southern United States led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865). With the Union’s victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally by Thirteenth Amendment.

By 1900, the United States had established itself as a world power, becoming the world’s largest economy. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II on the Allied side. The aftermath of the war left the United States and the Soviet Union as the world’s two superpowers and led to the Cold War. During the Cold War, both countries engaged in a struggle for ideological dominance but avoided direct military conflict. They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 American spaceflight, as a result of which the U.S. became the first and only nation to ever land humans on the Moon. Simultaneously, the civil rights movement (1954–1968) led to court rulings and legislation abolishing codified racial discrimination against African-Americans. With the Soviet Union’s collapse and the subsequent end of the Cold War in 1991, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower. In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, the United States became a lead member of the Global War on Terrorism.

The United States government is a federal republic with three separate branches of government, including a bicameral legislature. The U.S. is a liberal democracy and has a market economy. It ranks very highly in international measures of quality of life, income and wealth, economic competitiveness, human rights, innovation, and education; it has low levels of perceived corruption. The United States has the highest median income per person of any polity in the world, although it has high levels of incarceration and inequality and lacks universal health care. As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been shaped by the largest immigrant population in the world.

A highly developed country, the American economy accounts for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the world’s largest by GDP at market exchange rates. By value, the United States is the world’s largest importer and second-largest exporter. Although it accounts for just over 4.2% of the world’s total population, the U.S. holds over 30% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share held by any country. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, NATO, and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. is the foremost military power in the world and a dominant political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.

Etymology

The first documentary evidence of the phrase «United States of America» dates back to a letter from January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan to Joseph Reed, George Washington’s aide-de-camp. Moylan expressed his wish to go «with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain» to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort.^[26][27][28] The first known publication of the phrase «United States of America» was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, on April 6, 1776.^[29]

By June 1776, the name «United States of America» had appeared in drafts of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, prepared by John Dickinson^[30][31] and of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.^[30]

The phrase «United States» was originally plural in American usage. It described a collection of states—e.g., «the United States are…» The singular form became popular after the end of the Civil War and is now standard usage. A citizen of the United States is called an «American». «United States», «American», and «U.S.» refer to the country adjectivally («American values», «U.S. forces»). In English, the word «American» rarely refers to topics or subjects not directly connected with the United States.^[32]

History

Early history

It is generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival.^[33][34][35] The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas.^[37] This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts, and Eskimos.^[38]

Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies.^[39] The city-state of Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States.^[40] In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloan culture developed from centuries of agricultural experimentation.^[41] The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American indigenous peoples. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.^[42] Historically, these peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. Before Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although many supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans and squash (the «Three Sisters»). The Ojibwe cultivated wild rice.^[43] The Haudenosaunee confederation of the Iroquois, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established at some point between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.^[44]

Estimating the native population of North America during European contact is difficult.^[45][46] Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution estimated a population of 93,000 in the South Atlantic states and a population of 473,000 in the Gulf states,^[47] but most academics regard this figure as too low.^[45] Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting around 1.1 million along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 2.2 million people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5.2 million in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries, and around 700,000 people in the Florida peninsula.^[45][46]

Colonial America

Claims of very early colonization of coastal New England by the Norse are disputed and controversial.^{[48][49][failed verification]} Christopher Columbus had landed in Puerto Rico on his 1493 voyage, and San Juan was settled by the Spanish a decade later.^[50] The first documented arrival of Europeans in the continental United States is that of Spanish conquistadors such as Juan Ponce de León, who made his first expedition to Florida in 1513.^[51] The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sent by France to the New World in 1525, encountered Native American inhabitants of what is now called New York Bay.^[52] The Spanish set up the first settlements in Florida and New Mexico, such as Saint Augustine, often considered the nation’s oldest city,^[53] and Santa Fe. The French established their own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, notably New Orleans and Mobile.^[54]

Successful English colonization of the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and with the Pilgrims’ colony at Plymouth in 1620.^[55][56] The continent’s first elected legislative assembly, Virginia’s House of Burgesses, was founded in 1619. Harvard College was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 as the first institution of higher education. The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.^[57][58] Many English settlers were dissenting Christians who came seeking religious freedom. The native population of America declined after European arrival for various reasons,^[59][60][61] primarily from diseases such as smallpox and measles.^[62][63]

In the early days of colonization, many European settlers experienced food shortages, disease, and conflicts with Native Americans, such as in King Philip’s War. Native Americans were also often fighting neighboring tribes and European settlers. In many cases the natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts; natives for guns, tools and other European goods.^[64] American Indians taught many settlers to cultivate corn, beans, and other foodstuffs. European missionaries and others felt it was important to «civilize» the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural practices and lifestyles.^[65][66] However, with the increased European colonization of North America, Native Americans were displaced and often killed during conflicts.^[67]

European settlers also began trafficking African slaves into Colonial America via the transatlantic slave trade.^[68] By the turn of the 18th century, slavery had supplanted indentured servitude as the main source of agricultural labor for the cash crops in the American South.^[69] Colonial society was divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery, and several colonies passed acts for or against the practice.^[70][71]

The Thirteen Colonies^[k] that would become the United States of America were administered by the British as overseas dependencies.^[72] All nonetheless had local governments with elections open to white male property owners, except Jews and Catholics in some areas.^{[73][74][75][76][77]} With very high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations.^[78] The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest both in religion and in religious liberty.^[79]

During the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), known in the U.S. as the French and Indian War, British forces captured Canada from the French. The Treaty of Paris (1763) created a much smaller Province of Quebec, which still included the Ohio valley and the upper Mississippi valley, thereby isolating Canada’s francophone population from the English-speaking colonial dependencies of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the Thirteen Colonies.^[relevant?] Excluding the Native Americans who lived there, the Thirteen Colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about a third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.^[80] The colonies’ distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their unprecedented success motivated British monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.^[81]

American Revolution and the early federal republic

The American Revolution separated the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, and included the first successful war of independence by a non-European entity against a European power in modern history. By the 18th century the American Enlightenment and the political philosophies of liberalism were pervasive among leaders. Americans began to develop an ideology of «republicanism», asserting that government rested on the consent of the governed. They demanded their «rights as Englishmen» and «no taxation without representation».^[82][83] The British insisted on administering the colonies through a Parliament that did not have a single representative responsible for any American constituency, and the conflict escalated into war.^[84]

In 1774, the First Continental Congress passed the Continental Association, which mandated a colonies-wide boycott of British goods. The American Revolutionary War began the following year, catalyzed by events like the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party that were rooted in colonial disagreement with British governance.^[85][86] The Second Continental Congress, an assembly representing the United Colonies, unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (annually celebrated as Independence Day).^[87] In 1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union established a decentralized government that operated until 1789.^[87] In 1777, the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga resulted in the capture of a British army, and led to France and their ally Spain joining in the war against them. After the surrender of a second British army at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, Britain signed a peace treaty. American sovereignty became internationally recognized, and the new nation took possession of substantial territory east of the Mississippi River, from what is today Canada in the north and Florida in the south.^[88]

As it became increasingly apparent that the Confederation was insufficient to govern the new country, nationalists advocated for and led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution to replace it, ratified in state conventions in 1788. The U.S. Constitution is the oldest and longest-standing written and codified national constitution in force in the world today.^[89] Going into force in 1789, this constitution reorganized the government into a federation administered by three branches (executive, judicial and legislative), on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances. George Washington, who had led the Continental Army to victory and then willingly relinquished power, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.^[90] Tensions with Britain remained, however, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw.^[91]

Although the federal government outlawed American participation in the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the use of slave labor.^[93][94][95] The Second Great Awakening, especially in the period 1800–1840, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism;^[96] in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.^[97]

In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand further westward, some of them with a sense of manifest destiny.^[98][99] The 1803 Louisiana Purchase almost doubled the nation’s area,^[100] Spain ceded Florida and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819,^[101] the Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845 during a period of expansionism,^[99] and the 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.^[102] Additionally, the Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that forcibly resettled Indians. This further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets. This prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi River^[103] and eventually conflict with Mexico.^[104] Most of these conflicts ended with the cession of Native American territory and their confinement to Indian reservations. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest, and the U.S. spanned the continent.^[98][105] The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 spurred migration to the Pacific coast, which led to the California Genocide^[106] and the creation of additional western states.^[107] Economic development was spurred by giving vast quantities of land, nearly 10% of the total area of the United States, to white European settlers as part of the Homestead Acts, as well as making land grants to private railroad companies and colleges.^[108] Prior to the Civil War, the prohibition or expansion of slavery into these territories exacerbated tensions over the debate around abolitionism.

The Civil War and Reconstruction

Irreconcilable sectional conflict regarding the enslavement of those of black African descent^[109] was the primary cause of the American Civil War.^[110] With the 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, conventions in eleven slave states—all in the Southern United States—declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America, while the federal government (the «Union») maintained that secession was unconstitutional and illegitimate.^[111] On April 12, 1861, the Confederacy initiated military conflict by bombarding Fort Sumter, a federal garrison in Charleston harbor, South Carolina. The ensuing Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest military conflict in American history resulting in the deaths of approximately 620,000 soldiers from both sides and upwards of 50,000 civilians, almost all of them in the South.^[112]

Reconstruction began in earnest following the defeat of the Confederates. While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, his assassination on April 14, 1865 drove a wedge between North and South again. Republicans in the federal government made it their goal to oversee the rebuilding of the South and to ensure the rights of African Americans. They persisted until the Compromise of 1877, when the Republicans agreed to cease enforcing the rights of African Americans in the South in order for Democrats to concede the presidential election of 1876. Influential Southern whites, calling themselves «Redeemers», took local control of the South after the end of Reconstruction, beginning the nadir of American race relations. From 1890 to 1910, the Redeemers established so-called Jim Crow laws, disenfranchising almost all blacks and some impoverished whites throughout the region. Blacks would face racial segregation nationwide, especially in the South.^[113] They also lived under constant threat of vigilante violence, including lynching.^[114]

Industrial Age and the Progressive Era

National infrastructure, including telegraph and transcontinental railroads, spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade, and increased conflicts with Native Americans.^[116] Electric light and the telephone drastically changed communication and urban life.^[117]

Mainland expansion also included the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.^[118] In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and formed the Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, by the Treaty of Paris (1898) following the Spanish–American War.^[119] Neither the Foraker Act (1900), nor the Insular Cases (1901) accorded US citizenship to Puerto Ricans. One month prior to American entry into World War I, citizenship was extended to Puerto Ricans via the Jones–Shafroth Act (1917).^{[120]: 60–63} In November 1903, the US acquired a perpetual lease of the Panama Canal Zone via the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty after providing naval aid preventing Colombia from putting down the rebellion which led to the creation of an independent Panama. The logistics of the November uprising were prepared in New York.^[120]: 67 American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan Civil War.^[121] The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.^[122]

Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie led the nation’s progress in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. Banking became a major part of the economy, with J. P. Morgan playing a notable role. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country’s industrialization.^[124] The American economy boomed, becoming the world’s largest.^[125] These dramatic changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality, immigration, and social unrest, which prompted the rise of organized labor along with populist, socialist, and anarchist movements.^{[126][127][128]} This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms including health and safety regulation of consumer goods, the rise of labor unions, and greater antitrust measures to ensure competition among businesses and attention to worker conditions. The Great Migration beginning around 1910 also brought millions of African Americans to Northern urban centers from the rural South.^[129]

The last vestiges of the Progressive Era resulted in women’s suffrage and alcohol prohibition.^{[130][131][132]} The first state to grant women the right to vote had been Wyoming, in 1869, followed by some other states^[133] before the women’s rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting nationwide women’s suffrage in 1920.^[134]

The rise to world power, the New Deal, and the World Wars

The United States remained neutral from the outbreak of World War I in 1914 until 1917 when it joined the war as an «associated power» alongside the Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this and did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations.^[135]

The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television.^[136] The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal.^[137] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.^[138]

At first neutral during World War II, the United States in March 1941 began supplying hundreds of billions worth of materiel to the Allies. A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $719 billion in 2021) worth of supplies was shipped in 1941–1945, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.^[139] In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to other Allies. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to militarily join the Allies against the Axis powers, and in the following year, to intern about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans.^[140][141] The U.S. pursued a «Europe first» defense policy,^[142] with the Philippines being invaded and occupied by Japan until the country’s liberation by the U.S.-led forces in 1944–1945. During the war, the United States was one of the «Four Policemen»^[143] who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union, and China.^[144][145] The United States emerged relatively unscathed from the war, and with even greater economic and military influence.^[146]

The United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods and Yalta conferences, which signed agreements on new international financial institutions and Europe’s postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.^[147] The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945; the Japanese subsequently surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.^[148][149]

Cold War and late 20th century

After World War II, the United States financed and implemented the Marshall Plan to help rebuild and economically revive war-torn Europe; disbursements paid between 1948 and 1952 would total $13 billion ($115 billion in 2021).^[150] Also at this time, geopolitical tensions between the United States and Soviet Russia led to the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism.^[151] The two countries dominated the military affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellite states on the other.^[152] The U.S. sometimes opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored, sometimes pursuing direct action for regime change against left-wing governments.^[153] Unlike the US, the USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany’s industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations its Soviet Bloc satellites using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: «The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $15 billion to $20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under the Marshall Plan.»^[154] American troops fought the communist forces in the Korean War of 1950–1953,^[155] and the U.S. became increasingly involved in the Vietnam War (1955–1975), introducing combat forces in 1965.^[156] Their competition to achieve superior spaceflight capability led to the Space Race, which culminated in the U.S. becoming the first and only nation to land people on the Moon in 1969.^[155] While both countries engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear weapons, they avoided direct military conflict.^[152]

At home, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion, urbanization, and a rapid growth of its population and middle class following World War II. Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed the nation’s transportation infrastructure in decades to come.^[157][158] In 1959, the United States admitted Alaska and Hawaii to become the 49th and 50th states, formally expanding beyond the contiguous United States.^[159]

The growing civil rights movement used nonviolence to confront racism, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader.^[160] President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated legislation that led to a series of policies addressing poverty and racial inequalities, in what he termed the «Great Society». The launch of a «War on Poverty» expanded entitlements and welfare spending, leading to the creation of the Food Stamp Program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, along with national health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid.^[161] A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, made significant improvements.^{[162][163][164]} Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew, which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War, mainstream experimentation with psychedelics and cannabis, the Black Power movement, and the sexual revolution.^[165] The women’s movement in the U.S. broadened the debate on women’s rights and made gender equality a major social goal. The 1960s Sexual Revolution liberalized American attitudes to sexuality;^[166] the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement in the Western world.^[167][168]

The United States supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War; in response, the country faced an oil embargo from OPEC nations, sparking the 1973 oil crisis. The presidency of Richard Nixon saw the American withdrawal from Vietnam but also the Watergate scandal, which led to his resignation in disgrace and a decline in public trust of government that expanded for decades.^[169] After a surge in female labor participation around the 1970s, by 1985, the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed.^[170] The 1970s and early 1980s also saw the onset of stagflation.

After his election in 1980 President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with neoliberal reforms and accelerated the rollback strategy towards the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan.^{[171][172][173][174]} During Reagan’s presidency, the federal debt held by the public nearly tripled in nominal terms, from $738 billion to $2.1 trillion.^[175] This led to the United States moving from the world’s largest international creditor to the world’s largest debtor nation.^[176] The collapse of the USSR’s network of satellite states in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the country itself in 1991 ended the Cold War with American victory,^{[177][178][179][180]} ensuring a global unipolarity^[181] in which the U.S. was unchallenged as the world’s dominant superpower.^[182]

Fearing the spread of regional international instability from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in August 1991, President George H. W. Bush launched and led the Gulf War against Iraq, expelling Iraqi forces and dissolving the Iraqi-backed puppet state in Kuwait.^[183] During the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1994, the U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), causing trade among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to soar.^[184] Due to the dot-com boom, stable monetary policy, and reduced social welfare spending, the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history.^[185]

21st century

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 people.^[186] In response, President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror, which included a nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 and the 2003–2011 Iraq War.^[187][188] Government policy designed to promote affordable housing,^[189] widespread failures in corporate and regulatory governance,^[190] and historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve^[191] led to a housing bubble in 2006. This culminated in the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Great Recession, the nation’s largest economic contraction since the Great Depression.^[192]

Barack Obama, the first multiracial^[193] president with African-American ancestry, was elected in 2008 amid the financial crisis.^[194] By the end of his second term, the stock market, median household income and net worth, and the number of persons with jobs were all at record levels, while the unemployment rate was well below the historical average.^{[195][196][197][198][199]} His signature legislative accomplishment was the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as «Obamacare». It represented the U.S. health care system’s most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since Medicare in 1965. As a result, the uninsured share of the population was cut in half, while the number of newly insured Americans was estimated to be between 20 and 24 million.^[200] After Obama served two terms, Republican Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president in 2016. His election is viewed as one of the biggest political upsets in American history.^[201] Trump held office through the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting COVID-19 recession starting in 2020 that exceeded even the Great Recession earlier in the century.^[202]

The early 2020s saw the country become more divided, with various social issues sparking debate and protest. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 led to widespread civil unrest in urban centers and a national debate about police brutality and lingering institutional racism.^[203] The nationwide increase in the frequency of instances and number of deaths related to mass shootings added to the societal tensions.^[204] On January 6, 2021, supporters of the outgoing president, Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt the Electoral College vote count that would confirm Democrat Joe Biden as the 46th president.^[205] In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, causing another wave of protests across the country and stoking international reactions as well.^[206] The United States responded significantly to Russia and Belarus after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with the country applying harsh sanctions on Russia and sending tens of billions of dollars of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.^[207][208]

Geography

The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km²). Of this area, 2,959,064 square miles (7,663,940 km²) is contiguous land, composing 83.65% of total U.S. land area.^[209][210] About 15% is occupied by Alaska, a state in northwestern North America, with the remainder in Hawaii, a state and archipelago in the central Pacific, and the five populated but unincorporated insular territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.^[211] Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, and just ahead of Canada.^[212]

The United States is the world’s third- or fourth-largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and nearly equal to China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted, and how the total size of the United States is measured.^[b][213]

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont.^[214] The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest.^[215] The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world’s fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.^[215]

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.^[216] Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Chihuahua, Sonoran, and Mojave.^[217] The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast, both ranges also reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the state of California,^[218] and only about 84 miles (135 km) apart.^[219] At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska’s Denali is the highest peak in the country and in North America.^[220] 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 Rockies is the continent’s largest volcanic feature.^[221]

Climate

The United States, with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south.^[222]

The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida are tropical, as well as its territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific.^[223]

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 areas in the Midwest and South.^[224] Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country in the world.^[225]

Extreme weather has become more frequent in the U.S., with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. Of the ten warmest years ever recorded in the 48 contiguous states, eight have occurred since 1998. In the American Southwest, droughts have become more persistent and more severe.^[226]

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 more than 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.^[228] The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, and 295 amphibians,^[229] and 91,000 insect species.^[230]

There are 63 national parks which are managed by the National Park Service, and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas managed by it and other agencies.^[231] Altogether, the government owns about 28% of the country’s land area,^[232] mostly in the western states.^[233] Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching, and about .86% is used for military purposes.^[234][235]

Environmental issues include debates on oil and nuclear energy, dealing with air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife^{[further explanation needed]}, logging and deforestation,^[236][237] and climate change.^[238][239] The negative effects of environmental degradations have been found to be disproportionately concenstrated in areas populated by people of color.^{[240][241][242]} The most prominent environmental agency is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by presidential order in 1970.^[243] The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.^[244] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.^[245]

As of 2020, the U.S. ranked 24th among 180 nations in the Environmental Performance Index.^[246] The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016, and has many other environmental commitments.^[247] It withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2020^[248] but rejoined it in 2021.^[249]

Government and politics

The United States is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district, five territories and several uninhabited island possessions.^{[250][251][252]} It is the world’s oldest surviving federation, and, according to the World Economic Forum, the oldest democracy as well.^[253] It is a representative democracy «in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law.»^[254] Major democracy indexes uniformly classify the country as a liberal democracy.^[255] The 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index and Global Corruption Barometer rank the United States as having low levels of both actual and perceived corruption.^[256][257]

The U.S. Constitution serves as the country’s supreme legal document, establishing the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The Constitution has been amended 27 times;^[258] the first ten amendments (Bill of Rights) and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans’ individual rights. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review, and any law can be voided if the courts determine that it violates the Constitution. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was established by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803).^[259]

In the American federal system, sovereignty is shared between two levels of government: federal and state. Citizens of the states are also governed by local governments, which are administrative divisions of the states. The territories are administrative divisions of the federal government. Governance on many issues is decentralized, with widely differing state laws on abortion, cannabis, the death penalty, guns, economic policy, and other issues.^[260] States have increasingly restricted so-called «conversion therapy».^[261][262] Prostitution is only legal in several counties of Nevada.^[263] The death penalty is sanctioned for certain federal and military crimes.^[264] The country had a high per capita execution rate between the 1960s and 1990s, but execution rates and public support have fallen sharply since.^[265][266]

The United States has operated under an informal two-party system for most of its history, although other parties have run candidates.^[267] What the two dominant parties are has changed over time: the country is currently in either the Fifth or Sixth Party System. In current American political culture, the center-right Republican Party is considered «conservative» and the center-left Democratic Party is considered «liberal».^[268] Both parties have no formal central organization at the national level that controls membership, elected officials or political policies; thus, each party has traditionally had factions and individuals that deviated from party positions.^[269] Since the 2010s, the country has suffered from significant political polarization.^[270]

Federal government

The federal government comprises three branches, which are headquartered in Washington, D.C. and regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the Constitution.^[271]

• Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse,^[272] and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the federal government.^[273]
• Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law (subject to congressional override), and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies through their respective agencies.^[274]
• Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.^[275]

The lower house, the House of Representatives, has 435 voting members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population. Each state then draws single-member districts to conform with the census apportionment. The District of Columbia and the five major U.S. territories each have one member of Congress—these members are not allowed to vote.^[276]

The upper house, the Senate, has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at large to six-year terms; one-third of Senate seats are up for election every two years. The District of Columbia and the five major U.S. territories do not have senators.^[276] The Senate is unique among upper houses in being the most prestigious and powerful portion of the country’s bicameral system; political scientists have frequently labeled it the «most powerful upper house» of any government.^[277]

The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned to the states and the District of Columbia.^[278] The Supreme Court, led by the chief justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life. They are appointed by the sitting president when a vacancy becomes available.^[279]

Political subdivisions

Each of the 50 states holds jurisdiction over a geographic territory, where it shares sovereignty with the federal government. They are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and further divided into municipalities. The District of Columbia is a federal district that contains the capital of the United States, the city of Washington.^[280] Each state has an amount of presidential electors equal to the number of their representatives plus senators in Congress, and the District of Columbia has three electors.^[281] Territories of the United States do not have presidential electors, therefore people there cannot vote for the president.^[276]

Citizenship is granted at birth in all states, the District of Columbia, and all major U.S. territories except American Samoa.^{[m][285][282]} The United States observes limited tribal sovereignty of the American Indian nations, like states’ sovereignty. American Indians are U.S. citizens and tribal lands are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress and the federal courts. Like the states, tribes have some autonomy restrictions. They are prohibited from making war, engaging in their own foreign relations, and printing or issuing independent currency.^[286] Indian reservations are usually contained within one state, but there are 12 reservations that cross state boundaries.^[287]

Foreign relations

The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it had the world’s second-largest diplomatic corps in 2019.^[288] It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,^[289] and home to the United Nations headquarters.^[290] The United States is also a member of the G7,^[291] G20,^[292] and OECD intergovernmental organizations.^[293] Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host formal diplomatic missions with United States, except Iran,^[294] North Korea,^[295] and Bhutan.^[296] Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close, if unofficial, relations. The United States also regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression.^[297]

The United States has a «Special Relationship» with the United Kingdom^[298] and strong ties with Canada,^[299] Australia,^[300] New Zealand,^[301] the Philippines,^[302] Japan,^[303] South Korea,^[304] Israel,^[305] and several European Union countries (France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland).^[306] The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with nations 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.^[307] The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau through the Compact of Free Association.^[308] The U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began an invasion of Ukraine in 2022, significantly deteriorating relations with Russia in the process.^[309] The U.S. has also experienced a deterioration of relations with China and grown closer to Taiwan.^{[310][311][312]}

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 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.^[313] The United States spent $649 billion on its military in 2019, 36% of global military spending. At 4.7% of GDP, the percentage was the second-highest among all countries, after Saudi Arabia.^[314] It also has more than 40% of the world’s nuclear weapons, the second-largest after Russia.^[315]

In 2019, all six branches of the U.S. Armed Forces reported 1.4 million personnel on active duty.^[316] The Reserves and National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million.^[316] The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.^[317] Military service in the United States is voluntary, although conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System.^[318] The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces.^[319]

Today, American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force’s large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy’s 11 active aircraft carriers, and Marine expeditionary units at sea with the Navy, and Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps and 75th Ranger Regiment deployed by Air Force transport aircraft. The Air Force can strike targets across the globe through its fleet of strategic bombers, maintains the air defense across the United States, and provides close air support to Army and Marine Corps ground forces.^[320][321]

The Space Force operates the Global Positioning System (GPS, also widespread in civilian use worldwide), the Eastern and Western Ranges for all space launches, and the United States’s Space Surveillance and Missile Warning networks.^{[322][323][324]} The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad,^[325] and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.^[326]

Law enforcement and crime

There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to federal level in the United States.^[327] Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff’s offices. The state police provides broader services, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts’ rulings and federal laws.^[328] State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials,^[329] and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals from the state criminal courts.^[330]

As of 2020, the United States has an intentional homicide rate of 7 per 100,000 people.^[331] A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed that United States homicide rates «were 7.0 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher.»^[332]

As of 2023, the United States has the sixth highest documented incarceration rate and second-largest prison population in the world.^[333] In 2019, the total prison population for those sentenced to more than a year was 1,430,800, corresponding to a ratio of 419 per 100,000 residents and the lowest since 1995.^[334] Some think tanks place that number higher, such as Prison Policy Initiative’s estimate of 2.3 million.^[335] Various states have attempted to reduce their prison populations via government policies and grassroots initiatives.^[336]

Economy

According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) of $25.4 trillion constitutes 25% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and over 15% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).^[339][13] 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.^[340] The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP,^[341] second by GDP (PPP),^[13] seventh by nominal GDP per capita,^[339] and eight by GDP (PPP) per capita.^[13] The U.S. has been the world’s largest economy since at least 1900.^[342]

The United States is at or near the forefront of technological advancement and innovation^[343] in many economic fields, especially in artificial intelligence; computers; pharmaceuticals; and medical, aerospace and military equipment.^[344] The nation’s economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.^[345] It has the second-highest total-estimated value of natural resources, valued at US$44.98 trillion in 2019, although sources differ on their estimates. Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states.^[346] In 2013, they had the sixth-highest median household income, down from fourth-highest in 2010.^[347][348]

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.^[337] Several countries use it as their official currency and in others it is the de facto currency.^[352][353] The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are the world’s largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume.^[354][355]

The largest U.S. trading partners are China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, India, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.^[356] The U.S. is the world’s largest importer and the second-largest exporter.^[357] It has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA.^[358] The U.S. ranked second in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2019, after Singapore.^[359] Many of the world’s largest companies, such as Alphabet (Google), Amazon, AT&T, Apple, Coca-Cola, Disney, General Motors, McDonald’s, Nike, Meta, Microsoft, Pepsi, and Walmart, were founded and are headquartered in the United States.^[360] Of the world’s 500 largest companies, 124 are headquartered in the U.S.^[360]

While its economy has reached a post-industrial level of development, the United States remains an industrial power.^[361] As of 2018, the U.S. is the second-largest manufacturing nation after China.^[362] In 2013, the U.S. national debt to GDP ratio surpassed 100% when both debt and GDP were approximately $16.7 trillion.^[363]

Income and poverty

At US$69,392 in 2020, the United States was ranked first in the world by average yearly wage based on the OECD data, and it had the highest median income in the world at US$46,625 in 2021.^[365][366] Despite the fact that the U.S. only accounted for 4.24% of the global population, American citizens collectively possessed 30.2% of the world’s total wealth as of 2021, the largest percentage of any country.^[367] The U.S. also ranks first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires in the world, with 724 billionaires (as of 2021)^[368] and nearly 22 million millionaires (2021).^[369]

The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high-income countries.^[370] The U.S. ranked the 52nd highest in income inequality among 167 countries in 2014,^[371] and the highest compared to the rest of the developed world in 2018.^[372][373]

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%.^[374] Income inequality in the U.S. remains at record highs,^[375] with the top fifth of earners taking home more than half of all income^[376] and giving the U.S. one of the widest income distributions among OECD members.^[377] The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation^[378] and is one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right.^[379] The United States also has a higher percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed nation, largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at-risk workers.^[380]

There were about 567,715 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in January 2019, with almost two-thirds staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program.^[381] Attempts to combat homelessness include the Section 8 housing voucher program and implementation of the Housing First strategy across all levels of government.^[382]

In 2011, 16.7 million children lived in food-insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels, though only 845,000 U.S. children (1.1%) saw reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at some point during the year, and most cases were not chronic.^[383] As of June 2018, 40 million people, roughly 12.7% of the U.S. population, were living in poverty, including 13.3 million children. Of those impoverished, 18.5 million live in «deep poverty», family income below one-half of the federal government’s poverty threshold.^[373]

Science, technology, 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 U.S. to have large-scale manufacturing of sewing machines, bicycles, and other items in the late 19th century. In the early 20th century, factory electrification, the introduction of the assembly line, and other labor-saving techniques created the system of mass production.^[384] In the 21st century, approximately two-thirds of research and development funding comes from the private sector.^[385] In 2020, the United States was the country with the second-highest number of published scientific papers^[386] and second most patents granted,^[387] both after China. In 2021, the United States launched a total of 51 spaceflights. (China reported 55.)^[388] The U.S. had 2,944 active satellites in space in December 2021, the highest number of any country.^[389]

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison’s research laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera.^[390] The Wright brothers in 1903 made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight, and the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line in the early 20th century.^[391] The rise of fascism and Nazism in the 1920s and 30s led many European scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and John von Neumann, to immigrate to the United States.^[392] During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. During the Cold War, competition for superior missile capability ushered in the Space Race between the U.S. and Soviet Union.^[393][394] The great American technological breakthroughs of the 20th century stem from the invention of the transistor in the 1950s, a key component in almost all modern electronics, which led to the development of microprocessors, software, personal computers, and the Internet.^[395] In 2022, the United States ranked 2nd in the Global Innovation Index.^[396] The United States also developed the Global Positioning System, which is the world’s pre-eminent satellite navigation system.^[397]

As of 2019, the United States receives approximately 80% of its energy from fossil fuels.^[398] In 2019, the largest source of the country’s energy came from petroleum (36.6%), followed by natural gas (32%), coal (11.4%), renewable sources (11.4%) and nuclear power (8.4%).^[398] Americans constitute less than 5% of the world’s population, but consume 17% of the world’s energy.^[399] They account for about 25% of the world’s petroleum consumption, while producing only 6% of the world’s annual petroleum supply.^[400] The U.S. ranks as second-highest emitter of greenhouse gases, exceeded only by China.^[401]

Transportation

The United States’s rail network, nearly all standard gauge, is the longest in the world, and exceeds 293,564 km (182,400 mi).^[402] It handles mostly freight, with intercity passenger service provided by Amtrak to all but four states.^[403] The country’s inland waterways are the world’s fifth-longest, and total 41,009 km (25,482 mi).^[404]

Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of public roads, making it the longest network in the world.^[405][406] The United States became the first country in the world to have a mass market for vehicle production and sales, and mass market production process.^[407][408] It currently has the world’s second-largest automobile market by sales,^[409] and has the highest vehicle ownership per capita in the world, with 816.4 vehicles per 1,000 Americans (2014).^[410] In 2017, there were 255 million non-two wheel motor vehicles, or about 910 vehicles per 1,000 people.^[411]

The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned.^[413] 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.^[414] 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.^[415][416] Of the fifty busiest container ports, four are located in the United States, of which the busiest is the Port of Los Angeles.^[417]

Demographics

Population

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1790	3,929,326		—
1800	5,308,483		35.1%
1810	7,239,881		36.4%
1820	9,638,453		33.1%
1830	12,866,020		33.5%
1840	17,069,453		32.7%
1850	23,191,876		35.9%
1860	31,443,321		35.6%
1870	38,925,598		23.8%
1880	50,189,209		28.9%
1890	62,979,766		25.5%
1900	76,212,168		21.0%
1910	92,228,496		21.0%
1920	106,021,537		15.0%
1930	122,775,046		15.8%
1940	132,164,569		7.6%
1950	150,697,361		14.0%
1960	179,323,175		19.0%
1970	203,392,031		13.4%
1980	226,545,805		11.4%
1990	248,709,873		9.8%
2000	281,421,906		13.2%
2010	308,745,538		9.7%
2020	331,449,281		7.4%
2022 (est.)	333,287,557	[418]	0.6%
U.S. Decennial Census

The U.S. Census Bureau reported 331,449,281 residents as of April 1, 2020,^[n][419] making the United States the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India.^[420] According to the Bureau’s U.S. Population Clock, on January 28, 2021, the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 100 seconds, or about 864 people per day.^[421] In 2018, 52% of Americans age 15 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 32% had never been married.^[422] In 2020, the U.S. had a total fertility rate stood at 1.64 children per woman^[423] and the world’s highest rate (23%) of children living in single-parent households.^[424]

The United States of America has a diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members.^[425] 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.^[426][427] Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the nation’s third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total United States population.^[425] Asian Americans are the country’s fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population, while the country’s 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%.^[425] In 2020, the median age of the United States population was 38.5 years.^[420]

Immigration

According to the United Nations, the United States has the highest number of immigrant population in the world, with 50,661,149 people.^[428][429]

In 2018, there were almost 90 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for 28% of the overall U.S. population.^[430] 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.^[431] The United States led the world in refugee resettlement for decades, admitting more refugees than the rest of the world combined.^[432]

Language

English (specifically, American English) is the de facto national language of the United States. 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 English as the official language.^[433] Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English, including Hawaii (Hawaiian),^[434] Alaska (twenty Native languages),^[o][435] South Dakota (Sioux),^[436] American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English.^[437]

According to the American Community Survey, in 2010 some 229 million people (out of the total U.S. population of 308 million) spoke only English at home. More than 37 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language in the United States. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (2.8 million), Tagalog (1.6 million), Vietnamese (1.4 million), French (1.3 million), Korean (1.1 million), and German (1 million).^[438]

The most widely taught foreign languages in the United States, in terms of enrollment numbers from kindergarten through university undergraduate education, are Spanish (around 7.2 million students), French (1.5 million), and German (500,000). Other commonly taught languages include Latin, Japanese, American Sign Language, Italian, and Chinese.^[439][440]

Religion

Religious faith in the United States is diverse^[442] and vibrant,^[443] varying significantly by region^[444] and age.^[445]

The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment.^[446][447] A majority of Americans identify as Christian (predominately Catholic, mainline Protestant, or evangelical). However, most do not consider religion an important part of their life,^[448] do not regularly attend religious services,^[448] and have low confidence in religious institutions.^[449] According to the World Values Survey in 2017, the United States is more secular than the median country; they ranked the United States the 32nd least religious country in the world.^[450] Until the 1990s, the country was an outlier among highly developed countries: combining a high level of religiosity and wealth, although this has lessened since.^{[450][451][452][453]} The country has the world’s largest Christian population.^[454]

Gallup polls during the early 2020s found that about 81% of Americans believe in some conception of a God and 45% report praying on a daily basis.^{[455][456][457]} According to a poll by them in December 2022, «31% report attending a church, synagogue, mosque or temple weekly or nearly weekly today».^[457] In the «Bible Belt», which is located primarily within the Southern United States, socially conservative evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally. New England and the Western United States tend to be less religious.^[444] Around 6% of Americans claim a non-Christian faith;^[451] the largest of which are Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.^[458] The United States either has the first or second-largest Jewish population in the world, and the most outside of Israel.^[459] «Ceremonial deism» is common in American culture.^[446][460]

Around 30% of Americans describe themselves as having no religion.^[451] Membership in a house of worship fell from 70% in 1999 to 47% in 2020, much of the decline related to the number of Americans expressing no religious preference. Membership also fell among those who identified with a specific religious group.^[461][462] According to Gallup, trust in «the church or organized religion» has declined significantly since the 1970s.^[449] According to the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, younger Americans are significantly less religious. Among Generation Z, a near-majority consider themselves atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular.^[445]

Urbanization

About 82% of Americans live in urban areas, including suburbs;^[213] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.^[463] In 2008, 273 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.^[464] Many U.S. metropolitan populations are growing rapidly, particularly in the South and West.^[465]

Education

American public education is operated by state and local governments and regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. In most states, children are required to attend school from the age of five or six (beginning with kindergarten or first grade) until they turn 18 (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at 16 or 17.^[466] Of Americans 25 and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor’s degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.^[467] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.^[213][468]

The United States has many private and public institutions of higher education. The majority of the world’s top public and private universities (namely, research universities), as listed by various ranking organizations, are in the United States.^[469] There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition.^[470] The U.S. spends more on education per student than any nation in the world,^[471] spending an average of $12,794 per year on public elementary and secondary school students in the 2016–2017 school year.^[472] As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. spends more per student than the OECD average, and more than all nations in combined public and private spending.^[473] Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place,^[474] student loan debt has increased by 102% in the last decade,^[475] and exceeded 1.7 trillion dollars as of 2022.^[476]

The United States has by far the most Nobel Prize winners in history, with 403 (having won 406 awards), making it one of the world’s most educated and advanced nations.^[477]

Health

In a preliminary report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that U.S. life expectancy at birth had dropped to 76.4 years in 2021 (73.2 years for men and 79.1 years for women), down 0.9 years from 2020. This was the second year of overall decline, and the chief causes listed were the COVID-19 pandemic, accidents, drug overdoses, heart and liver disease, and suicides.^[479][480] Life expectancy was highest among Asians and Hispanics and lowest among Blacks and American Indian–Alaskan Native (AIAN) peoples.^[481][482] Starting in 1998, the average life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans’ «health disadvantage» gap has been increasing ever since.^[483] The U.S. also has one of the highest suicide rates among high-income countries,^[484] and approximately one-third of the U.S. adult population is obese and another third is overweight.^[485]

In 2010, coronary artery disease, lung cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and traffic collisions caused the most years of life lost in the U.S. Low back pain, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, neck pain, and anxiety caused the most years lost to disability. The most harmful risk factors were poor diet, tobacco smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, physical inactivity, and alcohol consumption. Alzheimer’s disease, substance use disorders, kidney disease, cancer, and falls caused the most additional years of life lost over their age-adjusted 1990 per-capita rates.^[486] Teenage pregnancy and abortion rates in the U.S. are substantially higher than in other Western nations, especially among blacks and Hispanics.^[487]

The U.S. health care system far outspends that of any other nation, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP but attains worse health care outcomes when compared to peer nations.^[488] The United States is the only developed nation without a system of universal health care, and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance.^[489] The U.S., however, is a global leader in medical innovation, measured either in terms of revenue or the number of new drugs and devices introduced.^[490][491]

Government-funded health care coverage for the poor (Medicaid, established in 1965) and for those age 65 and older (Medicare, begun in 1966) 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 or ACA,^[p][492] which the CDC said that the law roughly halved the uninsured share of the population^[493] and multiple studies have concluded that ACA had reduced the mortality of enrollees.^{[494][495][496]} However, its legacy remains controversial.^[497]

Culture and society

Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying belief in an «American creed» emphasizing liberty, equality under the law, democracy, social equality, property rights, and a preference for limited government.^[499] Individualism,^[500] having a strong work ethic,^[501] competitiveness,^[502] and altruism^[503][504] are also cited values. According to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans donated 1.44% of total GDP to charity, the highest in the world by a large margin.^[505] The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values,^[506][507] and exerts major cultural influence on a global scale.^[508][509] The country has been described as a society «built on a universalistic cultural frame rooted in the natural laws of science and human rights.»^[510]

The Declaration of Independence has become a well-known statement on human rights, particularly its second sentence: «We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.» Stephen Lucas called it «one of the best-known sentences in the English language»,^[511] with historian Joseph Ellis writing that the document contains «the most potent and consequential words in American history».^[512] The passage has since came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Lincoln, who considered it to be the foundation of his political philosophy and argued that it is a statement of principles through which the Constitution should be interpreted.^[513]: 126

Aside from the Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Native Alaskan populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated or were imported as slaves within the past five centuries.^[514] 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.^[506][515] 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.^[506] Nevertheless, there is a high degree of social inequality related to wealth.^[373] The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants.^[516] Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate.^[518][519] While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society,^[520] scholars identify significant differences between the country’s social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.^[521] Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition.^[522]

The United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country in the world under the First Amendment,^[523] with the Supreme Court ruling that flag desecration, hate speech, blasphemy, and lese-majesty are all forms of protected expression.^{[524][525][526]} A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured.^[527] They were also found to be the «most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the internet without government censorship.»^[528] It is a socially progressive country^[529] with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality.^[530] LGBT rights in the United States are among the most advanced in the world,^[531][530] with public opinion and jurisprudence on the issue having changed significantly since the late 1980s.^[532][533]

Literature and visual arts

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, American art and literature took most of their cues from Europe, contributing to Western culture. Writers such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century’s second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is recognized as an essential American poet.^[534]

In the 1920s, the New Negro Movement coalesced in Harlem, where many writers had migrated (some coming from the South, others from the West Indies). Its pan-African perspective was a significant cultural export during the Jazz Age in Paris and as such was a key early influence on the négritude philosophy.^[535]

There have been a multitude of candidates for the «Great American Novel»—works seen as embodying and examining the essence and character of the United States—including Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996).^{[536][537][538]}

Thirteen U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Louise Glück, Bob Dylan, and Toni Morrison.^[539] Earlier laureates William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck have also been recognized as influential 20th century writers.^[540]

In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the 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.^[541] Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new, individualistic styles.

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. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.^[542] Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, James Van Der Zee, and Ansel Adams.^[543]

Cinema and theater

The United States movie industry has a worldwide influence and following. Hollywood, a northern district of Los Angeles, California, is the leader in motion picture production and the most recognizable movie industry in the world.^{[544][545][546]} 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.^[547][548]

The world’s first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using the Kinetoscope.^[549] 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.^[550] The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929,^[551] and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944.^[552]

Director D. W. Griffith, an American filmmaker during the silent film period, was central to the development of film grammar, and producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising.^[553] Directors such as John Ford redefined the image of the American Old West, and, like others such as John Huston, broadened the possibilities of cinema with location shooting. The industry enjoyed its golden years, in what is commonly referred to as the «Golden Age of Hollywood», from the early sound period until the early 1960s,^[554] with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures.^[555][556] In the 1970s, «New Hollywood» or the «Hollywood Renaissance»^[557] was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period.^[558]

The 21st century has been marked by the rise of the American streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+, which came to rival traditional cinema.^[559][560]

Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater.^[561] The central hub of the American theater scene has been Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway.^[562] Many movie and television stars 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, with some works being produced regionally with hopes of eventually moving to New York. The biggest-budget theatrical productions are musicals. U.S. theater also has an active community theater culture, which relies mainly on local volunteers who may not be actively pursuing a theatrical career.^[563]

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.^[564]

Among America’s earliest composers was a man named William Billings who, born in Boston, composed patriotic hymns in the 1770s;^[565] Billings was a part of the First New England School, who dominated American music during its earliest stages. Anthony Heinrich was the most prominent composer before the Civil War. From the mid- to late 1800s, John Philip Sousa of the late Romantic era composed numerous military songs—particularly marches—and is regarded as one of America’s greatest composers.^[566]

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have significantly influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European and African traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s.^[567]

Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the pioneers of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. Rock bands such as Metallica, the Eagles, and Aerosmith are among the highest grossing in worldwide sales.^{[569][570][571]} In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America’s most celebrated songwriters.^[572] Mid-20th-century American pop stars such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra,^[573] and Elvis Presley became global celebrities,^[567] as have artists of the late 20th century such as Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey, all of whom rose to worldwide fame.^[574][575] American professional opera singers have reached the highest level of success in that form, including Renée Fleming, Leontyne Price, Jerome Hines and Nelson Eddy.

American popular music, as part of the wider U.S. pop culture, has a worldwide influence and following.^[576] Taylor Swift, Eminem, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West, and Pink are amongst the most notable contemporary American music artists.

Mass media

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.^[578] As of 2021, about 83% of Americans over age 12 listen to broadcast radio, while about 41% listen to podcasts.^[579] As of September 30, 2014, there are 15,433 licensed full-power radio stations in the U.S. according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).^[580] Much of the public radio broadcasting is supplied by NPR, incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.^[581]

Internationally well-known U.S. newspapers include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today.^[582] More than 800 publications are produced in Spanish, the second most commonly used language in the United States behind English.^[583][584] With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. 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 a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families. Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers, such as New York City’s The Village Voice or Los Angeles’ LA Weekly. The five most popular websites used in the U.S. are Google, YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo, and Facebook, with all of them being American companies.^[585]

The American video game industry is the world’s second-largest by revenue. Major publishers headquartered in the United States are Sony Interactive Entertainment, Take-Two, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, Epic Games, Valve, Warner Bros., Riot Games, and others.^[586][587] There are 444 publishers, developers, and hardware companies in California alone.^[588]

Cuisine

Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to such indigenous, non-European foods as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup. They and later immigrants combined these with foods they had known, such as wheat flour,^[590] beef, and milk to create a distinctive American cuisine.^[591][592] Homegrown foods are part of a shared national menu on one of America’s most popular holidays, Thanksgiving, when many Americans make or purchase traditional foods to celebrate the occasion.^[593]

The American fast food industry, the world’s largest,^[594] pioneered the drive-through format in the 1940s.^[595] Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, doughnuts, french fries, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants.^[596][597] Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.^[598]

Americans drink three times as much coffee as tea.^[599] Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk standard breakfast beverages.^[600][601]

American chefs have been influential both in the food industry and in popular culture. Some important 19th-century American chefs include Charles Ranhofer of Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York, and Bob Payton, who is credited with bringing American-style pizza to the UK. Later, chefs Charles Scotto, Louis Pacquet, John Massironi founded the American Culinary Federation in 1930, taking after similar organizations across Europe. In the 1940s, Chef James Beard hosted the first nationally televised cooking show I Love to Eat. His name is also carried by the foundation and prestigious cooking award recognizing excellence in the American cooking community.^[602] Since Beard, many chefs and cooking personalities have taken to television, and the success of the Cooking Channel and Food Network have contributed to the popularity of American cuisine. 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.^[603]

Sports

The most popular sports in the U.S. are American football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey.^[604]

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, some of which have become popular worldwide.^[605] Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact.^[606] The market for professional sports in the United States was roughly $69 billion in July 2013, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.^[607]

American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States;^[608] the National Football League (NFL) has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world, and the Super Bowl is watched by tens of millions globally.^[609] Baseball has been regarded as the U.S. national sport since the late 19th century, with Major League Baseball being the top league. Basketball and ice hockey are the country’s next two most popular professional team sports, with the top leagues being the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, which are also the premier leagues worldwide for these sports. The most-watched individual sports in the U.S. are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR and IndyCar.^[610][611] On the collegiate level, earnings for the member institutions exceed $1 billion annually,^[612] and college football and basketball attract large audiences, as the NCAA Final Four is one of the most watched national sporting events.^[613]

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.^[614] 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 2,959 medals (1,173 gold) at the Olympic Games, by far the most of any country.^{[615][616][617][618]} Unlike most other nations, the United States government does not provide funding for sports nor for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.^{[619][620][621][622]}

In soccer, the men’s national soccer team 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.^[623] The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup along with Canada and Mexico.

See also

• Index of United States–related articles
• Lists of U.S. state topics
• Outline of the United States

Notes

References

Further reading

Internet sources

External links

• United States. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
• United States from BBC News
• Key Development Forecasts for the United States from International Futures

Government

• Official U.S. Government Web Portal Gateway to government sites
• House Official site of the United States House of Representatives
• Senate Official site of the United States Senate
• White House Official site of the president of the United States
• Supreme Court Official site of the Supreme Court of the United States

History

• Historical Documents Collected by the National Center for Public Policy Research
• U.S. National Mottos: History and Constitutionality Archived November 19, 2022, at the Wayback Machine Analysis by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
• USA Collected links to historical data

Maps

Photos

• Photos of the USA

Coordinates: 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W

United States of America
Motto: In God We Trust (official) E Pluribus Unum (traditional) (Latin: Out of Many, One)
Anthem: «The Star-Spangled Banner»
Capital	Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883, -77.017
Largest city	New York City
Official language(s)	None at federal level[a]
National language	English (de facto)[b]
Demonym	American
Government	Federal presidential constitutional republic
—	President	Joe Biden
—	Vice President	Kamala Harris
—	Speaker of the House	Nancy Pelosi
—	Chief Justice	John Roberts
Legislature	Congress
—	Upper House	Senate
—	Lower House	House of Representatives
Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain
—	Declared	July 4, 1776
—	Recognized	September 3, 1783
—	Current constitution	June 21, 1788
Area
—	Total	9,833,520 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th) 3,796,742 sq mi
—	Water (%)	6.76
Population
—	2020 census	331,449,281[2] (3rd)
GDP (PPP)	2021 estimate
—	Total	$22.675 trillion[3] (2nd)
—	Per capita	$68,309[3] (7th)
GDP (nominal)	2021 estimate
—	Total	$22.675 trillion[3] (1st)
—	Per capita	$68,309[3] (5th)
Gini (2018)	41.4[4]
Currency	United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone	(UTC−5 to −10)
—	Summer (DST)	(UTC−4 to −10)
Date formats	m/d/yy (AD)
Drives on the	right
Internet TLD	.us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code	+1
^ a. English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of «official».[5] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii. ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. ^ c. Whether the United States or the People’s Republic of China is larger is disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country’s size include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, not the territories. ^ d. The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than 4 million U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States.

The United States of America—also referred to as the United States, the USA, the U.S., America,^[6] or (archaically) Columbia–is a federal republic of 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each of the 50 states has a high level of local autonomy under the system of federalism.

The United States was born as a nation with the Declaration of Independence made by the 13 colonies on July 4, 1776. It was recognized internationally by the Treaty of Paris (1783) after the defeat of British forces in the Revolutionary War. Its roots, however, begin in the seventeenth century, when British, Dutch, and German colonists began migrating to North America seeking freedom and economic opportunity. They included Puritans, Quakers, and others who wanted to freely practice their religion; many of these devout men and women thought of America as God’s «new Israel,» a place to build a godly society that would become a beacon of hope to the world. This can be called America’s Protestant root, one which has had a lasting impress on its identity. Equally important were the motives and hopes of people seeking economic freedom in a new land without the restrictions of European class society; they came, from the colonists of Jamestown (1609) to the later waves of immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The frontier would encourage this love of freedom and its endless possibilities; anyone, regardless of his or her background, could become wealthy by self-reliance and hard work under a system of free-market capitalism. America’s identity is thus rooted in the power of these two universal ideas – the exemplary society and the land of freedom and opportunity. In this it is unique among nations, which by and large base their identity on ethnicity or tribe: Germany for Germans, Japan for Japanese, and so on. The idea of America transcending ethnicity made it a successful multi-ethnic society.

From the beginning, slavery and racism have been the nemesis of the United States. Slavery, considered essential by plantation owners in the South, was reluctantly permitted in the Constitution, even though it contradicted the universal rights that were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and violated the Protestant conscience (as expressed in the Abolitionist movement). The struggle to establish full rights for all Americans would lead to a bloody Civil War (1861–1865) that abolished slavery, and a hundred years later the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. finally ended legal racial discrimination and set the U.S. on the course to becoming a genuinely color-blind society.

In the nineteenth century, the U.S. became an industrial power. The nation became a center for invention and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving are electricity, the telephone, the automobile, television, computers, the Internet, nuclear power, air travel, space travel, and genetic engineering. With its new-found might and its native idealism, in the twentieth century America took a major role on the world stage as a defender of democracy in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War (which included the Korean and the Vietnam Wars). In the twenty-first century, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has been acting as the world’s only superpower, and yet in the face of new challenges like the ambiguities of the War on Terrorism it is unsure of how to define its role in the world.

History

The European colonization of the Americas began after Christopher Columbus (re)discovered them in 1492. There is speculation that Norwegian expeditions to North America led by Leif Eriksson c. 1000 C.E. and the Chinese to South America c. 1421 predated Columbus. Yet the saga of the United States began with Columbus’s European discovery.

In the seventeenth century, many British, Dutch, and German colonists began migrating to North America seeking freedom and economic opportunity. In the North, many colonists included Puritans, Quakers, and others who wanted to freely practice their religion. Some thought of it as God’s new Israel and set out to build the Kingdom of God in America. In the South, many plantations were built to export agricultural products to Europe. In 1754, at the Albany Congress, Benjamin Franklin made the first serious proposal for a union of British colonies in North America. However, the colonists became increasingly frustrated by British rule and, in 1776, 13 colonies issued the Declaration of Independence. They formed a confederation of states in 1777, which was ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. This government failed because it was unable to raise revenues to pay for the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). George Washington called the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and after long debate, the United States Constitution was adopted in 1789, forming the world’s first constitutional federal republic. The young republic was confirmed after it survived British invasion in the War of 1812.

From the beginning, slavery has been the nemesis of the United States. The practice of slavery, considered essential by plantation owners in the South, was inherited from colonial rule. At the founding, it was reluctantly allowed by northerners with the hope that the practice would eventually be phased out. Some viewed it as denying people rights that were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. However, the practice continued in the South, and when efforts were made to expand the practice into new territories, and supported by the Supreme Court with the Dred Scott decision, it became an issue that helped precipitate the Civil War (1861–1865).

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, people seeking freedom and prosperity poured into the United States from Europe. New states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American continent, obtaining territories held by Spain, France, Mexico, Britain, and Russia. Many Native American nations were destroyed and resettled in the process. The U.S. became an industrial power as trade protection, banking reforms, and corporate legislation helped domestic companies expand. The country flexed its naval muscle in the Spanish-American War (1898), which led to the acquisition of overseas territories in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

The twentieth century has been termed «the American Century,» despite the hardships of the Great Depression (1929–1939). The nation became a center for invention and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving are electricity, the telephone, the automobile, television, computers, the Internet, nuclear power, air travel, space travel, and genetic engineering.

The United States took a major role on the world stage as the defender of democracy in World War I, World War II, the Cold War (which included the Korean and the Vietnam Wars), and the Gulf War. After World War II the United States emerged as one of two superpowers, the other being the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States was left as the world’s leading military power. It became involved in police actions and peacekeeping beginning in the 1990s, through United Nations actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, and Liberia, and NATO actions in Libya.

After terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. started a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and later a war in Iraq. These attempts to reign in Islamic fundamentalism and bring democracy and political stability to the Middle East by the use of military force have met with only limited success. They challenge the United States to rethink its role in the world and how it can best deal with an increasingly pluralistic world and an unlimited budget.

Vision of the Founding of the United States

The 13 colonies which formed the United States were based on different philosophies and religions within Western Civilization. Puritans settled in New England, Baptists in Rhode Island, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Roman Catholics in Maryland, Dutch Reformed in New York, and Episcopalians in Virginia. Unity among these religious faiths could only be achieved through a national philosophy that was general and tolerant.

Benjamin Franklin’s own philosophy paralleled that of the American founding. Born to a candlemaker in Puritan Boston, he became a wealthy self-made publisher, philosopher, and world-renowned scientist in Philadelphia, the most cosmopolitan city in the colonies, where free religious expression was cherished. Franklin personally donated money to every church in Philadelphia, to the revivalist preacher George Whitefield, and to the Jewish synagogue, under the philosophy that religion by whatever name promotes the moral rectitude and spiritual self-discipline required of a free people. Franklin also founded the American Philosophical Society. When Thomas Paine wanted to publish his manuscript on the errors and contradictions in Christianity and the Bible, Franklin told him to burn it because it was not constructive and could undermine the morality of the people.

While fighting a common enemy in the English crown, most people in the United States, regardless of religion, agreed that certain truths were universal and self-evident: that human beings were created equal and they desired life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was the sacred bedrock of their philosophy enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. They believed in a Creator whose laws governed the universe and they attempted to create a more perfect system of justice that reflected these universal laws. Based on their study of history, philosophy, and literature (the Bible, ancient Greece, Rome, and modern European philosophy), they developed a constitution that also emphasized personal freedom and responsibility, equal justice and checks and balances on power.

In the philosophy of the founders, families and religions in the private sphere, not the government, were responsible for the cultivation of citizens capable of self-governance and democracy. Checks and balances on power prevented anyone from abusing power and becoming a tyrant (like the king in England). No earthly authority was entitled to absolute power; that was left to the Creator. The Constitution also prevented any faith from being established as a national religion. This led to a very lively free market in religion.

A Special Role in the World

Many early Christian colonists believed that God would work through them to establish God’s sovereignty in America, that the Old World was in the clutches of Satan, and that America was reserved for the «last days,» when a «new heaven and a new earth» would appear. They were a «second Israel,» «God’s faithful remnant,» in a new land. Such biblical language was adapted to the unique situation in which these fervent believers found themselves building afresh and having these views reinforced in church sermons every Sunday. Many communities and towns were given biblical names like «New Canaan» in Connecticut, or theological terms like «Providence» in Rhode Island.

The theme of God’s Sovereignty corresponded to the Founders’ notion of a Supreme Being, whose laws governed the universe, and of which their laws were to be a reflection. This theme was present during the Constitutional Convention when Benjamin Franklin gave an impassioned speech urging delegates to put aside petty interests for the sake of future generations. For Franklin and others, they had a special chance to create a new model of government for the world. Jacksonian Democrats who spoke of expansion referred to the Manifest Destiny of the United States.

This founding philosophy first faced the test of slavery, which contradicted the principles of freedom and «unalienable rights» that America stands for. Strengthened by waves of Christian revivals in the 1840s, Americans in the North and West flocked to the cause of Abolitionism, generating the moral fervor that helped fuel the Civil War.

However, as popular theology in the nineteenth century shifted from the «Sovereignty of God» to the more limited Christocentic idea of the «Reign of Christ,» a number of Protestants attempted to challenge the more inclusive society envisioned by the Founders. Persecutions followed in which Freemasons and Deists, whose philosophy most closely corresponded to the more liberal founders, were publicly made to stand up in churches and renounce their belief. Roman Catholics were widely persecuted to the point where they felt they had to create private schools to protect their children.

In response, nineteenth-century liberals and transcendentalists, exemplified by Ralph Waldo Emerson, secularized the theme of the special role of the United States as a leader in human progress. The United States itself, rather than God, became the rescuer, the safe haven, and the land of hope. This theme is stamped in bronze on the Statue of Liberty with the poetic imagery of Emma Lazarus:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Beginning in the 1870s, progressivists, increasingly influenced by Darwinism and Marxism, lobbied for government social-welfare programs to supplement what they saw as inadequate programs run by the churches. Progressives, often with an atheistic faith, were as far to the left of the Enlightenment thinkers as Christian revivalists were to the right.

Meanwhile, the moral idealism of Protestantism continued to leaven American society. The popular theme promoted by the churches to the masses in this period of progressivism was perfectionism and the literal building of the Kingdom of God in America with a theology known as the social gospel. Orphanages and schools for poor workers, such as Hull House founded by Jane Addams, encouraged the ethic of compassion and solidarity with slum-dwellers as society industrialized. Andrew Carnegie and other business tycoons began the tradition of American philanthropy, based on the belief that their wealth was ultimately a gift of God and should be used according to the tenets of the Gospels. The moral crusading continued with Prohibitionists crusading against public intoxication.

The twentieth century saw America’s idealism channeled into safeguarding democracy abroad, through participation in World War I and World War II, as well as the Cold War. Fighting the evil represented by the Nazi regime, and later the communist regimes that were enslaving millions, gave Americans a sense that they were truly fulfilling the special role for which divine Providence had prepared the nation.

Yet, any certainty about America’s role in the world was undone in the late twentieth century by a «culture war» between the conservative right and the liberal left. Yet neither side’s narrow and partial philosophy that represented special interests was by itself capable of sustaining national life. The growth of the welfare state, decried by the right, and the influence of corporations on government, attacked by the left, gave an additional economic dimension to this conflict, that eventually came at the expense of the Middle Class. This led to the rise of a «Tea Party» that emphasized limited government and the virtues of thrift and self-reliance. Also at issue was America’s attitude towards the United Nations: many on the right see American exceptionalism as making it morally superior to the quarreling and corrupt UN system, while many on the left believe America should be a partner with the UN in creating a multilateral world order. Hence, even though the United States found itself the sole superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it became a nation deeply divided over its sense of purpose and place in the world.

Politics

There are three levels of government in the United States—federal, state, and local. All of these are elected by the American people.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government. The Constitution of the United States initially limited the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, printing money, controlling trade and relations between the states, and protecting human rights. However, the federal government has increasingly overstepped these bounds, especially in welfare and education. The federal government is made up of the Congress (the legislative branch), the President (the executive branch), and the Supreme Court (the judicial branch). These three branches were intended to supply checks and balances on each other.

The Congress is a bicameral lawmaking institution composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate, both of which meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The House has 435 representatives, also called congressmen and congresswomen, who are elected by the people of a congressional district to represent that district for a term of two years. The number of districts for each state depends on the size of the population of the state, but each state has at least one representative. During the 2000 United States census, the districts had an average size of about 640,000 people.

The Senate consists of 100 senators, who are also elected by the people of a state to represent that state for a term of six years. Each state has two senators, regardless of its size. The Constitution initially gave the power to elect senators to the state legislatures; the 17th Amendment (1913) transferred this ability to the people, eliminating an important check and balance on power between the two houses that the founders intended.

At the top of the executive branch is the President of the United States, who acts as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The President signs laws into action and can also issue pardons. He has few other Constitutional duties, among them being the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress periodically. Since counting began with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1862), U.S. Presidents have issued nearly 14,000 executive orders, which are like edicts or decrees. The Supreme Court has rarely challenged the practice, and it has become a common way for the president to increase his power.

Congress has its own ways of checking the powers of an excessively imperial President through its control of the budget and appropriations, through the Senate’s role in the approval process of cabinet appointments, by holding congressional hearings to expose presidential wrongdoings, and by its power to impeach the President and other high officials in the executive branch.

Below the President is the Vice President, who is first in line of succession and is the President of the Senate, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. Both of these are elected by the people via an electoral college for four-year terms.

Next are the members of the Cabinet. These are positions created by the President to assist in performing his or her executive duties. The departments they head include the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department.

The Constitution instructed the Congress to establish a Supreme Court and inferior courts as necessary. The Supreme Court initially had six justices and its number stabilized at nine in 1869. The Supreme Court was intended to interpret the law and to decide on conflicts between states. A case could be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there was a federal question, the supreme court of a state was to be the final authority on the interpretation of that state’s laws and constitution, which governed relations among citizens of states. The Supreme Court can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions.

Some have complained that the Supreme Court sometimes exceeds its Constitutional mandate by de facto creating laws, not just interpreting them. For example, after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment (1868) was passed for the purpose of guaranteeing the rights of former slaves. However, it has primarily been used to give the federal government authority on economic and social matters that the founders had intended to be the jurisdiction of states. On the other hand, the President and/or Congress can reign in a court that they regard as excessively activist through the process of appointing new justices to fill vacancies on the Court.

Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law.

State and local governments

The state governments have the greatest influence over people’s daily lives. Each state originally had citizens from different religious and cultural backgrounds. Each has its own written constitution and has different laws. The highest elected official of each state is the governor. Each state also has an elected legislature with one or two houses, whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system.

The institutions responsible for local government at the town, city, or county levels make laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, zoning and land use, and law enforcement. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor.

Foreign relations

The Constitution gave the president the authority to conduct foreign policy. In his Farewell Address, George Washington stated that the United States should form no alliances and should seek good trade relations with all nations. Except for expansion within North America, the United States adhered to this policy until the 1890s. At that time the United States began to build up a navy for the purpose of guaranteeing secure trade routes overseas. Shortly thereafter the U.S. began to exercise its muscle in «gunboat diplomacy,» taking Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War (1898). The United States has had peaceful relations with Canada, its largest trading partner, throughout its history.

At the end of the nineteenth century, many Americans began to support international institutions for world peace. Andrew Carnegie donated funds to build a house for the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Theodore Roosevelt supported the use of the Court to settle a dispute between Japan and Russia. However, Roosevelt refused to allow the Hawaiians to bring the United States to the Court to discuss the occupation of Hawaii. The United States eventually allied with France and Britain in World War I, motivated by the ideal of safeguarding democracy. After World War I, President Woodrow Wilson lobbied Europe for fairer treatment of Germany and support for a League of Nations; however, the country returned to isolationism until Hitler had taken much of Europe and Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. After World War II, the United States was a key player in the formation of the United Nations. It was a time when America was at the peak of influence around the world, as the exemplar of democracy and freedom, and having demonstrated generosity even to its former enemies Germany and Japan.

During World War II the United States developed a large military supply industry that it continued to expand as an arms race with the Soviet Union continued through the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower. However, rather than enjoying its status, perceived unilateralism and inconsistency in U.S. foreign policy has led to growing suspicion around the world.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the 13 colonies were for a brief time each nation-states modeled after the European states of the time. However, with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, they surrendered certain powers to the federal government but retained the majority of legislative authority for themselves. In the following years, the number of states within the U.S. grew steadily due to Western expansion, the conquest and purchase of lands by the national government, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. By the end of the Civil War, the Union had become a nation-state in its own right, while the states had lost most of their autonomy. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities, and townships. Several autonomous territories, or reservations, have been set aside for Native Americans by treaty.

The United States also holds several other territories, districts and possessions, notably the District of Columbia, which is the nation’s capital, and several overseas possessions, the most significant of which are Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The United States has held a Naval Base at an occupied portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government claims a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or U. S. abandonment of the area can terminate. The Cuban government disputes this arrangement.

Military

The armed forces of the United States of America consist of:

• United States Army
• United States Marine Corps
• United States Navy
• United States Air Force
• United States Coast Guard

The combined U.S. Armed Forces consists of 1.4 million active duty personnel along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and National Guard. There is currently no conscription. The U.S. Armed Forces is the most powerful military in the world and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other single nation.

Geography

The United States is located primarily in central North America. It has land borders with Canada and Mexico, as well as several territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, Cuba, and The Bahamas. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Straits of Florida. Two of the 50 states, Alaska and Hawaii, are not contiguous with any of the other states. The United States also has several territories and possessions around the world.

As the world’s third-largest country (by total area), the U.S. landscape varies greatly: temperate forestland and rolling hills on the East Coast, mangrove in Florida, the Great Plains in the center of the country, the Mississippi–Missouri river system, the Great Lakes which are shared with Canada, the Rocky Mountains west of the plains, deserts and temperate coastal zones west of the Rocky Mountains and temperate rain forests in the Pacific Northwest. Alaska’s tundra and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic and climatic diversity.

The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Much of the American South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the eastern Great Plains to the semiarid shortgrass prairies on the High Plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the American Southwest from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of the American West, particularly Southern California, have a Mediterranean climate. Rain forests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

The political geography is notable as well, with the Canadian border being the longest undefended border in the world, and with the country being divided into three distinct sections: The continental United States, also known as the lower 48; Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada; and the archipelago of Hawaii in the central Pacific Ocean.

Important Cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including several important global cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C.

There are 52 metropolitan areas with populations greater than one million.^[7]

Economy

History of United States Economy

The economy of the United States began with two distinct visions. Thomas Jefferson envisioned a society of farmers, tradesmen, and artisans with family businesses. This model appealed to the colonists who had thrown tea in Boston Harbor in what has been called the first protest against globalization. The East India Company and Hudson’s Bay Company were viewed as tools of oppression used by King George III against the colonists. Jefferson wanted protection from corporations built into the Bill of Rights. Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists aspired to a more capitalist economy modeled after England.

During its first 60 years, the United States was very ambivalent towards banks and corporations. In 1829, President Andrew Jackson closed the federal bank. Most states kept corporations on a tight leash, often only allowing those that existed for a public purpose, and then limiting their charters to 20 years.

Originally federal revenues were raised through tariffs on trade. These tariffs protected industry in the North and allowed them to flourish in a market where domestic goods could enjoy more profit yet be cheaper to the American consumer than foreign products. The tariffs, on the other hand, hurt the South, whose products were exported. Foreign countries imposed tariffs on Southern agricultural products like cotton in retaliation for American tariffs. Great debates, such as the one between Henry Clay and John Calhoun, persuaded many Southerners that they had to secede from the Union or perish economically.

After the Civil War, American industrialists gained increasing influence on the U.S. economy. By 1870 many corporate lawyers had become Supreme Court justices; they changed laws to be more favorable for industry. In 1886 in Santa Clara County vs. the Southern Pacific Railroad, corporations were given personhood with many of the same rights and protections as individual citizens. By the 1890s corporations were pushing for a navy to escort the shipment of products abroad, and a few years later they reversed their position on tariffs and advocated their substitution with income taxes to make U.S. products more affordable in foreign markets.

Capitalists continued to influence U.S. politics until the Great Depression, when unregulated investment schemes, overpriced stocks, and overextended banks led to an economic collapse. In the 1930s, with the New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted more government regulation, such as founding the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and social welfare programs like Social Security and unemployment benefits. The welfare state gradually expanded, placing a greater burden on taxpayers through the Carter administration in the late 1970s. High inflation and interest rates as much as 20 percent on home loans prompted the Reagan «supply side» economic revolution of 1980, which led to an undoing of much industrial regulation and a dramatic growth in the economy, paving the way for U.S. leadership in globalization of the world economy.

However, corporate greed and unwise government laws, often based on collusion with special interests, led to corporate scandals and economic bubbles, like the U.S. housing bubble that collapsed in 2008. This bubble was also related to parallel tends in subsidized lending and over-building in Western Europe.

Resources

The United States has rich mineral resources, with extensive gold, oil, coal, and uranium deposits. Successful farm industries rank the country among the top producers of, among others, corn, wheat, sugar, and tobacco. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces, among other things, cars, airplanes, and electronics. The largest sector of the economy now is the service sector; about three-quarters of U.S. residents are employed in that sector.

Regional Variations

Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as “the breadbasket of America” for their tremendous agricultural output, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the southeastern U.S. is a major hub for medical research, as well as many of the nation’s textiles manufacturers.

Transportation

To link its vast territories, the United States has built a network of roads, of which the most important aspect is the Interstate highway system. Americans are renowned for their «car-crazy» lifestyle and the sprawling car-oriented design of their cities. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system that is used for moving freight across the lower 48 states.

Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 km) away, and some airports, such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and O’Hare International Airport, are among the busiest in the world. There are several major seaports in the United States, including New York City; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; and Seattle, Washington, plus Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii outside the contiguous 48 states.

The United States and the World Economy

Several countries have linked their currency to the dollar (such as the People’s Republic of China), or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided in recent years.

The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (20 percent), followed by Mexico (12 percent), China (Mainland 10 percent, Hong Kong 1 percent) and Japan (8 percent). More than 50 percent of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third-most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40.4 million visitors ranked behind France’s 75 million and Spain’s 52.5 million.

Demographics

The United States is the third most-populous country in the world, behind China and India. It has been bolstered by waves of immigration, especially from Europe in the nineteenth century, and from Latin America and Asia in the twentieth century.

Ethnicity and race

Americans, in part due to categories decided by the U.S. government, generally describe themselves as being one of five ethnic groups: White, also called Caucasian; African-American, also called Black; Hispanic, also called Latino; Asian-American, frequently specified as Chinese American, Indian American, Korean American, Vietnamese American, etc.; and Native American, also called American Indian.

White

The majority of the people currently living in the United States descend from European immigrants who have arrived since the establishment of the first colonies. Major components of the European segment of the U.S. population are descended from immigrants from Germany, Ireland, England, Italy, Scandinavia, and many immigrants also coming from Slavic countries. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada; few immigrants came directly from France.

Hispanic

While there were few immigrants directly from Spain, Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are considered the largest minority group in the country. This has brought increasing use of the Spanish language in the United States. The «Hispanic» category is based more on language than race and is defined by the Census as anybody from or with forebears from Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America, so Hispanics may be of any race.

African American

A growing minority of the American people are African Americans, most of whom are descendants of the enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. from the 1620s into the nineteenth century. Starting in the 1970s, the black population has been bolstered by immigration from the Caribbean, especially Jamaica and Haiti; more recently, starting in the 1990s, there has been an influx of African immigrants to the United States due to the instability in political and economic opportunities in various nations in Africa.

Asian American

A third significant minority is the Asian American population, most of whom are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. It is by no means monolithic; the largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan.

Native American

The aboriginal population of Native Americans, known as American Indians and Inuit, make up about 1.5 percent of the population.

Language

The United States does not have an official language at federal level; however, English is the language of the government and is spoken by the majority of the population.

Twenty-seven individual states have adopted English as their official language, and three of those—Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico—have also adopted Hawaiian, French and Spanish as their official languages, respectively. Spanish follows English as the second most-spoken language in the United States due to the influence of the mass waves of (often illegal) Mexican immigrants in recent decades, and is becoming a primary language in some areas of the Southwest. The primarily signed language is American Sign Language (ASL).

Religion

According to surveys in 2017, about three-quarters of Americans identify with a Christian faith.^[9] The distribution for major religions in the United States was estimated as follows: 73.0 percent Christian, 21.3 percent Unaffiliated, 2.1 percent Jewish, 0.8 percent Muslim, 2.9 percent Other.

The United States stands out among industrialized nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. This is in part due to the separation of church and state. Not supported by the state, religious leaders must go beyond tradition and compete to serve the spiritual needs of their congregations or lose their financial support. Nearly 44 percent of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt–composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast.

Class

In terms of relative wealth, most U.S. residents enjoy a standard of personal economic wealth that is far greater than that known in most of the world. However, there is also a considerable amount of poverty in the United States.

The social structure of the United States is somewhat stratified, with a significant class of very wealthy individuals, who are often alleged to hold disproportionate cultural and political influence. On one widely used measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, the United States has the highest inequality of any wealthy country, and that inequality is growing. Nevertheless, ideas of social mobility figure prominently in the American Dream, which holds that someone born into a poor family can, through hard work, ultimately rise into the upper classes. There is much debate over how often this actually occurs in modern American society, both compared with earlier eras and with other developed nations.

Society and Culture

Overview

The United States began with diverse groups of people with different social and cultural interests and goals living in different states. The Constitution left the creation of positive social goals and the solution to issues to the individual states, for citizens to work out in their own way. Instead, it created restraints on social policies through the provisions of the Bill of Rights: freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, freedom of religion, trial by jury, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment. The formation of national media, the common struggle for independence, commercial exchange, and internal migration led to a gradual homogenization of the national culture and the formation of common national goals. Over the years, national goals and social policies have evolved that often conflict with the original freedoms and responsibilities envisioned by the founders of United States for its citizens.

Protection of Rights and Freedoms

Slavery stood as an obvious contradiction to the ideal that all people deserve equal treatment under the law. After the Civil War, the greatest catalyst for the formation of national identity, the 14th Amendment was passed, allowing the Federal Supreme Court to make decisions related to the rights of individuals relative to state governments. This legislation was passed for the protection of former slaves. Following on the 14th Amendment, many anti-discrimination and reverse-discrimination laws have been passed in an attempt to promote justice for minority groups. Some examples of these are the Civil Rights Acts, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and hate crime legislation.

The 14th Amendment has led to federal intrusions into state affairs in many other ways as well, to the chagrin of those who value states’ rights. However, the sorry record of the states in protecting civil rights in the past seemed to justify these intrusions. Today many Americans expect the Supreme Court to make decisions on controversial social issues that divide the nation, such as abortion, to protect the rights of women or the unborn, and euthanasia, to protect the rights of the elderly. Where there is no national consensus on these matters, such rulings can create dissatisfaction.

Despite high ideals, the United States has at times been criticized for violations of human rights, including racial discrimination, police brutality, unwarranted incarceration, and the imposition of the death penalty in some states. Groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized human rights abuses in the United States, most recently at the U.S.-run detention camps in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba). There is increasing concern about the potential for surveillance of computer records to erode human rights and liberties.

These criticisms show that law alone is incapable of guaranteeing human rights. Civil and responsible individual and group behavior, which includes love and respect for others, is essential for the guarantee of human rights in a democracy. The founders of the United States expected families, churches, and schools in the private sector to produce such people. Such moral education is a necessary counterpart to law in a free society.

Education

Today in the United States, all students must attend mandatory schooling from kindergarten through 12th grade. Parents may send their children to a public school, which is free, or to a private school, where parents must pay tuition. Public schools are highly decentralized, with funding and curriculum decisions taking place mostly at the local level through school boards.

Early in the history of the United States there was no requirement for children to attend school. As an agrarian society, schooling was not required to earn a livelihood, unless one was to become a teacher, lawyer, or minister. Apprenticeships were common in preparation for a skilled trade. Reading was usually taught so that one could read the religious texts that would help guide one to a responsible moral life.

The push for public education came from industrial leaders in the mid-nineteenth century as they tired of providing support for private schools that could provide a basic education for employees in need of greater skills for industry, such as math, accounting, science, and drawing. Political leaders like Horace Mann also advocated public education as a method of creating good United States citizens. From the beginning, public education has been fraught with moral and religious controversies over what “good” values are for citizens and what constitutes «truth.» On the frontier, many teachers of one-room schoolhouses were Christians who openly taught Protestantism. Discrimination against Catholics became so widespread that they set up an entire parallel school system.

Generally, until the 1960s, a «civil religion,» which supported a belief in God and Country, prevailed. The counter-cultural movement, which solidified in the 1960s, promoted a secular, if not anti-religious, worldview for public schools, one which opposed civil religion in education. This caused many parents to feel that public schools had been politically co-opted and that they undermined the values of religion and citizenship they were teaching their children at home. This led to increased home schooling, the formation of private schools, and new experiments with charter schools in which parents could feel more comfortable with what their children were being taught.

Public education is still a much politicized and highly emotional issue in the United States, with citizens very divided over the purpose and content of public education.

The United States is a great center of higher education, boasting more than 4,000 universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning, the top tier of which may be considered to be among the most advanced in the world. Many foreign students study in the United States, both bringing their culture with them, and taking American culture back to their home nations. Universities in the United States range from prestigious Harvard University (founded in 1636) to the local community colleges, where most people can get a post-secondary education at a much lower cost. In the twentieth century, with increases in jobs requiring higher education, it became more popular to send children to college. However, only 25 percent of jobs in the United States require college degrees.

Popular Culture

Nearing the midpoint of its third century of nationhood, the U.S. plays host to the gamut of human intellectual and artistic endeavor in nearly every major city, offering classical and popular music; historical, scientific, and art research centers and museums; dance performances, musicals, and plays; outdoor art projects; and internationally significant architecture.

In most traditional societies the state religion or authoritarian ruler has enforced a particular vision of culture «from above.» The freedom of expression in United States has allowed for the widespread development of popular culture, or culture «from below.» Singers, artists, writers, and sports players compete for audiences that will be attracted to their various forms of cultural expression. Popular culture is also a boon to national media, which gain by promoting these various forms of expression.

The original 13 colonies were permeated with culture promoted by elite social leaders. In the North, many colonists came seeking to build societies based on religious principles. In the South, the aristocracy promoted family, civil behavior, good manners, and loyalty to the government. These cultural values helped create the self-directed and self-restrained behavior needed by a democracy. Traditional religious and social leaders often lament that popular culture undermines the values necessary to promote a healthy society.

U.S. culture has a large influence on the rest of the world. This influence is often criticized as cultural imperialism by those who feel their own traditional values are being displaced by a popular hedonistic culture that does not promote good citizenship. Popular culture tests behavioral limits. Thirty years after the free sex and drugs associated with the 1960s, social scientists have shown these behaviors to be self-destructive and socially destructive. However, the freedom of expression in the United States has also given birth to new cultural elements that have made a lasting contribution to civilization.

Music

U.S. music, «good» or «bad,» is heard all over the world, and it is the sire of such forms as blues and jazz and had a primary hand in the shaping of modern rock and roll and popular music culture. Many great Western classical musicians and ensembles find their home in the U.S. New York City is a hub for international operatic and instrumental music as well as world-famed Broadway plays and musicals, while Seattle and the rest of Washington is a world leader in the grunge and heavy metal music industries, as well as the visual arts and various media in fantasy. New York, Seattle, and San Francisco are worldwide leaders in graphic design, and New York and Los Angeles compete with major European cities in the fashion industry. Several forms of electronic music originated from the United States. This includes house from Chicago, techno from Detroit, and garage from New York.

Movies

U.S. movies (primarily embodied in Hollywood) and television shows can be seen almost anywhere. This is in stark contrast to the early days of the republic, when the country was viewed by Europeans as an agricultural backwater with little to offer the culturally «advanced» world centers of Asia and Europe. Since the mid-twentieth century, cinema and television have supplanted both the novel and the theater as the primary literary vehicles for conveying a story; and creative efforts in both these media are dominated by the United States.

Sports

Some sports that originated or evolved in the United States, particularly baseball, basketball and American football, have achieved a worldwide audience; the Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League, is one of the most-watched broadcasts in the world, with viewership far outnumbering the total American population. Baseball is extremely popular in Latin American nations and Southeast Asia, and football has had some success in expanding to Europe (NFL Europe). However, few «foreign» sports like hockey have caught on in America; attempts to create professional soccer (football) leagues have struggled, and cricket and rugby are not played at any professional level.

The United States hosts some of the premier events in other sports such as golf (including The Masters), tennis (U.S. Open), and auto racing (particularly the Indianapolis 500). It has also hosted the World Cup in 1994, and has hosted eight Olympiads, more than any other nation.

Challenges for the United States

Law and an Aging Society

The United States suffers from an accumulation of law, as have other aging societies such as the Roman Empire in the third century C.E. Sometimes antiquated laws remain in effect that complicate or even contradict newer laws, creating several layers of law over time. The principles of justice that legitimated the nation at the time of its founding are sometimes obscured by more recent laws designed to shift money or wealth from one person or group to another, causing allegations of injustice. Laws have also been passed, designed to protect individual rights that complicate trials by imposing procedures and rules of evidence that shield a jury from truth and create more work for lawyers, making trials more lucrative. Rules and procedures have been devised by Congress to pass legislation secretly or obfuscate it, through committees or omnibus legislation containing irrelevant «pork.» These procedures reduce transparency and the accountability of members of Congress. In a similar manner, the Supreme Court has ruled on laws and amendments, developing a body of interpretation that becomes enforceable and thus reduces the realm of individual or state freedom on those issues. Over time, the creation of Cabinet posts with a weighty bureaucracy, executive orders, the promulgation of doctrine in foreign policy, and homeland security measures have aged the executive branch into a complicated and expensive arm of the government that places a tax burden on citizens and reduces their freedom. These agencies often work at cross-purposes, unnecessarily duplicate the efforts of one another, or remain in existence after they are no longer needed. These combined effects of aging reduce the legitimacy of government in the eyes of those who suffer injustice or a lack of freedom as a result of them. These problems caused the Roman Empire to eventually become a police state; and the United States must work hard to make the laws and the machinery of its government reflect the principles of justice for which it stands in order to remain legitimate in the eyes of its citizens and the world at large.

Economic Challenges

Moving from a population in which 80 percent were subsistence farmers to one in which 60 percent were industrial workers brought a Great Depression and hardship as the society was forced to adjust to industrial development. A similar shift began in the 1960s and is being completed with outsourcing, robotic production processes, and economies of scale that reduce the amount of industrial labor needed to a small percentage of the U.S. population. Today, with over 75 percent of jobs in the service sector, Americans must find ways to provide useful goods or services to others without relying on either farmland or a job as an industrial laborer. This requires an appropriate shift in education and entrepreneurship.

The U.S. economy also suffers from its disproportional involvement in production of military hardware dating back to the war economy of World War II. A development that President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex involved collusion between the military and industry to direct significant portions of the federal budget toward new military technology regardless of proven national need. Today the United States suffers some of the same problems faced by the Soviet Union just before its collapse. The heavy weight of a military economy tempts the nation toward empire in foreign policy, making new enemies as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and causing a spiral that at some point may become unsustainable. Other nations, notably in Europe and Asia, are developing peace-time economies based on goods and services used by citizens in daily life, giving them long-term economic advantages over the United States amid predictions that China will overtake the United States as the leading economic power of the twenty-first century.

A significant challenge for the United States is its national debt. It has not gone down, in absolute terms, in any single year since the Eisenhower administration in 1960. Since then, under both democratic and republican governments, social programs and military spending caused the national debt to balloon to over $125,000 per family in 2005. Lack of national fiscal control is a cultural and moral problem as well as an economic challenge.

Issues related to social security, welfare, education, gambling, health insurance, and corporate welfare are issues now in the hands of state governments and the federal government. These issues have been shaped by political pressure and bureaucratic expansion rather than reason or market forces. Social issues were all originally left to families, communities, and religious groups by the founding fathers; today these same issues have become often selfish demands converted to so-called entitlements, which governments have been unable to provide economically or shape efficient and workable policy over. A grave sense of inequity and unfairness is often perceived by some groups in existing policies. The negative effects of slavery still haunt the United States as social and educational inequalities continue in other forms. Motivated by their «bottom line,» corporations and many wealthier taxpayers seek to eliminate social services altogether and return them to the private sphere, where failure occurred in the past. Those seeking or dependent on government social services, on the other hand, make demands without regard to their necessity or cost. A genuinely whole and workable view is seldom promoted through the two-party system, which reflects one interest or the other but not a broad view of society as a whole. Genuine facts and figures must be brought together with appropriate responsibility and market forces at all levels. It is a major challenge to the political system as it exists.

Foreign Policy Challenges

The twentieth century saw America’s sense of exceptionalism – the Puritan and biblical image of «a light to the nations,» channeled into safeguarding democracy abroad, through participation in World War I and World War II, as well as the Cold War. Apparent clarity about America’s role in the world, however, was undone in the late twentieth century by a «culture war» between the conservative right and the liberal left. Conservatives held to a vision of America’s moral superiority, and its duty to remake the world in its image. Progressives and leftists saw the hubris in such a position, and pointed to America’s warts and foibles, epitomized in the expression «ugly American.» This conflict began in earnest with the Vietnam War, when many became disillusioned with the apparent corruption of the South Vietnamese regime which America was propping up in the name of anti-Commumism. The debate surfaced again over the role America should play in the United Nations, as many on the right viewed the United States as morally superior to the quarreling and corrupt UN system, while many on the left believed that America should be a partner with the UN in creating a multilateral world order. The dominance of corporate interests and their foreign policy goals, such as safeguarding the nations’ need for oil, gave an additional economic dimension to this conflict.

In the twenty-first century this questioning of America’s role in the world continued with the perceived misadventure in the Iraq war. Even though the United States had the satisfaction of finding itself the sole superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (thus seemingly confirming the moral superiority of its democratic system), it is a nation deeply divided over its sense of purpose and place in the world. Hence, its foreign policy has been rendered largely reactive of events, unable to project a positive national image or purpose. Perceived unilateralism and inconsistency in U.S. foreign policy has led to growing suspicion around the world. Overcoming this challenge will require Americans to harness their idealism to the service of humanity recognizing the diversity of global cultures, while resisting the temptation to simplistic military «solutions.»

Federal holidays

Date	Name	Remarks
January 1	New Year’s Day	Beginning of year, marks the traditional end of «holiday season.»
January, third Monday	Martin Luther King, Jr. Day	Honors the late civil rights leader. Few organizations outside federal and state governments grant time off for this holiday, though many colleges and universities observe the day with special events and canceled classes.
February, third Monday	Presidents’ Day	Honors former U.S. presidents, especially Washington and Lincoln, who both share February birthdays. Few organizations outside federal and state governments grant time off for this holiday.
May, last Monday	Memorial Day	Honors servicemen and women who died in service; also marks the traditional beginning of summer.
July 4	Independence Day	Usually called the Fourth of July. Celebrates the United States’ independence from Great Britain, formally declared on this date in 1776.
September, first Monday	Labor Day	Celebrates achievements of workers. This holiday is held instead of the traditional worldwide Labor Day, May 1, which actually began in the U.S. Also marks the traditional end of summer.
October, second Monday	Columbus Day	Honors Christopher Columbus, traditional discoverer of the Americas. Somewhat controversial, and few organizations outside federal and state governments grant time off for this holiday.
November 11	Veterans’ Day	Previously known as Armistice Day, it honors those who have served in the military. Also marks the end of World War I in 1918. Traditional observation of a moment of silence at 11 a.m. in remembrance of military service members occurs.
November, fourth Thursday	Thanksgiving	Day of thanks that marks the traditional beginning of the «holiday season.» The day before Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest travel day of the year in the U.S., and the day after is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year, known as «Black Friday.»
December 25	Christmas and Winter Solstice	Celebration of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. In recent years, there has also been an effort to relate this holiday to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Over time, it has returned to a more secular winter solstice holiday outside of religious communities, with many non-Christians and non-observant Christians feasting, and buying and exchanging traditional Christmas gifts. Most retailers count on the Christmas holiday to provide a significant portion of their total annual sales.

• The above days are those in which federal employees are given a day off work. There are many other legal national holidays, including: Administrative Professionals’ Day (Wednesday, last full week of April), Law Day (May 1), Teacher’s Day (Tuesday, first full week of May), Mother’s Day (second Sunday in May), Maritime Day (May 22), Armed Forces Day (third Saturday in May), Flag Day (June 14), Father’s Day (third Sunday in June), Parent’s Day (fourth Sunday in July), Aviation Day (August 19), Grandparent’s Day (first Sunday after Labor Day), Patriot Day (September 11), Constitution Day (September 17), Navy Day (October 27), and Pearl Harbor Day (December 7).

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Anderson, Gordon L. Philosophy of the United States: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2004. ISBN 1557788448.
• Cherry, Conrad, ed. God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of America’s Destiny. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. ISBN 0807847542.
• Deneen, Patrick J. Democratic Faith. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN 069111871X.
• Gray, Kenneth R., Larry A. Frieder, and George W. Clark. Corporate Scandals: The Many Faces of Greed. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005. ISBN 1557788383.
• Johnson, Chalmers. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2004. ISBN 0805070044.
• Molloy, John Fitzgerald. The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2004. ISBN 1557788413.
• Niebuhr, H. Richard. The Kingdom of God in America. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1959. ISBN 978-0819562227.

External links

All links retrieved May 13, 2021.

• Official website of the United States Government – Gateway to governmental sites
• White House – Official site of the U.S. President
• Senate.gov – Official site of the United States Senate
• House.gov – Official site of the United States House of Representatives
• Supreme Court – Official site of the Supreme Court of the United States
• US Bureau of the Census
• CIA World Factbook Entry for United States
• The U.S. National Mottos: Their history & constitutionality
• Info links for each state

Political divisions of the United States

States Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming Federal district District of Columbia Insular areas American Samoa | Baker Island | Guam | Howland Island | Jarvis Island | Johnston Atoll | Kingman Reef | Midway Atoll | Navassa Island | Northern Mariana Islands | Palmyra Atoll | Puerto Rico | Virgin Islands | Wake Island

Topics in the United States
History	Timeline ( Colonial Era | American Revolution | Westward Expansion | Civil War | World War I | Great Depression | World War II | Cold War | Vietnam War | Civil Rights) | Foreign relations | Military | Demographic and Postal history
Politics	Law ( Constitution and Bill of Rights | Declaration of Independence) | Political parties ( Democrats & Republicans) | Elections (Electoral College) | Political scandals | Political divisions
Government	Federal agencies | Legislative branch (Congress: House | Senate) Executive branch ( President & Vice-President | Cabinet | Attorney-General | Secretary of State) | Law enforcement ( FBI | Intelligence:CIA | DIA | NIMA | NRO | NSA) | Judicial branch ( Supreme Court) | Military ( Army | Navy | Marines | Air Force)
Geography	Appalachian Mtns. | Rocky Mtns. | Great Plains | Midwest | The South | Mississippi River | New England | Mid-Atlantic | Pacific Northwest | Mountains | Valleys | Islands | Rivers | States | Cities | Counties | Regions | Extreme points
Economy	Banking | Companies | Standard of living | U.S. Dollar | Wall Street
Demographics	US Census Bureau | Languages | Religion | Social structure | Standard of living
Arts & Culture	Music (hippies | blues | jazz | rock and roll | hip hop | gospel | country) | Film & TV (Hollywood) | Literature ( Poetry | Transcendentalism | Harlem Renaissance | Beat Generation) | Visual arts ( Abstract expressionism) | Cuisine | Holidays | Folklore | Dance | Architecture | Education | Languages | Media
Other	United States territory | Communications | Transportation ( Highways and Interstates | Railroads) | Uncle Sam | Flag | American Dream | Media | Education | Tourism | Social issues ( Immigration | Affirmative action | Racial profiling | Human rights | War on Drugs | Pornography | same-sex marriage | Poverty | Prisons | Capital punishment) | American Exceptionalism | Anti-Americanism | American Folklore | American English | United States-Mexico barrier