United States

United States of America
Flag Great Seal
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°N 77.017°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 constitutional presidential republic
-	President	Barack Obama (D)
-	Vice President	Joe Biden (D)
-	Speaker of the House	Nancy Pelosi (D)
-	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	9,826,675 km2 1[c](3rd/4th) 3,794,101 sq mi
-	Water (%)	6.76
Population
-	2010 estimate	310,195,0002 (3rd[d])
-	2000 census	281,421,9063
-	Density	32/km2 (178th) 83/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2009 estimate
-	Total	$14.256 trillion4 (1st)
-	Per capita	$46,3814 (6th)
GDP (nominal)		2009 estimate
-	Total	$14.256 trillion4 (1st)
-	Per capita	$46,3814 (9th)
Gini (2007)		45.01 (44th)
HDI (2007)		▲ 0.9565 (very high) (13th)
Currency		United States dollar ($) (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 accent of at atomic 28 states—some sources accord a academy figure, based on differing definitions of "official".6 English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the accompaniment of Hawaii. ^ b. English is the de facto accent of American government and the sole accent announced at home by 80% of Americans age 5 and older. Spanish is the second a lot of frequently announced language. ^ c. Whether the Affiliated States or the People's Republic of China is beyond is disputed. The amount accustomed is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Added sources accord abate figures. All accurate calculations of the country's admeasurement cover alone the 50 states and the Commune of Columbia, not the territories. ^ d. The citizenry appraisal includes humans whose accepted abode is in the fifty states and the Commune of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not cover either those alive in the territories, amounting to added than 4 actor U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens alive alfresco the Affiliated States.

The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, the States, or America) is a federal constitutional republic absolute fifty states and a federal district. The country is anchored mostly in axial North America, breadth its forty-eight abutting states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie amidst the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, belted by Canada to the arctic and Mexico to the south. The accompaniment of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west beyond the Bering Strait. The accompaniment of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country aswell possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.

At 3.79 actor aboveboard afar (9.83 actor km²) and with over 309 actor people, the Affiliated States is the third or fourth better country by absolute area, and the third better both by land area and population. It is one of the world's a lot of ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the artefact of all-embracing immigration from abounding countries.⁷ The U.S. economy is the world's better civic economy, with an estimated 2009 GDP of $14.3 abundance (a assay of nominal all-around GDP and a fifth of all-around GDP at purchasing ability parity).⁴⁸

Indigenous peoples of Asian origin accept inhabited what is now the acreage Affiliated States for abounding bags of years. This Native American citizenry was abundantly bargain by ache and warfare afterwards European contact. The Affiliated States was founded by thirteen British colonies amidst forth the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their appropriate to self-determination and their accomplishment of a accommodating union. The alienated states defeated the British Empire in the American Revolution, the aboriginal acknowledged colonial war of independence.⁹ The accepted United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; its acceptance the afterward year fabricated the states allotment of a alone republic with a able axial government. The Bill of Rights, absolute ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing abounding fundamental civilian rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

In the 19th century, the Affiliated States acquired acreage from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes amidst the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the amplification of the institution of slavery affronted the American Civilian War of the 1860s. The North's accomplishment prevented a abiding breach of the country and led to the end of acknowledged slavery in the Affiliated States. By the 1870s, the civic abridgement was the world's largest.¹⁰ The Spanish–American War and World War I accepted the country's cachet as a aggressive power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a abiding affiliate of the United Nations Aegis Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union larboard the Affiliated States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for two-fifths of global aggressive spending and is a arch economic, political, and cultural force in the world.¹¹

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Geography, climate, and environment 3 History 3.1 Native Americans and European settlers 3.2 Independence and expansion 3.3 Civil War and industrialization 3.4 World War I, Great Depression, and Apple War II 3.5 Cold War and beef politics 3.6 Contemporary era 4 Government and elections 4.1 Parties, ideology, and politics 5 Political divisions 6 Foreign relations and military 7 Economy 7.1 Income and animal development 7.2 Science and technology 7.3 Transportation 7.4 Energy 8 Demographics 8.1 Language 8.2 Religion 8.3 Education 8.4 Health 8.5 Crime and law enforcement 9 Culture 9.1 Popular media 9.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts 9.3 Food 9.4 Sports 9.5 Measurement systems 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

Etymology

In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a apple map on which he alleged the acreage of the Western Hemisphere "America" afterwards Italian charlatan and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.¹² The aloft British colonies aboriginal acclimated the country's avant-garde name in the Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen affiliated States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the affiliated States of America" on July 4, 1776.¹³ On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The Affiliated States of America.'" The Franco-American treaties of 1778 acclimated "United States of Arctic America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was acclimated on the country's bills of exchange, and it has been the official name anytime since.¹⁴

The abbreviate anatomy the Affiliated States is aswell standard. Added accepted forms cover the U.S., the USA, and America. Colloquial names cover the U.S. of A. and the States. Columbia, a already accepted name for the Affiliated States, was acquired from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia".

The accepted way to accredit to a aborigine of the Affiliated States is as an American. Admitting United States is the academic appositional term, American and U.S. are added frequently acclimated to accredit to the country adjectivally ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely acclimated in English to accredit to humans not affiliated to the Affiliated States.¹⁵

The byword "the Affiliated States" was originally advised as plural—e.g., "the Affiliated States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Affiliated States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became accepted to amusement it as singular—e.g., "the Affiliated States is"—after the end of the Civilian War. The atypical anatomy is now standard; the plural anatomy is retained in the argot "these Affiliated States".¹⁶

Geography, climate, and environment

The acreage breadth of the contiguous Affiliated States is about 1.9 billion acreage (770 actor hectares). Alaska, afar from the abutting Affiliated States by Canada, is the better accompaniment at 365 actor acreage (150 actor hectares). Hawaii, application an archipelago in the axial Pacific, southwest of Arctic America, has just over 4 actor acreage (1.6 actor hectares).¹⁷ Afterwards Russia and Canada, the Affiliated States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by absolute area (land and water), baronial just aloft or beneath China. The baronial varies depending on how two territories acknowledged by China and India are counted and how the absolute admeasurement of the Affiliated States is calculated: the CIA World Factbook gives 3,794,101 aboveboard afar (9,826,675 km²),¹ the Affiliated Nations Statistics Assay gives 3,717,813 sq mi (9,629,091 km²),¹⁸ and the Encyclopædia Britannica gives 3,676,486 sq mi (9,522,055 km²).¹⁹ Including alone acreage area, the Affiliated States is third in admeasurement abaft Russia and China, just avant-garde of Canada.²⁰

The littoral apparent of the Atlantic beach gives way added civilian to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains bisect the eastern beach from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the affection of the country. The flat, abounding prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, disconnected by a altitude region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western bend of the Great Plains, extend arctic to south beyond the country, all-encompassing altitudes academy than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the bouldered Great Basin and chastening such as the Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade abundance ranges run abutting to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the tallest aiguille in the country and in Arctic America. Alive volcanoes are accepted throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of agitable islands. The supervolcano basal Yellowstone Civic Park in the Rockies is the continent's better agitable feature.²¹

The Affiliated States, with its ample admeasurement and geographic variety, includes a lot of altitude types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the altitude ranges from humid continental in the arctic to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th acme are semi-arid. Abounding of the Western mountains are alpine. The altitude is barren in the Great Basin, arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in littoral Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. A lot of of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme acclimate is not uncommon—the states adjoining the Gulf of Mexico are decumbent to hurricanes, and a lot of of the world's tornadoes activity aural the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.²²

The U.S. anatomy is advised "megadiverse": about 17,000 breed of vascular plants activity in the abutting Affiliated States and Alaska, and over 1,800 breed of flowering plants are begin in Hawaii, few of which activity on the mainland.²³ The Affiliated States is home to added than 400 mammal, 750 bird, and 500 bastard and amphibian species.²⁴ About 91,000 insect breed accept been described.²⁵ The Endangered Breed Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered breed and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of added federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.²⁶ Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the country's acreage area.²⁷ A lot of of this is protected, admitting some is busy for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or beasts ranching; 2.4% is acclimated for aggressive purposes.²⁷

History

Native Americans and European settlers

The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, are a lot of frequently believed to accept migrated from Asia. They began accession at atomic 12,000 and as abounding as 40,000 years ago.²⁸ Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed avant-garde agriculture, admirable architecture, and state-level societies. Afterwards Europeans began clearing the Americas, many millions of aboriginal Americans died from epidemics of alien diseases such as smallpox.²⁹

In 1492, Genoese charlatan Christopher Columbus, beneath arrangement to the Spanish crown, accomplished several Caribbean islands, authoritative first contact with the aboriginal people. On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he alleged "La Florida"—the aboriginal accurate European accession on what would become the U.S. mainland. Spanish settlements in the arena were followed by ones in the abreast southwestern Affiliated States that drew bags through Mexico. French fur traders accustomed outposts of New France about the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed abounding of the Arctic American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The aboriginal acknowledged English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a beachcomber of migration; by 1634, New England had been acclimatized by some 10,000 Puritans. Amidst the backward 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were alien to Britain's American colonies.³⁰ Alpha in 1614, the Dutch acclimatized forth the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.

In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American breadth to England; the arena of New Netherland was renamed New York. Abounding new immigrants, abnormally to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants amidst 1630 and 1680.³¹ By the about-face of the century, African slaves were acceptable the primary antecedent of affirmed labor. With the 1729 assay of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the Affiliated States of America were established. All had bounded governments with elections accessible to a lot of chargeless men, with a growing adherence to the age-old rights of Englishmen and a faculty of freedom aesthetic abutment for republicanism. All legalized the African bondservant trade. With top bearing rates, low afterlife rates, and abiding immigration, the colonial citizenry grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s accepted as the Great Awakening fueled absorption in both adoration and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British armament bedeviled Canada from the French, but the francophone citizenry remained politically alone from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans (popularly accepted as "American Indians"), who were getting displaced, those thirteen colonies had a citizenry of 2.6 actor in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; about one in 5 Americans were atramentous slaves.³² Admitting subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Independence and expansion

Tensions amidst American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and aboriginal 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, accustomed a Continental Army beneath the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and able with "certain unalienable Rights," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted abundantly by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now acclaimed annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation accustomed a anemic confederal government that operated until 1789.

After the British defeat by American armament assisted by the French, Great Britain recognized the ability of the Affiliated States and the states' sovereignty over American breadth west to the Mississippi River. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those adulatory to authorize a able civic government, with admiral of taxation. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, Abode of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took appointment in 1789. The Bill of Rights, abhorrent federal brake of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a ambit of acknowledged protections, was adopted in 1791.

Attitudes adjoin slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution adequate the African bondservant barter alone until 1808. The Northern states abolished bullwork amidst 1780 and 1804, abrogation the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." The Second Great Awakening, alpha about 1800, fabricated evangelicalism a force abaft assorted amusing reform movements, including abolitionism.

Americans' alacrity to expand westward prompted a continued alternation of Indian Wars. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed breadth beneath Admiral Thomas Jefferson in 1803 about angled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared adjoin Britain over assorted grievances and fought to a draw, adequate U.S. nationalism. A alternation of U.S. aggressive incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and added Gulf Coast breadth in 1819. The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal activity that bare the built-in peoples of their land. The Affiliated States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The abstraction of Manifest Destiny was affected during this time.³³ The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. ascendancy of the abreast American Northwest. The U.S. accomplishment in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and abounding of the abreast American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 added spurred western migration. New railways fabricated alteration easier for settlers and added conflicts with Built-in Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 actor American bison, or buffalo, were collapsed for banknote and meat and to affluence the railways' spread. The accident of the buffalo, a primary ability for the plains Indians, was an existential draft to abounding built-in cultures.

Civil War and industrialization

Tensions amidst bondservant and free states army with arguments over the accord amidst the state and federal governments, as able-bodied as violent conflicts over the advance of bullwork into new states. Abraham Lincoln, applicant of the abundantly antislavery Republican Party, was adopted admiral in 1860. Afore he took office, seven bondservant states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack aloft Fort Sumter, the American Civilian War began and four added bondservant states abutting the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared disciplinarian in the Confederacy to be free. Afterward the Union accomplishment in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the about four actor African Americans who had been slaves,³⁴ made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a abounding access in federal power.³⁵

After the war, the assassination of Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction behavior aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the anew freed slaves. The resolution of the acknowledged 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 concluded Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws anon disenfranchised abounding African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an aberrant influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The beachcomber of immigration, abiding until 1929, provided activity and acclimatized American culture. Civic basement development spurred bread-and-butter growth. The 1867 Alaska purchase from Russia completed the country's acreage expansion. The Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 was the endure above armed battle of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was baffled in a accomplishment led by American residents; the Affiliated States annexed the archipelago in 1898. Accomplishment in the Spanish–American War the aforementioned year approved that the Affiliated States was a world power and led to the addition of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.³⁶ The Philippines acquired ability a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam abide U.S. territories.

World War I, Great Depression, and Apple War II

At the beginning of World War I in 1914, the Affiliated States remained neutral. A lot of Americans sympathized with the British and French, although abounding adjoin intervention.³⁷ In 1917, the Affiliated States abutting the Allies, allowance to about-face the course adjoin the Central Powers. Afterwards the war, the Assembly did not accredit the Treaty of Versailles, which accustomed the League of Nations. The country pursued a activity of unilateralism, abutting on isolationism.³⁸ In 1920, the women's rights movement won access of a constitutional amendment acceding women's suffrage. The abundance of the Roaring Twenties concluded with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. Afterwards his acclamation as admiral in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a ambit of behavior accretion government activity in the economy. The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s bankrupt abounding agriculture communities and spurred a new beachcomber of western migration.

The Affiliated States, finer aloof during World War II's aboriginal stages afterwards Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began bartering materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a abruptness attack on Pearl Harbor, bidding the Affiliated States to accompany the Allies adjoin the Axis powers as able-bodied as the internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands.³⁹ Participation in the war spurred basal investment and automated capacity. A allotment of the above combatants, the Affiliated States was the alone nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.⁴⁰ Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta categorical a new arrangement of all-embracing organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the centermost of apple affairs. As victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference captivated in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became alive afterwards the war.⁴¹ The Affiliated States, accepting developed the aboriginal nuclear weapons, acclimated them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, catastrophe the war.⁴²

Cold War and beef politics

The Affiliated States and Soviet Abutment jockeyed for ability afterwards Apple War II during the Cold War, assertive the aggressive diplomacy of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The Affiliated States answer liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Abutment answer communism and a centrally planned economy. Both accurate dictatorships and affianced in proxy wars. American troops fought Communist Chinese armament in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a alternation of investigations into doubtable apostle subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.

The 1961 Soviet barrage of the first manned spaceflight prompted Admiral John F. Kennedy's alarm for the Affiliated States to be aboriginal to acreage "a man on the moon," accomplished in 1969. Kennedy aswell faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet armament in Cuba. Meanwhile, the Affiliated States accomplished abiding bread-and-butter expansion. A growing civil rights movement, adumbrated and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel, acclimated nonviolence to accost allegory and discrimination. Afterward Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were anesthetized beneath Admiral Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, advertisement a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the bootless Vietnam War. A boundless countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new beachcomber of feminism that approved political, social, and bread-and-butter adequation for women.

As a aftereffect of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the aboriginal U.S. admiral to resign, to abstain getting impeached on accuse including obstruction of amends and corruption of power; he was succeeded by Vice Admiral Gerald Ford. The Jimmy Carter administering of the backward 1970s was apparent by stagflation and the Iran earnest crisis. The acclamation of Ronald Reagan as admiral in 1980 heralded a rightward about-face in American politics, reflected in above changes in taxation and spending priorities. His added appellation in appointment brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and cogent diplomatic advance with the Soviet Union. The consecutive Soviet collapse concluded the Cold War.

Contemporary era

Under Admiral George H. W. Bush, the Affiliated States took a advance role in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War. The longest bread-and-butter amplification in avant-garde U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Bill Clinton administering and the dot-com bubble.⁴³ A civil lawsuit and sex scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the abutting in American history, was bound by a U.S. Absolute Cloister decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists addled the World Barter Center in New York City and The Pentagon abreast Washington, D.C., killing about three thousand people. In response, the Bush administration launched a "War on Terrorism". In backward 2001, U.S. armament led an invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents abide to activity a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administering began to columnist for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.⁴⁴ Lacking the abutment of NATO or an absolute UN authorization for aggressive intervention, Bush organized a Coalition of the Willing; affiliation armament preemptively invaded Iraq in 2003, removing absolutist Saddam Hussein. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina acquired astringent abolition forth abounding of the Gulf Coast, adverse New Orleans. On November 4, 2008, amidst a all-around economic recession, Barack Obama was adopted president. He is the aboriginal African American to authority the office. In 2010, he oversaw the accomplishment of above health care and financial system reform. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that began in April 2010 became the better peacetime oil adversity in history.⁴⁵

Government and elections

The Affiliated States is the world's oldest actual federation. It is a constitutional republic and representative democracy, "in which majority rule is choleric by minority rights adequate by law."⁴⁶ The government is acclimatized by a arrangement of checks and balances authentic by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's absolute acknowledged document. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually accountable to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are frequently breach amidst county and borough governments. In about all cases, controlling and aldermanic admiral are adopted by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is actual attenuate at lower levels.

The federal government is composed of three branches:

• Legislative: The bicameral Congress, fabricated 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 ability of impeachment, by which it can abate sitting associates of the government.
• Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills afore they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Assembly approval) and added officers, who administrate and accomplish federal laws and policies.
• Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose board are appointed by the admiral with Assembly approval, adapt laws and annul those they acquisition unconstitutional.

The Abode of Representatives has 435 voting members, anniversary apery a congressional district for a two-year term. Abode seats are apportioned a allotment of the states by citizenry every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states accept the minimum of one representative, while California, the a lot of crawling state, has fifty-three. The Assembly has 100 associates with anniversary accompaniment accepting two senators, adopted at-large to six-year terms; one third of Assembly seats are up for acclamation every added year. The admiral serves a four-year appellation and may be adopted to the appointment no added than twice. The admiral is not adopted by absolute vote, but by an aberrant electoral college arrangement in which the chargeless votes are apportioned by state. The Absolute Court, led by the Chief Amends of the Affiliated States, has nine members, who serve for life.

The accompaniment governments are structured in about agnate fashion; Nebraska abnormally has a unicameral legislature. The governor (chief executive) of anniversary accompaniment is anon elected. Some accompaniment board and chiffonier admiral are appointed by the governors of the corresponding states, while others are adopted by accepted vote.

All laws and authoritative procedures are accountable to authoritative review, and any law disqualified in abuse of the Constitution is voided. The aboriginal altercation of the Constitution establishes the anatomy and responsibilities of the federal government and its accord with the alone states. Article One protects the appropriate to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a board trial in all bent cases. Amendments to the Constitution crave the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been acclimatized twenty-seven times; the aboriginal ten amendments, which accomplish up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment anatomy the axial abject of Americans' alone rights.

Parties, ideology, and politics

The Affiliated States has operated beneath a two-party system for a lot of of its history. For constituent offices at a lot of levels, state-administered primary elections accept the above affair nominees for consecutive general elections. Back the general acclamation of 1856, the above parties accept been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Back the Civilian War, alone one third-party presidential candidate—former admiral Theodore Roosevelt, alive as a Progressive in 1912—has won as abounding as 20% of the accepted vote.

Within American political culture, the Republican Affair is advised center-right or "conservative" and the Democratic Affair is advised center-left or "liberal". The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, accepted as "blue states", are about liberal. The "red states" of the South and locations of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are about conservative.

The champ of the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama, is the 44th U.S. president. All antecedent presidents were men of alone European descent. The 2008 elections aswell saw the Democratic Affair strengthen its ascendancy of both the House and the Senate. In the 111th Affiliated States Congress, the Assembly comprises 57 Democrats, two independents who conclave with the Democrats, and 41 Republicans; the Abode comprises 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans (two seats are vacant). There are 26 Democratic and 24 Republican state governors.

Political divisions

The Affiliated States is a federal union of fifty states. The aboriginal thirteen states were the breed of the thirteen colonies that rebelled adjoin British rule. Aboriginal in the country's history, three new states were organized on breadth afar from the claims of the absolute states: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. A lot of of the added states accept been carved from territories acquired through war or acquirement by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions comprises Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: anniversary was an absolute republic afore abutting the union. During the American Civilian War, West Virginia bankrupt away from Virginia. The a lot of contempo state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The states do not accept the right to secede from the union.

The states compose the all-inclusive aggregate of the U.S. acreage mass; the two added areas advised basal locations of the country are the Commune of Columbia, the federal district breadth the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an arid but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The Affiliated States aswell possesses 5 above across territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those built-in in the above territories (except for American Samoa) acquire U.S. citizenship. American citizens residing in the territories accept abounding of the aforementioned rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however, they are about absolved from federal assets tax, may not vote for president, and accept alone nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress.⁴⁷

Foreign relations and military

The Affiliated States contest all-around economic, political, and aggressive influence. It is a abiding affiliate of the United Nations Aegis Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. It is a affiliate of the G8, G20, and Organisation for Bread-and-butter Co-operation and Development. About all countries accept embassies in Washington, D.C., and abounding accept consulates about the country. Likewise, about all nations host American adept missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, Sudan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not accept academic adept relations with the Affiliated States.

The Affiliated States enjoys able ties with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Israel. It works carefully with boyish NATO associates on aggressive and aegis issues and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free barter agreements such as the trilateral North American Chargeless Barter Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2008, the Affiliated States spent a net $25.4 billion on official development assistance, the a lot of in the world. As a allotment of gross civic income (GNI), however, the U.S. addition of 0.18% ranked endure a allotment of twenty-two donor states. In contrast, clandestine across giving by Americans is about generous.⁴⁸

The admiral holds the appellation of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed armament and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2008, the armed armament had 1.4 actor cadre on alive duty. The Reserves and National Guard brought the absolute amount of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Aegis aswell alive about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.⁴⁹

Military annual is voluntary, admitting conscription may activity in wartime through the Selective Annual System. American armament can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's ample agile of carriage aircraft, the Navy's eleven alive aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The aggressive operates 865 bases and accessories abroad,⁵⁰ and maintains deployments greater than 100 alive assignment personnel in 28 adopted countries.⁵¹ The admeasurement of this all-around aggressive attendance has prompted some advisers to alarm the Affiliated States as advancement an "empire of bases."⁵²

Total U.S. aggressive spending in 2008, added than $600 billion, was over 41% of all-around aggressive spending and greater than the next fourteen better civic aggressive expenditures combined. The per capita spending of $1,967 was about nine times the apple average; at 4% of GDP, the amount was the second-highest a allotment of the top fifteen aggressive spenders, afterwards Saudi Arabia.⁵³ The proposed abject Department of Aegis budget for 2011, $549 billion, is a 3.4% access over 2010 and 85% academy than in 2001; an added $159 billion is proposed for the aggressive campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.⁵⁴ As of September 2010, the Affiliated States is appointed to accept 96,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan, and 50,000 to Iraq.⁵⁵ As of August 18, 2010, the Affiliated States had suffered 4,415 aggressive fatalities during the Iraq War,⁵⁶ and 1,229 during the War in Afghanistan.⁵⁷

Economy

Economic indicators
Unemployment	9.5% (July 2010)	58
GDP growth	1.6% (2Q 2010) [-2.6% (2009)	59
CPI inflation	1.2% (July 2009 – July 2010)	60
Public debt	$13.24 abundance (July 16, 2010)	61
Poverty	13.2% (2008)	62
Household net worth	$54.2 abundance (4Q 2009)	63

The Affiliated States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abounding natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and top productivity.⁶⁴ According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $14.4 abundance constitutes 24% of the gross apple product at bazaar barter ante and about 21% of the gross apple artefact at purchasing ability parity (PPP).⁴ It has the better civic GDP in the world, admitting it is about 5% beneath than the GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2008. The country ranks seventeenth in the apple in nominal GDP per capita and sixth in GDP per capita at PPP.⁴

The Affiliated States is the largest importer of appurtenances and third better exporter, admitting exports per capita are about low. In 2008, the absolute U.S. barter deficit was $696 billion.⁶⁵ Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.⁶⁶ In 2007, cars constituted both the arch acceptation and arch consign commodity.⁶⁷ Japan is the better adopted holder of U.S. accessible debt, accepting surpassed China in aboriginal 2010.⁶⁸ The Affiliated States ranks added in the Global Competitiveness Report.⁶⁹

In 2009, the private sector is estimated to aggregate 55.3% of the economy, with federal government activity accounting for 24.1% and accompaniment and bounded government activity (including federal transfers) the actual 20.6%.⁷⁰ The abridgement is postindustrial, with the service sector accidental 67.8% of GDP, admitting the Affiliated States charcoal an automated power.⁷¹ The arch business acreage by gross business receipts is broad and retail trade; by net assets it is manufacturing.⁷² Chemical online writing are the arch accomplishment field.⁷³ The Affiliated States is the third better ambassador of oil in the world, as able-bodied as its better importer.⁷⁴ It is the world's amount one ambassador of electrical and nuclear energy, as able-bodied as aqueous accustomed gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just beneath 1% of GDP,⁷¹ the Affiliated States is the world's top ambassador of corn⁷⁵ and soybeans.⁷⁶ The New York Stock Exchange is the world's better by dollar volume.⁷⁷ Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two a lot of accustomed brands in the world.⁷⁸

In the third assay of 2009, the American activity force comprised 154.4 actor people. Of those employed, 81% had jobs in the annual sector. With 22.4 actor people, government is the arch acreage of employment.⁷⁹ About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.⁸⁰ The Apple Bank ranks the Affiliated States aboriginal in the affluence of hiring and battlefront workers.⁸¹ Amidst 1973 and 2003, a year's plan for the boilerplate American grew by 199 hours.⁸² Partly as a result, the Affiliated States maintains the accomplished activity abundance in the world. In 2008, it aswell led the apple in abundance per hour, overtaking Norway, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, which had surpassed the Affiliated States for a lot of of the above-mentioned decade.⁸³ Compared to Europe, U.S. acreage and accumulated income tax rates are about higher, while activity and, particularly, consumption tax ante are lower.⁸⁴

Income and animal development

According to the United States Demography Bureau, the pretax median domiciliary income in 2007 was $50,233. The boilerplate ranged from $68,080 in Maryland to $36,338 in Mississippi.⁶² Application purchasing ability parity barter rates, the all-embracing boilerplate is agnate to the a lot of flush array of developed nations. Afterwards crumbling acutely during the boilerplate of the 20th century, poverty rates accept plateaued back the aboriginal 1970s, with 11–15% of Americans beneath the poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at atomic one year in abjection amidst the ages of 25 and 75.⁸⁶⁸⁷ In 2007, 37.3 actor Americans lived in poverty.⁶²

The U.S. abundance accompaniment is now a allotment of the a lot of ascetic in the developed world, abbreviation both relative poverty and absolute poverty by appreciably beneath than the beggarly for affluent nations,⁸⁸⁸⁹ admitting accumulated clandestine and accessible amusing expenditures per capita are academy than in any of the Nordic countries.⁹⁰ While the American abundance accompaniment does able-bodied in abbreviation abjection a allotment of the elderly,⁹¹ the boyish accept about little assistance.⁹² A 2007 UNICEF abstraction of children's abundance in twenty-one automated nations ranked the Affiliated States next to last.⁹³

Despite able increases in productivity, low unemployment, and low inflation, assets assets back 1980 accept been slower than in antecedent decades, beneath broadly shared, and accompanied by added bread-and-butter insecurity. Amidst 1947 and 1979, real boilerplate income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor Americans ascent faster than those of the rich.⁹⁴⁹⁵ Median domiciliary income has added for all classes back 1980,⁹⁶ abundantly attributable to added dual-earner households, the closing of the gender gap, and best plan hours, but advance has been slower and acerb agee adjoin the actual top (see graph).⁸⁸⁹⁴⁹⁷ Consequently, the allotment of assets of the top 1%—21.8% of absolute appear assets in 2005—has added than angled back 1980,⁹⁸ abrogation the Affiliated States with the greatest assets asperity a allotment of developed nations.⁸⁸⁹⁹ The top 1% pays 27.6% of all federal taxes; the top 10% pays 54.7%.¹⁰⁰ Wealth, like income, is awful concentrated: The richest 10% of the developed citizenry possesses 69.8% of the country's domiciliary wealth, the second-highest allotment a allotment of developed nations.¹⁰¹ The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.¹⁰²

Science and technology

The Affiliated States has been a baton in accurate assay and abstruse addition back the backward 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the aboriginal U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's chic developed the phonograph, the aboriginal long-lasting ablaze bulb, and the aboriginal applicable movie camera. Nikola Tesla pioneered alternating current, the AC motor, and radio. In the aboriginal 20th century, the auto companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford answer the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, fabricated the first abiding and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.¹⁰³

The acceleration of Nazism in the 1930s led abounding European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to arrive to the Affiliated States. During Apple War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced accelerated advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers. The Affiliated States abundantly developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, the aggregate of assay and development funding, 64%, comes from the clandestine sector.¹⁰⁴ The Affiliated States leads the apple in accurate assay affidavit and impact factor.¹⁰⁵ Americans acquire top levels of abstruse customer goods,¹⁰⁶ and about bisected of U.S. households accept broadband Internet access.¹⁰⁷ The country is the primary developer and agriculturalist of genetically acclimatized food, apery bisected of the world's biotech crops.¹⁰⁸

Transportation

Everyday claimed busline in America is bedeviled by the automobile. As of 2003, there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 Americans, compared to 472 per 1,000 citizenry of the European Abutment the afterward year.¹¹⁰ About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or ablaze trucks.¹¹¹ The boilerplate American developed (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers) spends 55 annual active every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).¹¹²

The civilian airline industry is absolutely abreast owned, while a lot of above airports are about owned. The four better airlines in the apple by cartage agitated are American; Southwest Airlines is amount one.¹¹³ Of the world's thirty busiest commuter airports, sixteen are in the Affiliated States, including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta All-embracing Airport.¹¹⁴ While carriage of appurtenances by abuse is extensive, about few humans use abuse to travel, aural or amidst cities.¹¹⁵ Mass transit accounts for 9% of absolute U.S. plan trips, compared to 38.8% in Europe.¹¹⁶ Bicycle acceptance is minimal, able-bodied beneath European levels.¹¹⁷

Energy

The Affiliated States activity bazaar is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy burning per capita is 7.8 tons of oil agnate per year, compared to Germany's 4.2 tons and Canada's 8.3 tons. In 2005, 40% of this activity came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from accustomed gas. The butt was supplied by nuclear ability and renewable energy sources.¹¹⁹ The Affiliated States is the world's better customer of petroleum.¹²⁰ For decades, nuclear power has played a bound role about to abounding added developed countries, in allotment due to accessible acumen in the deathwatch of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.¹²¹

Demographics

The U.S. Demography Bureau projects the country's citizenry to be 310,195,000,² including an estimated 11.2 actor illegal immigrants.¹²² The third a lot of crawling nation in the world, afterwards China and India, the Affiliated States is the alone automated nation in which ample citizenry increases are projected.¹²³ With a birth rate of 13.82 per 1,000, 30% beneath the apple average, its population advance rate is 0.98%, decidedly academy than those of Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea.¹²⁴ In budgetary year 2009, 1.1 actor immigrants were accepted legal residence.¹²⁵ Mexico has been the arch antecedent of new association for over two decades; back 1998, China, India, and the Philippines accept been in the top four sending countries every year.¹²⁶

The Affiliated States has a actual diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups accept added than a actor members.¹²⁷ White Americans are the better racial group; German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans aggregate three of the country's four better ancestor groups.¹²⁷ African Americans are the nation's better racial minority and third better ancestor group.¹²⁷¹²⁸ Asian Americans are the country's added better ancestral minority; the two better Asian American aboriginal groups are Chinese American and Filipino American.¹²⁷ In 2008, the U.S. citizenry included an estimated 4.9 actor humans with some American Indian or Alaskan native ancestor (3.1 actor alone of such ancestry) and 1.1 actor with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestor (0.6 actor exclusively).¹²⁸

Race/Ethnicity (2008)128
White	79.8%
African American	12.8%
Asian American	4.5%
Native American and Alaska Native	1.0%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander	0.2%
Multiracial	1.7%
Hispanic (of any race)	15.4%

The citizenry advance of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the agreement are clearly interchangeable) is a above demographic trend. The 46.9 actor Americans of Hispanic descent¹²⁸ are articular as administration a audible "ethnicity" by the Demography Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.¹²⁹ Amidst 2000 and 2008, the country's Hispanic citizenry added 32% while the non-Hispanic citizenry rose just 4.3%.¹²⁸ Abounding of this advance is from immigration; as of 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. citizenry was foreign-born, with 54% of that amount built-in in Latin America.¹³⁰ Fertility is aswell a factor; the boilerplate Hispanic woman gives bearing to 3.0 accouchement in her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for non-Hispanic atramentous women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).¹²³ Minorities (as authentic by the Demography Bureau, all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) aggregate 34% of the population; they are projected to be the majority by 2042.¹³¹

About 82% of Americans abide in urban areas (as authentic by the Demography Bureau, such areas cover the suburbs);¹ about bisected of those abide in cities with populations over 50,000.¹³² In 2008, 273 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had added than 1 actor residents, and four global cities had over 2 actor (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).¹³³ There are fifty-two metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.¹³⁴ Of the fifty fastest-growing busline areas, forty-seven are in the West or South.¹³⁵ The busline areas of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by added than a actor humans amidst 2000 and 2008.¹³⁴

Leading citizenry centers					view • talk •
Rank	Core city	Metro breadth pop.134	Metropolitan Statistical Area	Region136	New York City Los Angeles
1	New York City	19,006,798	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA	Northeast
2	Los Angeles	12,872,808	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA	West
3	Chicago	9,569,624	Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA	Midwest
4	Dallas	6,300,006	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA	South
5	Philadelphia	5,838,471	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA	Northeast
6	Houston	5,728,143	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX MSA	South
7	Miami	5,514,772	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA	South
8	Atlanta	5,376,285	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA	South
9	Washington, D.C.	5,358,130	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA	South
10	Boston	4,522,858	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA	Northeast
based on 2008 U.S. Demography Bureau estimates

Language

Languages (2006)137
English (only)	224.2 million
Spanish, incl. Creole	34.0 million
Chinese	2.5 million
French, incl. Creole	2.0 million
Tagalog	1.4 million
Vietnamese	1.2 million
German	1.1 million
Korean	1.1 million

English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. acclimatization requirements—standardize English. In 2006, about 224 million, or 80% of the citizenry age-old 5 years and older, batten alone English at home. Spanish, announced by 12% of the citizenry at home, is the added a lot of accepted accent and the a lot of broadly accomplished added language.¹³⁷¹³⁸ Some Americans apostle authoritative English the country's official language, as it is in at atomic twenty-eight states.⁶ Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by accompaniment law.¹³⁹

While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws accouterment for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.¹⁴⁰ Added states, such as California, authorization the advertisement of Spanish versions of assertive government abstracts including cloister forms.¹⁴¹ Several alone territories acceptance official acceptance to their built-in languages, forth with English: Samoan and Chamorro are accustomed by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are accustomed by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official accent of Puerto Rico.

Religion

The Affiliated States is clearly a secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the accomplishment of any religious governance. In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that adoration played a "very important role in their lives," a far academy amount than that of any added affluent nation.¹⁴² According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults articular themselves as Christian,¹⁴³ down from 86.4% in 1990.¹⁴⁴ Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the better alone denomination. The abstraction categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's better religious cohort;¹⁴³ addition abstraction estimates evangelicals of all contest at 30–35%.¹⁴⁵ The absolute advertisement non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990.¹⁴⁴ The arch non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).¹⁴³ The assay aswell appear that 16.1% of Americans declared themselves as agnostic, atheist, or artlessly accepting no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.¹⁴³¹⁴⁴

Education

American public education is operated by accompaniment and bounded governments, acclimatized by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Accouchement are appropriate in a lot of states to appear academy from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they about-face eighteen (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states acquiesce acceptance to leave academy at sixteen or seventeen.¹⁴⁷ About 12% of accouchement are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of accouchement are homeschooled.¹⁴⁸

The Affiliated States has abounding aggressive clandestine and accessible institutions of academy education, as able-bodied as bounded community colleges with accessible acceptance policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% accelerating from top school, 52.6% abounding some college, 27.2% becoming a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% becoming alum degrees.¹⁴⁹ The basal literacy rate is about 99%.¹¹⁵⁰ The Affiliated Nations assigns the Affiliated States an Apprenticeship Index of 0.97, attached it for 12th in the world.¹⁵¹

Health

The Affiliated States activity assumption of 77.8 years at birth¹⁵² is a year beneath than the all-embracing amount in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.¹⁵³ Over the accomplished two decades, the country's rank in activity assumption has alone from 11th to 42nd in the world.¹⁵⁴ The baby bloodshed amount of 6.37 per thousand additionally places the Affiliated States 42nd out of 221 countries, abaft all of Western Europe.¹⁵⁵ About one-third of the developed citizenry is obese and an added third is overweight;¹⁵⁶ the blubber rate, the accomplished in the automated world, has added than angled in the endure quarter-century.¹⁵⁷ Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is advised catching by bloom affliction professionals.¹⁵⁸

The U.S. boyish abundance rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is about four times that of France and 5 times that of Germany.¹⁵⁹ Abortion, acknowledged on demand, is awful controversial. Many states ban accessible allotment of the activity and bind late-term abortions, crave affectionate notification for minors, and authorization a cat-and-mouse period. While the aborticide amount is falling, the aborticide arrangement of 241 per 1,000 abide births and aborticide amount of 15 per 1,000 women age-old 15–44 abide academy than those of a lot of Western nations.¹⁶⁰

The U.S. bloom affliction arrangement far outspends any added nation's, abstinent in both per capita spending and allotment of GDP.¹⁶² The World Bloom Organization ranked the U.S. bloom affliction arrangement in 2000 as aboriginal in responsiveness, but 37th in all-embracing performance. The Affiliated States is a baton in medical innovation. In 2004, the nonindustrial breadth spent three times as abounding as Europe per capita on biomedical research.¹⁶³

Unlike in all added developed countries, bloom affliction advantage in the Affiliated States is not universal. In 2004, clandestine allowance paid for 36% of claimed bloom expenditures, clandestine abroad payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and bounded governments paid for 44%.¹⁶⁴ In 2005, 46.6 actor Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 actor added than in 2001. The capital could could cause of this acceleration is the bead in the amount of Americans with employer-sponsored bloom insurance.¹⁶⁵ The accountable of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a above political issue.¹⁶⁶ A 2009 abstraction estimated that abridgement of allowance is associated with about 45,000 deaths a year.¹⁶⁷ In 2006, Massachusetts became the aboriginal accompaniment to authorization accepted bloom insurance.¹⁶⁸ Federal legislation anesthetized in aboriginal 2010 will actualize a near-universal bloom allowance arrangement about the country by 2014.

Crime and law enforcement

Law administration in the Affiliated States is primarily the albatross of bounded badge and sheriff's departments, with state police accouterment broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service accept specialized duties. At the federal akin and in about every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. Accompaniment courts conduct a lot of bent trials; federal courts handle assertive appointed crimes as able-bodied as assertive appeals from the accompaniment systems.

Among developed nations, the Affiliated States has above-average levels of agitated abomination and decidedly top levels of gun violence and homicide.¹⁶⁹ In 2007, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons,¹⁷⁰ three times the amount in adjoining Canada.¹⁷¹ The U.S. assassination rate, which decreased by 42% amidst 1991 and 1999, has been about abiding since.¹⁷⁰ Gun buying rights are the accountable of contentious political debate.

The Affiliated States has the accomplished accurate incarceration rate¹⁷² and absolute bastille population¹⁷³ in the world. At the alpha of 2008, added than 2.3 actor humans were incarcerated, added than one in every 100 adults.¹⁷⁴ The accepted amount is about seven times the 1980 figure.¹⁷⁵ African American males are confined at about six times the amount of white males and three times the amount of Hispanic males.¹⁷² In 2006, the U.S. incarceration amount was over three times the amount in Poland, the Organisation for Bread-and-butter Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next accomplished rate.¹⁷⁶ The country's top amount of incarceration is abundantly due to sentencing and drug policies.¹⁷²¹⁷⁷

Though it has been abolished in a lot of Western nations, capital punishment is accustomed in the Affiliated States for assertive federal and aggressive crimes, and in thirty-six states. Back 1976, if the U.S. Absolute Cloister reinstated the afterlife penalty afterwards a four-year moratorium, there accept been added than 1,000 executions.¹⁷⁸ In 2006, the country had the sixth accomplished amount of executions in the world, afterward China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan.¹⁷⁹ In 2007, New Jersey became the aboriginal accompaniment to legislatively abate the afterlife amends back the 1976 Absolute Cloister decision, followed by New Mexico in 2009.

Culture

The Affiliated States is a multicultural nation, home to a advanced array of aboriginal groups, traditions, and values.⁷¹⁸⁰ Aside from the now baby Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, about all Americans or their ancestors immigrated aural the accomplished 5 centuries.¹⁸¹ The ability captivated in accepted by a lot of Americans—mainstream American culture—is a Western culture abundantly acquired from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from abounding added sources, such as traditions brought by disciplinarian from Africa.⁷¹⁸² Added contempo clearing from Asia and abnormally Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been declared as both a homogenizing melting pot and a amalgamate salad bowl in which immigrants and their birth absorb characteristic cultural characteristics.⁷

According to Geert Hofstede's cultural ambit analysis, the Affiliated States has the accomplished individualism annual of any country studied.¹⁸³ While the boilerplate ability holds that the Affiliated States is a classless society,¹⁸⁴ advisers analyze cogent differences amidst the country's amusing classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.¹⁸⁵ The American boilerplate and able class has accomplished abounding abreast amusing trends such as modern feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism.¹⁸⁶ Americans' self-images, amusing viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an almighty abutting degree.¹⁸⁷ While Americans tend abundantly to amount socioeconomic achievement, getting ordinary or average is about apparent as a absolute attribute.¹⁸⁸ Admitting the American Dream, or the acumen that Americans adore top social mobility, plays a key role in alluring immigrants, some analysts acquisition that the Affiliated States has beneath amusing advancement than Western Europe and Canada.¹⁸⁹

Women now mostly plan alfresco the home and accept a majority of bachelor's degrees.¹⁹⁰ In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.¹⁹¹ Same-sex marriage is contentious. Some states admittance civil unions in lieu of marriage. Back 2003, several states accept acceptable gay alliance as the aftereffect of authoritative or aldermanic action, while voters in added than a dozen states accept barred the convenance via referendum.

Popular media

The world's aboriginal bartering motion annual exhibition was accustomed in New York City in 1894, application Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the aboriginal bartering screening of a projected film, aswell in New York, and the Affiliated States was in the beginning of sound film's development in the afterward decades. Back the aboriginal 20th century, the U.S. blur industry has abundantly been based in and about Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was axial to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest blur of all time.¹⁹² American awning actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe accept become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a baton in both animated film and cine merchandising. The major blur studios of Hollywood accept produced the a lot of commercially acknowledged movies in history, such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the online writing of Hollywood today boss the all-around blur industry.¹⁹³

Americans are the heaviest television admirers in the world,¹⁹⁴ and the boilerplate examination time continues to rise, all-encompassing 5 hours a day in 2006.¹⁹⁵ The four above advertisement networks are all bartering entities. Americans accept to radio programming, aswell abundantly commercialized, on boilerplate just over two-and-a-half hours a day.¹⁹⁶ Aside from web portals and search engines, the a lot of accepted websites are Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, eBay, and Craigslist.¹⁹⁷

The adroit and agreeable styles of African American music accept acutely afflicted American music at large, appropriate it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now accepted as old-time music were adopted and acclimatized into popular genres with all-around audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington aboriginal in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were a allotment of the mid-1950s antecedents of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's a lot of acclaimed songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. Added contempo American creations cover hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna accept become all-around celebrities.¹⁹⁸

Literature, philosophy, and the arts

In the 18th and aboriginal 19th centuries, American art and abstract took a lot of of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau accustomed a characteristic American arcane articulation by the boilerplate of the 19th century. Mark Twain and artist Walt Whitman were above abstracts in the century's added half; Emily Dickinson, about alien during her lifetime, is now accustomed as an capital American poet.¹⁹⁹ A plan apparent as capturing axiological aspects of the civic acquaintance 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."

Eleven U.S. citizens accept won the Nobel Cost in Literature, a lot of afresh Toni Morrison in 1993. Ernest Hemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate, is about alleged as one of the a lot of affecting writers of the 20th century.²⁰⁰ Accepted arcane genres such as the Western and hardboiled abomination fiction developed in the Affiliated States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new arcane approaches, as accept postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.

The transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, accustomed the aboriginal above American philosophical movement. Afterwards the Civilian War, Charles Sanders Peirce and again William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the plan of W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty, congenital aloft by Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the ahead of U.S. academics. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a awakening of political philosophy.

In the beheld arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the attitude of European naturalism. The realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now broadly celebrated. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, abashed the accessible and acclimatized the U.S. art scene.²⁰¹ Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new styles, announcement a awful appropriate sensibility. Above aesthetic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed abundantly in the Affiliated States. The course of addition and again postmodernism has brought acclaim to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.

One of the aboriginal above promoters of American amphitheater was administrator P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan ball circuitous in 1841. The aggregation of Harrigan and Hart produced a alternation of accepted musical comedies in New York starting in the backward 1870s. In the 20th century, the avant-garde agreeable anatomy emerged on Broadway; the songs of agreeable amphitheater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim accept become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel abstract cost in 1936; added acclaimed U.S. dramatists cover assorted Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.

Though abundantly disregarded at the time, Charles Ives's plan of the 1910s accustomed him as the aboriginal above U.S. artisan in the classical tradition; added experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created an American access to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a different amalgam of accepted and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped actualize modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th aeon ballet. Americans accept continued been important in the avant-garde aesthetic boilerplate of photography, with above photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. The bi-weekly comic strip and the comic book are both U.S. innovations. Superman, the quintessential banana book superhero, has become an American icon.²⁰²

Food

Mainstream American culinary arts are agnate to those in added Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Acceptable American cuisine uses capacity such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, aboriginal foods alive by Built-in Americans and aboriginal European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate dent cookies are abnormally American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is accepted about the South and a allotment of abounding African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important.

Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs acquire from the recipes of assorted immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes advisedly acclimatized from Italian sources are broadly consumed.²⁰³ Americans about adopt coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is abundantly amenable for authoritative orange juice and milk all-over breakfast beverages.²⁰⁴ During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric assimilation rose 24%;²⁰³ common dining at fast food outlets is associated with what bloom admiral alarm the American "obesity epidemic." Awful aperitive soft drinks are broadly popular; candied beverages annual for 9% of the boilerplate American's caloric intake.²⁰⁵

Sports

Since the backward 19th century, baseball has been admired as the national sport; American football, basketball, and ice hockey are the country's three added arch able aggregation sports. College football and basketball allure ample audiences. Football is now by several measures the a lot of accepted spectator sport.²⁰⁶ Boxing and horse racing were already the a lot of watched alone sports, but they accept been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, decidedly NASCAR. Soccer is played broadly at the adolescence and abecedarian levels. Tennis and abounding alfresco sports are accepted as well.

While a lot of above U.S. sports accept acquired out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American inventions. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Built-in American and Built-in Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic Games accept taken abode in the Affiliated States. The Affiliated States has won 2,301 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, added than any added country,²⁰⁷ and 253 in the Winter Olympic Games, the added most.²⁰⁸

Measurement systems

The country retains United States accepted units, constituted abundantly by British imperial units such as yards, miles, and degrees Fahrenheit. Audible units cover the U.S. gallon and pint aggregate measurements. The Affiliated States is one of three countries, forth with Burma and Liberia, that has not clearly adopted the metric system. However, metric units are added acclimated in science, medicine, and abounding automated fields.²⁰⁹

See also

References

External links

Find added about United States on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions from Wiktionary
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Books are collections of online writing that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Government

• Official U.S. Government Web Portal Gateway to government sites
• House Official website of the Affiliated States Abode of Representatives
• Senate Official website of the Affiliated States Senate
• White House Official website of the Admiral of the Affiliated States
• Supreme Court Official website of the Absolute Cloister of the Affiliated States

Overviews and Data

• United States access at The Apple Factbook
• InfoUSA Aperture to U.S. Advice Agency resources
• Library of Congress Official website of the U.S. Library of Congress
• Demographic Highlights Statistics from the Citizenry Reference Bureau
• The 50 States of the U.S.A. Collected advisory links for anniversary state
• United States biking guide from Wikitravel
• United States Encyclopædia Britannica entry
• United States at the Open Directory Project
• U.S. Demography Housing and Bread-and-butter Statistics Wide-ranging abstracts from the U.S. Demography Bureau
• U.S. Citizenship and Clearing Services Official government site
• State Fact Sheets Population, employment, income, and acreage abstracts from the U.S. Economic Assay Service
• State Activity Profiles Economic, environmental, and activity abstracts for anniversary accompaniment from the U.S. Energy Advice Administration

History

• Historical Documents Collected by the Civic Centermost for Accessible Activity Research
• U.S. Civic Mottos: History and Constitutionality Assay by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
• USA Collected links to actual data

Maps

• National Atlas of the Affiliated States Official maps from the U.S. Department of the Interior
• United States Satellite appearance at WikiMapia (not affiliated with Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation)
• Wikimedia Atlas of the Affiliated States

Links to accompanying articles v • d • e Countries and dependencies of North America Several nations listed actuality alternate both Arctic and South America or can aswell be advised Caribbean. Sovereign states Antigua and Barbuda · Bahamas · Barbados · Belize · Canada · Costa Rica · Cuba · Dominica · Dominican Republic · El Salvador · France (Guadeloupe · Martinique) · Grenada · Guatemala · Haiti · Honduras · Jamaica · Mexico · Nicaragua · Panama · St. Kitts and Nevis · St. Lucia · St. Vincent and the Grenadines · Trinidad and Tobago · United States Dependencies Denmark Greenland France St. Barthélemy · St. Martin · St. Pierre and Miquelon · Clipperton Netherlands Aruba · Netherlands Antilles United Kingdom Anguilla · Bermuda · British Virgin Islands · Cayman Islands · Montserrat · Turks and Caicos Islands United States Bajo Nuevo Bank · Navassa Island · Puerto Rico · Serranilla Bank · U.S. Virgin Islands   International membership v • d • e North American Chargeless Barter Agreement (NAFTA) Canada • Mexico • United States v • d • e Members of the United Nations Security Council Permanent members China · France · Russia · United Kingdom · United States Term ends December 31, 2010 Austria · Japan · Mexico · Turkey · Uganda Term ends December 31, 2011 Bosnia and Herzegovina · Brazil · Gabon · Lebanon · Nigeria v • d • e Group of Eight (G8) Members Canada · France · Germany · Italy · Japan · Russia · United Kingdom · United States Representative European Union v • d • e Group of Eight Plus 5 (G8+5)