United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known
as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is
a country primarily located in North America. It consists of
50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine
Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States
is the world's third-largest country by both land and total
area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north
and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders
with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a
population of over 333 million, it is the most populous
country in the Americas and the third most populous in
the world. The national capital of the United States is
Washington, D.C., and its most populous city and principal financial
center is New York City.
Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Americas
for thousands of years. Beginning in 1607, British colonization led
to the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies in what is
now the Eastern United States. They quarreled with the British
Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American
Revolution and proceeding Revolutionary War. The United States declared independence
on July 4, 1776, becoming the first nation-state founded on
Enlightenment principles of unalienable natural rights, consent of the governed,
and liberal democracy. During the nineteenth century, the United States
political philosophy was influenced by the concept of manifest destiny,
as the country expanded across the continent in a number
of wars, land purchases, and treaties, eventually reaching the Pacific
Ocean by the middle of the century. Sectional division surrounding
slavery in the Southern United States led to the secession
of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining
states of the Union during the American Civil War (18611865).
With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally
by the Thirteenth Amendment.
By 1900, the United States had established
itself as a world power, becoming the world's largest economy.
After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S.
entered World War II on the Allied side. The aftermath
of the war left the United States and the Soviet
Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the
Cold War. During the Cold War, both countries engaged in
a struggle for ideological dominance but avoided direct military conflict.
They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in
the 1969 landing of Apollo 11, making the U.S. the
first and only nation to ever land humans on the
Moon. With the Soviet Union's collapse and the subsequent end
of the Cold War in 1991, the United States emerged
as the world's sole superpower.
The United States government is a
federal republic and a representative democracy with three separate branches
of government. It has a bicameral national legislature composed of
the House of Representatives, a lower house; and the Senate,
an upper house based on equal representation for each state.
Many policy issues are decentralized, with widely differing laws by
jurisdiction. The U.S. ranks highly in international measures of quality
of life, income and wealth, economic competitiveness, human rights, innovation,
and education; it has low levels of perceived corruption and
the highest median income per person of any polity in
the world. It has high levels of incarceration and inequality
and lacks universal health care. As a melting pot of
cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been shaped by the
world's largest immigrant population.
A developed country, the American economy accounts
for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the
world's largest by GDP at market exchange rates. The United
States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter. The
United States is a founding member of the United Nations,
World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, NATO,
World Health Organization, and is a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council. The U.S. is the foremost military
power in the world and a dominant political, cultural, and
scientific force internationally.
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