United States

For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation); also see America (disambiguation)

United States of America
Flag Great Seal
Motto: "In God We Trust"  (since 1956) ["E Pluribus Unum"] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)  ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner
Capital	Washington, D.C.
Largest city	New York City
National language	English (de facto)1
Government	Federal constitutional republic
• President	George W. Bush (R)
• Vice President	Dick Cheney (R)
• Speaker of The House	Nancy Pelosi (D)
• Chief Justice	John Roberts
Independence from Great Britain
• Declared	July 4 1776
• Water (%)	4.87
Population
• 2024 estimate	338,708,000 (3rd)
• 2000 census	281,421,906
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$12,229,276m (1st)
• Per capita	$43,444 (4th)
GDP (nominal)	2005 estimate
• Total	$13,244,550m (1st)
• Per capita	$44,190 (10th)
Gini (2000)	40.8 medium inequality
HDI (2004)	0.948  (8th)
Currency	United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone	UTC-5 to -10
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 to -10
Calling code	1
ISO 3166 code	US
Internet TLD	.us .gov .edu .mil
English is the de facto language of American government; Spanish is the second most common. English, Spanish, French, Carolinian, Chamorro, Hawaiian and Samoan are officially recognized by various states and territories. Sometimes listed as fourth largest in area; the rank is disputed with China (PRC).

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic made up of fifty states, one federal district, and several territories. Template:Catcite Template:Catcite The country is situated largely in the western hemisphere: its forty-eight contiguous states and the District of Columbia (coextensive with Washington, the capital) lie in central North America between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south; the state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent with Canada to its east, and the state of Hawaii is in the mid-Pacific. U.S. territories, or insular areas, are scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.

At over 3.7 million square miles (over 9.6 million km²) and with more than 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and population. A liberal democracy, the U.S. is one of the world's most ethnically and socially diverse nations.Template:Catcite American society is the product of large-scale immigration, resulting in a complex social structure. Its national economy is the world's largest, with a nominal 2005 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $13 trillion.

The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. Template:Catcite Proclaiming themselves "states," they issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Template:Catcite Britain, defeated in the American Revolutionary War, recognized their sovereignty in 1783. A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic. Ten constitutional amendments composing the Bill of Rights were ratified in 1791. The country greatly expanded throughout the nineteenth century, acquiring territory from France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia, while annexing the Republic of Texas and the former Kingdom of Hawaii. The American Civil War of the 1860s ended slavery and set the stage for the country to become a great power. With its development of nuclear weapons, the U.S. emerged from World War II as one of two global superpowers, along with the Soviet Union. The Soviet collapse in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. It remains the dominant economic, political, military, and cultural force in the Western world and around the globe.

Etymology

Common abbreviations of the United States of America include the United States, the U.S., and the U.S.A. Colloquial names for the country include the common America as well as the States. The term Americas, for the lands of the western hemisphere, was coined in the early sixteenth century, named for Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and cartographer. The full name of the country was first used officially in the Declaration of Independence, which was the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776. The current name was finalized on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" Columbia, a once popular name for the Americas and the U.S., was named after Christopher Columbus. It appears in the name District of Columbia. A female personification of Columbia appears on some official documents, including certain prints of U.S. currency.

The most common adjectival and demonymic form for the United States is American. This term is used to designate U.S. citizens ("Americans") and to identify cultural characteristics ("American values," "American sports"). It is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the U.S. This common use of "American" has aroused controversy, particularly in Latin America, where Spanish and Portuguese speakers refer to themselves as "americanos" and use the adjective "estadounidense" to describe a person from the United States.

Geography

Main articles: Geography of the United States and Territorial evolution of the United States

Topographic map of the continental United States

File:Verybroadclimatemap.png

Climate zones of the continental United States

The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area, before or after the People's Republic of China, depending on whether or not one counts two territories governed by China but claimed by India. When counting only land area it falls behind Russia and China and just ahead of Canada. The continental United States stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and from Canada to Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico. Alaska is the largest state in area. Separated by Canada, it touches the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Hawaii occupies an archipelago in the Pacific, southwest of North America. Deciduous vegetation and grasslands prevail in the eastern U.S., transitioning to prairies, boreal forests, and the Rocky Mountains in the west, and deserts in the southwest. In the northeast, the coasts of the Great Lakes and Atlantic seaboard host much of the country's population. With a few exceptions such as the territory of Guam and the westernmost portions of Alaska, nearly all of the country lies in the western hemisphere.

Beyond the coastal plain, the rolling hills of the Piedmont region end at the Appalachian Mountains, which rise above 6,000 feet (1,830 m) in North Carolina, Tennessee, and New Hampshire. From the west slope of the Appalachians, the Interior Plains of the Midwest are relatively flat and are the location of the Great Lakes as well as the Mississippi-Missouri River, the world's 4th longest river system. West of the Mississippi River, the Interior Plains slope uphill and blend into the vast and often featureless Great Plains. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the continental U.S., reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,270 m) in Colorado. Active volcanoes are common throughout the Alexander and Aleutian Islands and the entire state of Hawaii is built upon tropical volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is possibly the world's largest volcano.

Due to its large size and wide range of geographic features, the United States contains examples of nearly every type of climate. The climate is temperate in most areas, tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida, polar in Alaska, semiarid in the Great Plains west of the 100th meridian, desert in the Southwest, mediterranean in coastal California, and arid in the Great Basin. Extreme weather is not uncommon, as the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the continental United States. That said, the predominantly temperate climate, infrequent severe drought in the major arable regions, and infrequent severe flooding have helped make the nation a world leader in agriculture.

Environment

The formerly endangered bald eagle, the national bird

Main articles: Environmental movement in the United States and United States environmental law

With habitats ranging from tropical to Arctic, the flora of the U.S. are very diverse. The country has more than 17,000 identified native plant and tree species, including 5,000 just in California (which is home to the tallest, the most massive, and the oldest trees in the world). More than 400 species of mammal, 700 species of bird, 500 species of reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 species of insect have been documented. Wetlands such as the Florida Everglades are the base for much of this diversity. The country's flora and fauna include thousands of nonnative exotic species that sometimes adversely affect indigenous plant and animal communities. The U.S. passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to protect threatened and endangered animal and plant species and their habitats, which are monitored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 1872, the world's first national park was established at Yellowstone. Another fifty-seven national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks and forests have since been designated. In some parts of the country, wilderness areas have been established to ensure long-term protection of pristine habitats. Altogether, the U.S. government regulates 1,020,779 square miles (2,643,807 km²), which is 28.8 percent of the total land area of the U.S. The bulk of this land is protected park and forestland, but some is leased for oil and natural gas drilling, mining, and cattle ranching. The Energy policy of the United States is a matter of heated debate; many citizens and foreign nations call on the U.S. to take a leading role in fighting global warming, as they are the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

History

Main article: History of the United States

Native Americans and European settlers

Main articles: Native Americans in the United States, European colonization of the Americas, and Thirteen Colonies

The indigenous peoples of the North American territory that now constitutes the United States mainland, including Alaska, migrated from Asia. Primarily traversing the Bering land bridge, they came over a period that began as many as 35,000 years ago and ended approximately 11,000 years ago. Several indigenous communities in the pre-Columbian era developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. European explorer Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493, making first contact with the Native Americans. In the years that followed, the majority of the Native American population was killed by epidemics of Eurasian diseases.

The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, painted by William Halsall, 1882. The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620.

Florida was home to the earliest European colonies on the mainland; of these only St. Augustine, founded in 1565, remains. French fur traders set up small outposts called New France near the Great Lakes. Later Spanish settlements in the Southwestern United States drew thousands through Mexico. The first successful British settlements were the Virginia Colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, and the 1620 Pilgrims settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Between 1614, the Netherlands settled parts of New York and New Jersey, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Sweden settled New Sweden (in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), which then passed to the Dutch. Several colonies were used by the British as penal settlements from the 1620s until the American Revolution.

In the French and Indian War, the colonial extension of the Seven Years War, Britain seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. By 1674, the British had won the former Dutch colonies in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States of America in 1776 were established. All had active local and colonial governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self government that stimulated support for republicanism. All had legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonies doubled in population every twenty-five years. By 1770, the colonies had an increasingly Anglicized population of three million, approximately half that of Britain. Though subject to British taxation, they were given no representation in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Independence and expansion

Main articles: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, and Manifest Destiny

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull

Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress established an army under the command of George Washington. The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. The Congress, lacking authority to levy taxes, was handicapped in its ability to fund the Continental Army. It overprinted paper money, triggering hyperinflation. In 1777, the Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, uniting the states under a weak federal government, which operated until 1788. During the conflict, some seventy thousand loyalists to the British Crown fled the rebellious states, many to Nova Scotia and the new British holdings in Canada. Native American loyalties were likewise divided, with factions fighting on both sides of the war's western front.

U.S. growth by date of statehood and ratification of the Constitution

After its army's defeat by American forces, who were assisted by the French, Great Britain recognized the sovereignty of the thirteen states in 1783. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those who wished to establish a strong national government with power over the states. By June 1788, nine states had ratified the United States Constitution, sufficient to establish the new government; the republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president, George Washington, took office in 1789. The Constitution is still the supreme law of the land. In 1791, the states ratified the Bill of Rights, ten amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing American citizens protection against federal restriction of such rights as freedom of speech, assembly, and religious practice and legal due process. Attitudes towards slavery were shifting, and a clause in the Constitution ended the African slave trade. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution."

Territorial acquisitions by date

Americans' eagerness to expand westward began a cycle of Indian Wars that stretched to the end of the next century. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 virtually doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to an effective draw, strengthened American nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The country's expansionist drive was reinvigorated by the annexation of the Republic of Texas in 1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny as an inevitable consequence of American exceptionalism was popularized during this time. The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain gave the U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 further spurred western migration. New railways reduced transit time for goods and people, made relocation much less arduous for settlers, and increased conflicts with Native Americans over the land and its uses. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, commonly called buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the bison, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.

Civil War and industrialization

Main articles: American Civil War and History of the United States (1865–1918)

Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863

Tensions between slave and free states mounted with increasing disagreements over the relationship between the state and federal governments and violent conflicts over the expansion of slavery. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession from the U.S., forming the Confederate States of America. The federal government maintained secession was illegal, and with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. The Union freed Confederate slaves as its army advanced through the South. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million who had been slaves, made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. A major turning point in American history, the war led to a substantial increase in federal power.

Immigrants landing at Ellis Island, New York

After the war, the assassination of President Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The disputed 1876 presidential election was resolved by the Compromise of 1877, which ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon effectively disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, which lasted until 1929, provided labor for American industry and transformed American culture. High tariff protections, national infrastructure building, and national banking regulations encouraged industrial growth. The 1867 Alaska purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. In 1893, the monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by Western residents; the archipelago was annexed by the U.S. in 1898. Victory in the Spanish-American War that same year marked the debut of the United States as a major world power and resulted in the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico remains a commonwealth of the United States.

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

Main articles: World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. American sympathies were with the British and French, although many citizens, mostly Irish and German, were opposed to intervention. In 1917, however, the United States joined the Triple Entente, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. Relucant to involve the United States in European affairs, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. Instead, the country continued to pursue a policy of unilateralism, verging at times on isolationism.

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity as farm profits fell while industrial profits grew. A rise in debt and an inflated stock market culminated in the 1929 crash that, combined with the Dust Bowl, triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The nation would not fully recover from the economic depression until the industrial mobilization spurred by its entrance into World War II.

On December 7, 1941, the United States was driven to join the Allies against the Axis Powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan. World War II had a greater economic cost than any in American history, but it helped to pull the economy out of depression by providing much-needed jobs. It also brought many women into the labor market. After achieving victory in Europe, the United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to avoid a dangerous land invasion. The surrender of Japan followed on September 2, 1945, ending the war. Near the end of the war, new intergovernmental organizations created at Bretton Woods and the Yalta Conference placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs.

Postwar superpower

Main articles: Cold War, American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), and War on Terrorism

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech

The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during a new Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. The United States promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy, but both sides supported dictatorships when politically convenient and engaged in proxy wars, including the Korean War and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. As the Communist Party in the Eastern Bloc suppressed dissent, American anti-communists like Joseph McCarthy attempted and failed to suppress their opposition at home.

The Soviet Union launched the first manned spacecraft in 1961, prompting efforts to raise proficiency in mathematics and science in American schools and President John F. Kennedy's call for the United States to be first to land "a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, America experienced a period of sustained economic expansion. A growing civil-rights movement headed by prominent African Americans such as Martin Luther King, Jr. fought racism, leading to the abolition of the Jim Crow laws in the South and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, his successors expanded a proxy war in Vietnam into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. After withdrawing from Vietnam, President Richard Nixon became the first President to resign, rather than be impeached over electoral fraud allegations during the Watergate scandal.

U.S. Air Force jets flying through the remnants of Kuwaiti oil fields in the Gulf War

When the Soviet Union collapsed and Russian power diminished in the late 1980s and 1990s, the United States continued to intervene in overseas military conflicts. The leadership role taken by the United States and its allies in the United Nations-sanctioned Gulf War and the Yugoslav wars helped to preserve its position as the world's last remaining superpower and to expand NATO. On September 11, 2001, terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In the aftermath, President George W. Bush launched the War on Terrorism under a military philosophy stressing preemptive war now known as the Bush Doctrine. In late 2001, U.S. forces led a NATO invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda terrorist training camps. As of 2007, a Taliban insurgency continues to fight a guerrilla war against the NATO occupation force.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush labeled North Korea, Iraq, and Iran the "axis of evil," and stated that these countries "constitute a grave threat to the security of the U.S. and its allies." Later that year, the Bush administration pressed for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds. In 2003, a Coalition of the Willing invaded Iraq, removing President Saddam Hussein. Although facing both external and internal pressure to withdraw, the United States continues to occupy Iraq.

Government and politics

Main articles: Federal government of the United States and Politics of the United States

West Front of the United States Capitol which houses the United States Congress.

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, a representative democracy with a government regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the United States Constitution. The 1789 constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation, which was in effect from 1781 – 1789. However, it is "not a simple representative democracy, but a constitutional republic in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." Citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local governments duties may themselves be split among county, metropolitan and municipal governments. Officials at all three levels are either elected by voters in a secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Executive and legislative offices are decided by a plurality vote of citizens by district. Federal and state level, judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the Executive branch and approved by the Legislature, although some state judges are elected by popular vote.

The north side of the White House, the home and work place of the President.

The federal government is comprised of three branches:

• 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, and has the rarely used power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.

• Executive: The President is the Commander in Chief of the military, can veto bills, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administers and enforces federal laws.

• Judiciary: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the President with Senate approval, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.

The front of the United States Supreme Court building.

The United States Constitution is the supreme legal document in the American system, and serves as a social contract for the people of the United States, regulating their affairs through government chosen by and populated by the people. All laws and procedures of both state and federal governments are subject to review, and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution by the judicial branch is overturned. The Constitution can be amended by two methods, both of which require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended 27 times, including the 1791 Bill of Rights, which guarantee freedom of speech, religion, and the press; the right to a fair trial; the right to keep and bear arms; universal suffrage; and property rights. However, the extent to which these rights are protected and universal in practice is heavily debated. The Constitution vaguely guarantees to every State "a Republican Form of Government". The Constitution also defines Presidential term limits and Congress's size. The House of Representatives has 435 members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states according to population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. Each state has two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every second year.

The overwhelming majority of elected offices across the country at federal, state, and lower levels are held by the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. There are two independent members of the Senate, but both were former Democratic incumbents. Within American political culture the Republican Party is considered "center-right" or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered "center-left" or liberal, but members of both parties have a wide range of views. Since 2001, the President has been George W. Bush, a Republican. Following the 2006 mid-term elections, the Democratic Party holds a majority of seats in both the House and Senate for the first time since 1994.

Foreign relations and military

Main articles: Foreign relations of the United States and Military of the United States

President George W. Bush (right) with U.K. Prime minister, Tony Blair.

The United States has vast economic, political, and military influence on a global scale, which makes its foreign policy a subject of great interest and discussion around the world. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many host consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and Sudan do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.

American isolationists have often found themselves at odds with internationalists and promoters of manifest destiny and American Empire. American imperialism in the Philippines drew sharp rebuke from Mark Twain and many other noted citizens. Later, President Woodrow Wilson played a key role in creating the League of Nations, but the Senate prohibited American membership in it. Isolationism became a thing of the past, however, when the United States took a lead role in founding the United Nations, becoming a permanent member of the Security Council, and host to the United Nations headquarters. The U.S. enjoys a special relationship with Britain, and close ties to Australia, Japan, Israel and fellow NATO members. Additionally, the United States enjoys close ties to its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

File:F-22A Raptor.jpg

F-22 Raptor.

The President holds the title of Commander in Chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense. The United States Department of Defense administers the U.S. armed forces, including the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime but is placed under the Department of the Navy in times of war. The military of the United States comprises 1.4 million personnel on active duty, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Service in the military is voluntary, though conscription may occur in times of war through the Selective Service System. The rapid deployment of American forces is ensured in part by the Air Force's large fleet of transportation aircraft and aerial refueling tankers, the Navy's fleet of eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea in the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific Fleets.

The military budget of the United States in 2005 was estimated to be greater than the next fourteen largest national military budgets combined. That said, the military budget of over $470 billion dollars is only about 4 percent of GDP, which is less than the budget of 26 other nations. The Department of Defense employs 2,338,213 troops and over 800,000 civilian employees, disregarding contractors. The U.S. military is deployed to more than 700 bases and facilities, on every continent except Antarctica. Due to the sheer size of their global military presence, scholars accuse the United States of maintaining an "empire of bases."

Economy

Main article: Economy of the United States

Economy of the United States
2006 Median Income
Median income	$32,611 for individuals $46,326 for households
2006 Income distribution
Top 20%	$52,500 for individuals $91,705 for households
Bottom 20%	$12,500 for individuals $20,000 for households
National economic indicators
Unemployment	4.5% May 2007
GDP growth	3.3% Year of 2006
CPI inflation	2.6% April 2006 - April 2007
Gini index	46.9
National debt	$8.84 trillion, June 6, 2007
Poverty	12.6% Year of 2005
Foreign aid and investment	$122.8 billion 2005
Monetary value
Exchange rate (per Euro)	1.35 June 8, 2007
Exchange rate (per £)	1.99 June 8, 2007

The United States has a capitalist mixed economy. Although private organizations constitute the bulk of the economy, government activity accounts for 12.4 percent of the GDP. Most businesses in the U.S. are not corporations but sole proprietorships with no payroll. Both the regulatory burden on its companies and its social safety net are smaller than in most developed nations. The United States GDP of more than $13 trillion constitutes 22 percent of the gross world product. The nation ranks as the third or eighth highest GDP per capita, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The economy is fueled by an abundance in natural resources, well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. Americans tend to work considerably more hours annually, take less vacation, and produce more per hour than workers in other developed nations. In 2005, 155 million persons were employed with earnings, of whom 80 percent worked in full-time jobs. The majority, 79 percent, are employed in the service sector. Although income levels in the U.S. are high, income is distributed less equally than in similar developed nations such as Austria or Sweden. The United States is the largest importer of goods and second largest exporter. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top five trading partners.

Income and social class

Main articles: Income in the United States and Social class in the United States

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household incomes ranged from $33,000 in West Virginia to $57,000 in New Hampshire, with an overall national median of $46,000 and 42% of households having two or more income earners. Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, these income levels are similar to those found in other post-industrial nations such as Switzerland ($54,000), and the United Kingdom. ($39,000) In 2005, the median income for an individual age twenty-five or older in the labor force with earnings was $32,000 while the median income per household member was $24,000. Income inequality in the United States has increased since the 1970s, although the standard of living has increased for nearly all classes. The share of income held by the top 1 percent has increased considerably while the share of income of the bottom 90 percent has fallen, with the gap between the two groups being roughly as large in 2005 as in 1928. Some economists, such as Alan Greenspan, see rising income inequality as a cause for concern.

American social classes lack clearly defined boundaries and overlap, but sociologists point to social class as the perhaps most important societal variable. Occupation, educational attainment, and income are used as the main indicators of socioeconomic status. Sociologist Dennis Gilbert of Hamilton College has proposed a system, adapted by other sociologists, with six social classes. He identified an upper, or capitalist, class consisting of the wealthy and powerful (1%), an upper middle class consisting of highly educated professionals (15%), a middle class consisting of semi-professionals and craftsmen (33%), a working class consisting of clerical and blue-collar workers (33%), and two lower classes: the working poor (13%) and a largely unemployed underclass (12%). The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, played a key role in attracting immigrants to the United States, particularly in the late 1800s. Though some analysts have found the U.S. to have relatively low social mobility compared to Western Europe and Canada, others point out that bottom-quintile households are more likely to rise to the top fifth than to remain near the bottom.

Technology

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first human landing on the Moon.

Main articles: United States technological and industrial history, Science and technology in the United States, and Transportation in the United States

The United States is now one of the most influential countries in scientific and technological research and the production of innovative technological products. The bulk of Research and Development funding, 69 percent, comes voluntarily from the private sector. During World War II, the U.S. led the Allied program to develop the atomic bomb, ushering in the atomic age. The Space Race, led to rapid advances in rocketry, material science, computers, and many other areas. The U.S. was also the most instrumental nation in the development of the Internet, while also developing its predecessor, Arpanet. The U.S. produces the largest percentage of scientific research papers of any country. Many scientists immigrate to the United States, including Albert Einstein. The U.S. enjoys very high levels of access to technological consumer goods such as TVs, PCs, and radios. Almost half of American households have broadband Internet service. In part because of its low population density, the United States has always been a leader among automakers, and is home to more roadways than any other country. Although public transport systems are heavily used in some large cities, these systems tend to be less extensive than in other developed nations.

Demographics

Main articles: Demography of the United States and Immigration to the United States

Ethnicity
White	74.67%
Hispanic or Latino	12.50%
African American	12.12%
Asian and Pacific Islander	4.46%
Other	5.99%
Languages
English (only)	214.8 million
Spanish	29.7 million
Chinese	2.2 million
French incl. Creole	1.4 million
Tagalog	1.3 million
German	1.1 million
Vietnamese	1.1 million

On October 17 2006 at 7:46 a.m. EST, the United States' population stood at an estimated 300,000,000. This figure excludes an estimated 12–20 million unauthorized migrants. According to the 2000 census, about 79 percent of the population lived in urban areas. The United States has a highly diverse population—thirty-one ethnic groups have more than a million members. Among racial demographics, whites, who are of European ancestry, are the largest racial group, with German-Americans, Irish-Americans, and English-Americans constituting the three largest ancestry groups. The percentages of whites among the general population is, however, declining. African Americans, who are largely the descendants of former slaves, constituted the nation's largest racial and third largest ethnic minority. The Native American minority won United States citizenship in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, in part due to pressure to assimilate them into mainstream American culture, and in part because of their service in World War I. The Census Bureau estimated that 2,786,652 Native Americans were living in the United States in 2003.

Demographic trends include the immigration of Hispanics from Latin America into the Southwest, a region that is home to about 60 percent of the 35 million Hispanics in the United States. Immigrants from Mexico make up about 66 percent of the Hispanic community and are the second largest ethnic group in the country. It is estimated that with current population trends non-Hispanic whites will become a plurality between 2040 and 2050. This is already the case in four "majority-minority states": California, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Texas. The United States has by far the highest incarceration rate in the democratic, developed world: in 2000, 468 out of every 100,000 Americans were jailed, approximately five times the average rate of member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and more than triple the rate of the next closest member, the Czech Republic. This figure represents a trend visible since 1980, when the figure was 139 per 100,000; by 2005, the figure had reached 491 per 100,000. This extraordinary rate of incarceration, and its disproportionate effect on minority groups, is associated with the country's controversial drug policies.

New York City

In 2005, 254 incorporated places in the U.S. had populations greater than 100,000, nine cities had populations greater than 1 million, and four global cities had populations greater than 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston). The United States has fifty-four metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million. The South Florida metropolitan area (Miami and Ft. Lauderdale) and the Washington metropolitan area (Washington, Baltimore, and Arlington) rank among the largest metropolitan areas while none of their member cities rank in the top ten.

Five most populous incorporated places in the United States
Rank	City	Population within city limits (2005)	Population Density per sq mi	Population Density per km²	Metropolitan Area		Region
					population (2006)	rank
1	New York City	8,143,197	26,720.9	16,603.6	18,818,536	1	Northeast
2	Los Angeles	3,844,829	8,198.0	5,094.0	12,950,129	2	Southwest
3	Chicago	2,842,518	12,750.3	7,922.7	9,505,748	3	Midwest
4	Houston	2,016,582	3,371.7	2,094.6	5,539,949	6	South
5	Philadelphia	1,463,281	11,233.6	6,980.2	5,826,742	5	Northeast

Language and religion

Main articles: Languages of the United States and Religion in the United States

A church in the largely Protestant Bible Belt

Although the United States has no official language at the federal level, English is the de facto national language. Template:Catcite In 2003, about 215 million, or 82 percent of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by over 10 percent of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language. Knowledge of English is required of immigrants seeking naturalization. Some Americans advocate making English the official language, as it is in twenty-five states. Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law. Several insular territories also grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico. While neither has an official language, New Mexico issues government documents in both Spanish and English, and Louisiana legally recognizes French.

The United States government keeps no official register of Americans' religious status. However, in a private survey conducted in 2001 and referenced in the Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States, 76.7 percent of American adults identified themselves as Christian. Various Protestant denominations accounted for 52 percent, while Roman Catholics, at 24.5 percent, were the largest individual denomination. Other faiths in America include Judaism (1.4 percent), Islam (0.5 percent), Buddhism (0.5 percent), Hinduism (0.4 percent), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3 percent). About 14.2 percent of respondents described themselves as having no religion. Although the total U.S. population grew by 18.5 percent between 1990 and 2001, thirteen religious groups declined in absolute numbers, while twenty others more than doubled in size.

Education and health

Main articles: Education in the United States and Educational attainment in the United States

The University of Virginia, designed by Thomas Jefferson, is one of 19 American UNESCO World Heritage Sites

American public education is operated by state and local governments, but is regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are obliged in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through 12th grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen. About 12 percent of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2 percent of children are homeschooled. There are many competitive institutions of higher education in the United States, both private and public. The United States has 168 universities in the world's top 500, 17 of them in the top 20. There are also many smaller universities and liberal arts colleges, and local community colleges of varying quality across the country with open admission policies. The United States has a basic literacy rate of approximately 99 percent. Of Americans age 25 and up, 84.6 percent have graduated high school, 52.6 percent attended some college, 27.2 percent earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6 percent earned graduate degrees. The United Nations assigns the U.S. an Education Index of 99.9, tieing it with twenty other nations for the top score.

The American life expectancy of seventy-eight years at birth is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway and Switzerland. The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand places the U.S. 41st out of 221 countries, likewise behind most of Western Europe. Approximately one-third of the adult American population is obese and an additional third is overweight; the obesity rate, which has more than doubled in the last quarter-century, is the highest in the industrialized world. Obesity-related diabetes mellitus type 2 is considered epidemic by healthcare professionals.

The United States healthcare system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP. Unlike in most developed countries, the U.S. healthcare system is not fully publicly funded, instead relying on a mix of public and private funding. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36 percent of personal health expenditure, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15 percent, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44 percent. Medical bills are the most common reason for personal bankruptcy in the United States. In 2005, 41.2 million residents, or 14.2 percent of the population, were uninsured for at least part of the year. Many may have been between jobs, leaving a gap in employer-provided health insurance. Approximately one third of those 41.2 million lived in households with annual incomes greater than $50,000, with half of those having an income over $75,000. Another third were eligible but not registered for public health insurance. In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate health insurance; California is considering similar legislation.

Culture

Main article: Culture of the United States

Elvis Presley in 1957

The United States is a culturally diverse nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. The culture held in common by the majority of Americans is referred to as "mainstream American culture," a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Western European migrants, beginning with the early English and Dutch settlers. German, Scottish, and Irish cultures have also been very influential. Certain Native American traditions and many cultural characteristics of enslaved West Africans were absorbed into the American mainstream. Westward expansion brought close contact with the culture of Mexico, and large-scale immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Southern and Eastern Europe introduced many new cultural elements. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has had broad impact. The resulting mix of cultures may be characterized as a homogeneous melting pot or as a pluralistic salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.

While American culture maintains the myth that the U.S. is a classless society, economists and sociologists have identified cultural differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. The American middle and professional class has been the source of many contemporary social trends such as feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism. Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree. While Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute. Women, formerly limited to domestic roles, now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees. The changing role of women has also changed the American family. In 2005, no household arrangement defined more than 30 percent of households; married childless couples were most common, at 28 percent. The extension of marital rights to homosexual persons is an issue of debate, with more liberal states permitting civil unions and Massachusetts recently having legalized same-sex marriage.

Popular media

Main articles: Cinema of the United States, Television in the United States, and Music of the United States

The iconic Hollywood sign

In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the U.S. was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, California. The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997). American screen actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time. The products of American cinema and other mass media now appear in nearly every nation.

Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world, and the average time spent in front of the screen continues to rise, hitting five hours a day in 2006. The four major broadcast television networks—CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox—are all privately owned by large media conglomerates. There are three minor national broadcast networks—the privately owned CW and My Network and the cooperatively owned, publicly funded PBS—as well as hundreds of cable and satellite stations. Since 2002, total viewership of cable and satellite stations has surpassed that of broadcast outlets. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, an average of about two-and-a-half hours a day. Aside from Web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are eBay (retail), MySpace (social networking), Amazon (retail), New York Times Digital (news), and Apple (retail). Twelve million Americans keep a blog. Newspaper circulation is in decline, though dailies such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal remain important. Newspaper comic strips and comic books are both U.S. innovations.

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres that have attracted audiences across the globe since the late nineteenth century. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the twentieth century. Country music, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll emerged between the 1920s and 1950s. More recent American creations include funk and hip hop. American pop stars such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities. Composers Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin created a unique American synthesis of popular and classical music. Modern musical form emerged on Broadway, where the songs of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter became pop standards.

Literature and the arts

Main articles: Literature of the United States and Visual arts of the United States

Mount Rushmore, a massive sculpture of four prominent American presidents

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the nineteenth century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, would be recognized as America's other essential poet. Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. Ernest Hemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate, is often named as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "great American novel." Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States.

The other classical arts did not establish distinctive American expressions until the twentieth century, though the Hudson River School was an important visual art movement in the mid-nineteenth century. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. visual art scene. Artists such as Georgia O'Keefe and Marsden Hartley experimented with new styles, displaying a highly individualistic sensibility. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollack 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 post-modernism also brought American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry to the top of their field. Though largely overlooked at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition; other experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created an identifiably American approach to classical composition. Choreographers George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Martha Graham were among the leading figures of twentieth-century dance. The U.S. has long been at the fore in the relatively modern artistic medium of photography, with major practitioners such as Alfred Steiglitz, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, and many others.

Food and clothing

Main article: Cuisine of the United States

American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flag

Mainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important. Fried chicken, which combines Scottish and African-American culinary traditions, is a national favorite. Iconic American dishes such as apple pie, pizza, and hamburgers derive from the recipes of various European immigrants. So-called French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed. Fusion cuisine, in which aspects of different cuisines are openly mixed, and modern California cuisine, popularized by chefs such as Wolfgang Puck, are leading upscale trends. Asian restaurants are the fastest-growing chain category. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, Americans' daily caloric intake rose 24 percent, as the share of that intake from food consumed outside the home went from 18 to 32 percent. Fast food outlets such as McDonald's are a primary source for this consumption. These trends are closely associated with what government researchers characterize as the American "obesity epidemic." The popularity of well-promoted diets such as the Atkins Nutritional Approach has sent sales of "carb-conscious" processed food soaring. Though organic food purchases have risen steadily in the last two decades, they still represent only 2 percent of retail food sales, significantly less than in other Western countries.

Americans generally prefer coffee to tea, with more than half the adult population drinking at least one cup a day. American liquors include bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, applejack, and Puerto Rican rum. The martini is the characteristic American cocktail. The average American consumes 81.6 liters of beer per year. American-style lagers, typified by the leading Budweiser brand, are light in body and flavor; Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch controls 50 percent of the national beer market. In recent decades, wine production and consumption has increased substantially, with winemaking now a leading industry in California. Wine is often drunk before meals, substituting for cocktails. Aside from coffee, orange juice and homogenized, often fat-reduced cow's milk are typical breakfast beverages. Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages now account for 9 percent of the average American's daily caloric intake, more than double the rate three decades ago. Leading soft-drink producer Coca-Cola is the most recognized brand in the world, just ahead of McDonald's.

Apart from professional business attire, U.S. fashions are eclectic and predominantly informal. While Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing, particularly those of recent immigrants, cowboy hats and boots and leather motorcycle jackets are emblematic of specifically American styles. Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss, a German immigrant in San Francisco, and adopted by many American teenagers a century later. They are now widely worn on every continent by people of all ages and social classes. Along with mass-marketed informal wear in general, blue jeans are arguably U.S. culture's primary contribution to global fashion. The country is also home to the headquarters of many leading designer labels such as Ralph Lauren, Eddie Bauer, and Calvin Klein. Labels such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Eckō cater to various niche markets.

Sports

Main article: Sports in the United States

The Pro Bowl (2006), American football's annual all-star game

Since the late nineteenth century, baseball has been regarded as the national pastime; football, basketball, and ice hockey are the country's three other leading professional team sports. Football is now by some measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States. Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. Soccer, though not a leading professional sport in the country, is participated in widely at the youth and amateur levels. Tennis and many outdoor sports are also popular. While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the regionally popular lacrosse was a precolonial Native American sport. At the individual level, skateboarding and snowboarding are twentieth-century U.S. inventions, related to surfing, a Hawaiian practice predating Western contact. Eight Olympiads have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,321 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and the second most in the Winter Olympic Games, with 216 medals. Several American athletes have become world famous, in particular baseball player Babe Ruth, boxer Muhammad Ali, and basketball player Michael Jordan. The most frequently crowned champion among major U.S. sports teams is the New York Yankees, twenty-six times the winners of American baseball's World Series.

See also

Main article: List of United States-related topics

External links

Government

• Official U.S. government Web portal - Gateway to governmental sites
• White House - Official site of the President of the United States
• Senate - Official site of the United States Senate
• House - Official site of the United States House of Representatives
• Supreme Court - Official site of the Supreme Court of the United States
• U.S. Federal Government

Directories

• Open Directory Project - "United States" - Volunteer directory

Overviews

• United States at Wikitravel - Travel Guide and tourist information on United States
• U.S. Census Housing and Economic Statistics Updated regularly by U.S. Bureau of the Census.
• Portrait of the United States - Published by the United States Information Agency, September 1997.
• CIA World Factbook Entry for United States
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, United States - Country Page
• Info links for each state
• Population, employment, income, and farm characteristics by State

History

• Historical Documents
• National Motto: History and Constitutionality
• Historicalstatistics.org - Links to historical statistics of USA

Maps

• WikiSatellite view of United States at WikiMapia
• The National Atlas of the United States.
• United States map

Immigration

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services USCIS.gov.
• U.S. citizenship sample civics questions for naturalization interview Immihelp.com - from an immigrant to future immigrants.
• Civic Orientation - Sample Questions for Naturalization

Other

• Voter turnout, Gender quotas, Electoral system design and Political party financing in United States