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	None
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
• Recognized	September 3 1783
• Water (%)	4.87
Population
• 2024 estimate	338,719,000 (3rd)
• 2000 census	281,421,906
GDP (PPP)	2006 estimate
• Total	$12,229,276m (1st)
• Per capita	$43,444 (4th)
GDP (nominal)	2006 estimate
• Total	$13,244,550m (1st)
• Per capita	$44,190 (8th)
Gini (2004)	45 medium inequality
HDI (2004)	0.948  (8th)
Currency	United States dollar ($) (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 comprising fifty states, one federal district, and fourteen territories. Template:Catcite Template:Catcite The country is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, 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, the product of large-scale immigration from almost every corner of the globe.Template:Catcite Its national economy is the world's largest, with a nominal 2006 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 The rebellious states defeated Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence. 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. In the nineteenth century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. The American Civil War ended slavery and prevented a permanent split of the country. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the nation's status as a great power. In 1945, the U.S. emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The sole remaining superpower in the post–Cold War era, it is the dominant economic, political, military, and cultural force in the world.

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 after 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 standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the U.S. The prevailing use of American as synonymous with U.S. citizen has aroused controversy, particularly in Latin America, where Spanish and Portuguese speakers refer to themselves as "americanos" and use "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

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 how two territories disputed by China and India are counted. Including only land area, the U.S. is third in size behind Russia and China, 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. The commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the largest and most populous U.S. territory, is in the northeastern Caribbean. 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 end at the Appalachian Mountains. 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. Between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, the Interior Plains and Great Plains are relatively flat, fertile farm land. The Mississippi-Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north-south through the heart of the country. 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 the continent's largest volcanic feature.

File:USAClimates.PNG

Climate zones of the continental United States

Due to the United States' large size and wide range of geographic features, nearly every type of climate is represented. 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—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the continental United States. However, 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

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

The formerly endangered bald eagle, the national bird

With habitats ranging from tropical to Arctic, U.S. plant life is very diverse. The country has more than 17,000 identified native species of flora, including 5,000 in California (home to the tallest, the most massive, and the oldest trees in the world). More than 400 mammal, 700 bird, 500 reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 insect species have been documented. Wetlands such as the Florida Everglades are the base for much of this diversity. The country's ecosystems include thousands of nonnative exotic species that often adversely affect indigenous plant and animal communities. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered 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 formed. Wilderness areas have been established around the country to ensure long-term protection of pristine habitats. Altogether, the U.S. government regulates 1,020,779 square miles (2,643,807 km²), 28.8 percent of the country's total land area. Protected parks and forestland constitute most of this. As of March 2004, approximately 16 percent of public land under Bureau of Land Management administration was being leased for commercial oil and natural gas drilling; public land is also leased for mining and cattle ranching. The energy policy of the United States is widely debated; many people worldwide call on the U.S., as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, to take a leading role in fighting global warming.

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 territory that now constitutes the U.S. mainland, including Alaska, migrated from Asia. They began arriving at least 12,000 and as many as 40,000 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, 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 present-day southwestern United States drew thousands through Mexico. The first successful British 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 wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Beginning in 1614, the Dutch established settlements along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. The small settlement of New Sweden, founded along the Delaware River in 1638, was taken over by the Dutch in 1655.

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; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America 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. The revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. By 1770, the colonies had an increasingly Anglicized population of three million, approximately half that of Britain itself. Though subject to British taxation, they were given no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Independence and expansion

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

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 1817–18

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, convening in Philadelphia, established an army under the command of George Washington. The Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. The Congress, lacking authority to levy taxes, had difficulty funding 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. Some 70,000–80,000 loyalists to the British Crown fled the rebellious states, many to Nova Scotia and the new British holdings in Canada. Native Americans, with divided loyalties, fought on both sides of the war's western front.

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

After the British 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. New York City was the federal capital for a year, before the government relocated to Philadelphia. 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 toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the African slave trade only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." In 1800, the federal government moved to the newly founded Washington, D.C. The Second Great Awakening made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements.

Territorial acquisitions by date

Americans' eagerness to expand westward began a cycle of Indian Wars that stretched to the end of the nineteenth century, as Native Americans were stripped of their land. 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 a 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 annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time. The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to 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 made relocation much less arduous for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. 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 economic resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.

Civil War and industrialization

Main articles: American Civil War, Reconstruction, and Spanish-American War

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 into new states. 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 African Americans who had been slaves, made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.

Immigrants landing at Ellis Island, New York, 1902

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 resolved by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon 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. The Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the archipelago was annexed by the U.S. in 1898. Victory in the Spanish-American War that same year demonstrated that the United States was 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: The United States in World War I, Great Depression, and Military history of the United States during 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. Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many citizens, mostly Irish and German, opposed intervention. In 1917, the U.S. joined the Allies, turning the tide against the Central Powers. Reluctant to be involved in European affairs, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism. In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. In part due to the service of many in the war, Native Americans gained U.S. citizenship in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

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 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 Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration. The nation would not fully recover from the economic depression until the industrial mobilization spurred by its entrance into World War II, which began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The United States, effectively neutral during the war's early stages, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program.

On December 7, 1941, the United States joined the Allies against the Axis Powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan. World War II cost far more money than any other war in American history, but it boosted the economy by providing capital investment and jobs, while bringing many women into the labor market. Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of intergovernmental organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was achieved in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war. The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.

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, 1963

The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the 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 and engaged in proxy wars, including the Greek Civil War and the Korean War. 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 U.S. efforts to raise proficiency in mathematics and science and President John F. Kennedy's call for the country 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 sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement headed by prominent African Americans, such as Martin Luther King Jr., fought segregation and discrimination, leading to the abolition of Jim Crow laws and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, his successors expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, rather than be impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

U.S. Air Force jets flying above the remnants of Kuwaiti oil fields in the Gulf War, 1991

The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 marked a significant rightward shift in American politics. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Soviet Union's power diminished, leading to its collapse. 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

The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses the United States Congress

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is both a representative democracy and a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the United States Constitution, which serves as the supreme legal document in the American system and as a social contract for the people of the United States. Citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties may themselves be split among county, metropolitan, and municipal governments. Officials at all 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 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, home and work place of the U.S. 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 administer and enforce federal laws and policies.

• 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 House of Representatives has 435 members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the fifty states by 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 president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.

The front of the United States Supreme Court building

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 original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government, the relationship between it and the individual states, and essential matters of military and economic authority. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, including the 1791 Bill of Rights. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, the press, and peacable asssembly, and the right to petition the government. The other nine amendments of the Bill establish such rights as the right to keep and bear arms; protection from unreasonable search and seizure; the right to due process and just compensation for seized property and protection against double jeopardy and self-incrimination; the right to a speedy trial, impartial jury, and legal counsel; and protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Of the later amendments, the Fourteenth is regarded as particularly important; it obliges each individual state to protect the rights of every citizen to due process and equal protection under its laws. The extent to which Americans' constitutional rights are universally upheld in practice is heavily debated.

The overwhelming majority of elected offices across the country at federal, state, and lower levels are held by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. The Senate has two independent members—one is a former Democratic incumbent, the other is a self-described socialist; every member of the House is a Democrat or Republican. 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 midterm 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 UK 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 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 rebukes 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 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 strong ties with Australia, Japan, Israel, and fellow NATO members. It also works closely with 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.

The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier

The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces 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, 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 comprises 1.4 million personnel on active duty, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime 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, over $470 billion, was estimated to be greater than the next fourteen largest national military budgets combined. At 4.06 percent of GDP, U.S. military spending ranked 27th out of 172 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 over 700 bases and facilities, on every continent except Antarctica. Due to the extent of its global military presence, scholars describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases."

Economy

Main article: Economy of the United States

Economy of the United States
Median income (2005)
Median income	$32,611 for individuals $46,326 for households
Income distribution (2005)
Top 20%	$52,500 for individuals $91,705 for households
Bottom 20%	$12,500 for individuals $20,000 for households
Gini index	45 2004
National economic indicators
Unemployment	4.5% May 2007
GDP growth	3.3% 2005–2006
CPI inflation	2.7% May 2006–May 2007
National debt	$8.81 trillion June 18, 2007
Poverty	12.6% or 13.3% 2005
Foreign aid and investment	$122.8 billion 2005
Monetary value
Exchange rate (per €)	1.3391 June 17, 2007
Exchange rate (per £)	1.9768 June 17, 2007
Exchange rate (per ¥)	0.0081 June 17, 2007

The United States has a capitalist mixed economy. The private sector constitutes the bulk of the economy, with government activity accounting for 12.4 percent of the GDP. Most businesses in the U.S. are sole proprietorships with no payroll. Both the regulatory burden on its companies and its social safety net are smaller than in most developed nations. According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States GDP of more than $13 trillion constitutes 20 percent of the gross world product. The country ranks eighth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and fourth in GDP per capita at purchasing power parity.

The economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a 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. 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, Poverty in the United States, and Social class in the United States

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in 2005 was $46,326; the two-year average ranged from $60,246 in New Jersey to $34,396 in Mississippi. Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, these income levels are similar to those found in other postindustrial nations such as Switzerland ($54,000) and the United Kingdom ($39,000). The median income for an individual age twenty-five or older in the labor force was $32,611, while the median income per household member was $24,672. Approximately 13 percent of Americans were below the federally designated poverty line. Income inequality 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. According to the standard Gini index, income inequality in the U.S. is higher than in any European nation. Some economists, such as Alan Greenspan, see rising income inequality as a cause for concern.

While American social classes lack defined boundaries, sociologists point to social class as a crucial societal variable. Occupation, educational attainment, and income are used as the main indicators of socioeconomic status. Dennis Gilbert of Hamilton College has proposed a system, adapted by other sociologists, with six social classes: 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 semiprofessionals and craftsmen (33%), a working class consisting of clerical and blue-collar workers who conduct highly routinized tasks (33%), and two lower classes—the working poor (13%) and a largely unemployed underclass (12%). Though 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, some analysts have found the U.S. to have relatively low social mobility compared to Western Europe and Canada.

Technology

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first human landing on the Moon, 1969

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

The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late nineteenth century, attracting immigrants such as Albert Einstein. The bulk of research and development funding, 64 percent, comes from the private sector. The U.S. leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first patent for the telephone. The laboratory of Thomas Edison developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. During World War II, the U.S. developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the atomic age. The space race produced rapid advances in rocketry, material science, computers, and many other areas. The U.S. largely developed the Arpanet and its successor, the Internet. Americans enjoy high levels of access to technological consumer goods. Almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet service. The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food; more than half of the world's land planted with biotech crops is in the U.S. The United States has had a powerful automotive industry for more than a century; the companies of Ransom Olds and Henry Ford pioneered assembly line manufacturing. The U.S. has the most roadways in the world and a relatively weak intercity passenger rail system. Only 9 percent of total U.S. work trips employ mass transit, compared to 38.8 percent in Europe.

Demographics

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

On October 17, 2006, the United States' population was estimated to be 300,000,000. This figure excludes an estimated 12–20 million unauthorized migrants. The overall growth rate is 0.89%, compared to 0.16% in the European Union. The birth rate of 14.16 per 1,000 is 30 percent below the world average, while higher than any European country except for Albania and Ireland. The United States is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected. The United States has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members. Whites are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups. African Americans, mostly descendants of former slaves, constitute the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group. Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority, with those of Chinese origin constituting a plurality of the group. In 2005, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 million people with some Native American or Alaskan native ancestry (2.4 million exclusively of such ancestry) and nearly 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.4 million exclusively).

Race/Ethnicity (2005)
White	74.67%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race)	14.50%
African American	12.12%
Asian	4.32%
Native American and Alaskan Native	0.82%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander	0.14%
Other/multiracial	7.92%

Hispanic American population growth is a major demographic trend. Counted collectively, the approximately 42 million Hispanic Americans constitute the largest ethnic minority in the country. About 63 percent of the Hispanic American community is of Mexican origin. Between 2000 and 2004, the country's Hispanic population increased 14 percent while the non-Hispanic population rose just 2 percent. Much of this growth is due to immigration: As of 2004, 12 percent of the U.S. population was foreign-born, over half that number from Latin America. Fertility is also a factor: The average Hispanic woman gives birth to three children in her lifetime. The comparable fertility rate is 2.2 for African American women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic whites (below the replacement rate of 2.1). It is estimated on the basis of current trends that by 2050 non-Hispanic whites will be just 50.1 percent of the U.S. population, compared to 69.4 percent in 2000. They are already less than half the population in four "majority-minority states": California, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Texas. African or Mexican Americans make up the most populous ancestry group in the ten largest American cities.

New York City

About 83 percent of the population lives in one of the country's 361 metropolitan areas. In 2005, 254 incorporated places in the U.S. had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston). The United States has fifty metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million. The Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metro area ranks fourth in the nation, though its population center, Dallas, ranks only ninth among cities. Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, twenty-three are in the West and twenty-five in the South. Among the country's twenty most populous metro areas, those of Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston saw the largest numerical gains between 2000 and 2006, while Phoenix's grew the largest in percentage terms.

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	10,316	18,818,536	1	Northeast
2	Los Angeles	3,844,829	8,567	3,165	12,950,129	2	West
3	Chicago	2,842,518	12,604	4,867	9,505,748	3	Midwest
4	Houston	2,016,582	3,480	1,344	5,539,949	6	South
5	Philadelphia	1,463,281	10,883	4,202	5,826,742	5	Northeast

Language and religion

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

Languages (2003)
English (only)	214.8 million
Spanish, incl. Creole	29.7 million
Chinese	2.2 million
French, incl. Creole	1.9 million
Tagalog	1.3 million
Vietnamese	1.1 million
German	1.1 million

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. Immigrants seeking naturalization must know English. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight 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 has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.

A church in the largely Protestant Bible Belt

The United States government does not audit Americans' religious beliefs. In a private survey conducted in 2001, 76.7 percent of American adults identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4 percent in 1990. Various Protestant denominations accounted for 52 percent, while Roman Catholics, at 24.5 percent, were the largest individual denomination. A different study describes white evangelicals, 26.3 percent of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort; evangelicals of all races are estimated at 30–35 percent. The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2001 was 3.7 percent, up from 3.3 percent in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.4 percent), Islam (0.5 percent), Buddhism (0.5 percent), Hinduism (0.4 percent), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3 percent). Between 1990 and 2001, the number of Muslims and Buddhists more than doubled. From 8.2 percent in 1990, 14.2 percent in 2001 described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion, still significantly less than in other postindustrial countries such as Britain (44 percent) and Sweden (69 percent).

Education and health

Main articles: Education in the United States, Educational attainment in the United States, and Health care 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, 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. The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education; 168 U.S. universities are in the world's top 500, 17 in the top 20. There are also many smaller universities and liberal arts colleges, and local community colleges of varying quality 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 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 population is obese and an additional third is overweight; the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century. Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by healthcare professionals. The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is nearly four times that of France and five times that of Germany. Abortion, legal on demand, is a source of great political controversy. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and have laws to restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period prior to treatment. Geographical access to abortion is limited: 87 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider. Nonetheless, while the incidence of abortion is in decline, the U.S. abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.

The United States healthcare system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP. Unlike most developed countries, the U.S. healthcare system is not fully socialized, 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.

Crime and punishment

Main articles: Policing in the United States, Law of the United States, Crime in the United States, Prisons in the United States, and Capital punishment in the United States

Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sherriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as appeals from state systems. Crime in the United States is characterized by high levels of gun violence and homicide, relative to other developed countries. In 2005, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons, compared to 1.0 in Germany and 1.9 in Canada. The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 36 percent between 1986 and 2000, has been roughly steady since. Scholars have associated the high rate of homicide with the country's high rates of gun ownership, in turn associated with U.S. gun laws, very permissive compared to those of other developed countries.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate and total prison population in the world and by far the highest figures among democratic, developed nations: in 2000, 468 out of every 100,000 Americans were jailed during the year, approximately five times the average of member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and more than three times the next closest member. That was more than triple the 1980 figure of 139 per 100,000. African American males are jailed at over six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males. The country's extraordinary rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in sentencing and drug policies. Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-eight states. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, there have been over 1,000 executions in the U.S. In 2006, the country had the sixth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan.

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 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 Marilyn Monroe 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 networks are all commercial entities. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day. Aside from Web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are eBay, MySpace, Amazon.com, The New York Times, and Apple. Twelve million Americans keep a blog.

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 with global audiences. 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.

Literature and the arts

Main articles: Literature of the United States, Visual arts of the United States, and Theater in 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. In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was an important mid-nineteenth-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene. Georgia O'Keefe, Marsden Hartley, and others 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 have developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then post-modernism has also brought American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry to the top of their field.

One of the first notable promoters of the nascent American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the twentieth century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway, where the songs of composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.

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. Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin developed a unique American synthesis of popular and classical music. 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. The newspaper comic strip and the comic book are both American innovations.

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. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, Americans' daily caloric intake rose 24 percent, as the share from food consumed outside the home went from 18 to 32 percent. Frequent dining at fast food outlets such as McDonald's is closely associated with what government researchers call 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.

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. College football and basketball also attract large audiences. 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 2,191 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
• The Library of Congress - Official site of the Library of Congress

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