United States

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United States of America
Flag Great Seal
Motto: In God We Trust  (official) E Pluribus Unum   (From Many, One; Latin, traditional)
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Capital		Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883, -77.017
Largest city		New York City
Official languages		None at federal level1
National language		English (de facto)2
Demonym		American
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 the Kingdom of Great Britain
-	Declared	July 4, 1776
-	Recognized	September 3, 1783
-	Current constitution	June 21, 1788
Area
-	Total	9,826,630 km² [1](3rd/4th3) 3,794,066 sq mi
-	Water (%)	6.76
Population
-	2008 estimate	305,339,000[2] (3rd4)
-	2000 census	281,421,906[3]
-	Density	31/km² (180th) 80/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2007 estimate
-	Total	$13.543 trillion[4] (1st)
-	Per capita	$43,444 (4th)
GDP (nominal)		2007 estimate
-	Total	$13.794 trillion[4] (1st)
-	Per capita	$43,594 (11th)
Gini (2006)		47.0[5]
HDI (2005)		0.951 (high[6]) (12th)
Currency		United States dollar ($) (USD "$")
Time zone		(UTC-5 to -10)
-	Summer (DST)	(UTC-4 to -10)
Internet TLD		.us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code		+1
1	English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official." English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii.
2	English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 82% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language.
3	Whether the United States or the People's Republic of China is larger is disputed. The figure given is per the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the fifty states and the District of Columbia, not the territories.
4	The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than four million U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States.

The United States of America—commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America—is a constitutional federal republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie 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 Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 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 by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.^[7] The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with a nominal 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$13 trillion (over 25% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 20% by purchasing power parity).^[4][8]

The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.^[9] 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 with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the nation's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The nation exited the Cold War as the world's sole superpower,^[10] accounting for approximately 50% of global military spending, and a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.^[11]

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Geography 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 World War II 3.5 Cold War and civil rights 3.6 Contemporary era 4 Government and elections 4.1 Parties, ideology and politics 5 Geographic divisions 6 Foreign relations and military 7 Economy 7.1 Income and human 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 punishment 9 Culture 9.1 Popular media 9.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts 9.3 Food 9.4 Sports 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

Etymology

The term America, for the lands of the western hemisphere, is believed to have been coined in 1507 after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and cartographer.^[12] 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.^[13] 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.'" The short form United States is also standard. Other common forms include the U.S., the USA, and America. Colloquial names include the U.S. of A. and the States. Columbia, a once popular name for the Americas and the United States, was derived from Christopher Columbus. It appears in the name "District of Columbia".

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 United States.^[14]

The phrase "the United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g, "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States."^[15]

Geography and environment

Main articles: Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States, and Environment of the United States

The United States is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: the contiguous U.S. stretches from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast; it is bordered by Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. Alaska is the largest state in area; separated from the contiguous U.S. by Canada, it touches the Pacific on the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north. Hawaii occupies an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America. After Russia and Canada, the U.S. is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area, ranking just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the U.S. is calculated: the CIA World Factbook gives 3,794,083 sq mi (9,826,630 km²),^[1] the United Nations Statistics Division gives 3,717,813 sq mi (9,629,091 km²),^[16] and the Encyclopedia Britannica gives 3,676,486 sq mi (9,522,055 km²).^[17] Including only land area, the U.S. is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.^[18] The U.S. also possesses several insular territories scattered around the West Indies (e.g., the commonwealth of Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (e.g., Guam).

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard 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 heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the country's tallest peak. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.^[19]

The U.S., with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. 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 country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.^[20]

The U.S. ecology is very diverse, with more than 17,000 native species of flora,^[21] and more than 400 mammal, 700 bird, 500 reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 insect species.^[22] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.^[23] Altogether, the government regulates 28.8% of the country's land area.^[24] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling,^[25] mining, or cattle ranching.

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 U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, migrated from Asia. They began arriving at least 12,000 and as many as 40,000 years ago.^[26] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making first contact with the indigenous people. Millions of indigenous Americans subsequently died from epidemics of Eurasian diseases.^[27]

On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida"—the first documented European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland. Of Spain's settlements in the region, only St. Augustine, founded in 1565, remains. Later Spanish settlements in the present-day southwestern United States drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful 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 wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies.^[28] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.

In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680.^[29] By the turn of the century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. 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 local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, these colonies doubled in population every twenty-five years. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. By 1770, those thirteen colonies had an increasingly Anglicized population of three million, approximately half that of Britain. Though subject to British taxation, they had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Independence and expansion

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

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 a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak federal government that operated until 1789.

After the defeat of the British army by American forces who were assisted by the French, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those wishing to establish a strong national government, with powers of taxation. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.

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." The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.

Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars and an Indian removal policy that stripped Native Americans (popularly known as "American Indians") of their land. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time.^[30] 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 1848–49 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.

Civil War and industrialization

Main articles: American Civil War, Reconstruction era of the United States, and Spanish-American War

Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread 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—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation committed the Union to ending slavery. 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,^[31] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.^[32]

After the war, the assassination of Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election 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, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture. High tariff protections, national infrastructure building, and new banking regulations encouraged 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 U.S. annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish-American War the same year demonstrated that the U.S. was a major world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

Main articles: American Expeditionary Force, Great Depression in the United States, and Military history of the United States during World War II

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention.^[33] In 1917, the U.S. joined the Allies, turning the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, 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.^[34] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. 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 U.S., effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the U.S. 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,^[35] but it boosted the economy by providing capital investment and jobs. Among the major combatants, the U.S. was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.^[36] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the U.S. 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.^[37] The U.S., 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.^[38]

Cold War and civil rights

Main articles: Cold War, African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968), and Vietnam War

The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The U.S. promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy. Both supported dictatorships and engaged in proxy wars. American troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.

The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the U.S. 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, the U.S. experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, led by African Americans such as Martin Luther King, Jr., fought segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, the sexual revolution, and a new wave of feminism.

As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, rather than be impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford. During the Jimmy Carter administration in the late 1970s, the U.S. economy experienced stagflation. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 marked a significant rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities.^[39] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Soviet Union collapsed, effectively ending the Cold War.

Contemporary era

Main articles: September 11, 2001 attacks, Iraq War, and Economic crisis of 2008

The leadership role taken by the United States and its allies in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War and the Yugoslav wars helped to preserve its position as a superpower. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble.^[40] In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House on charges relating to a civil lawsuit and a sexual scandal, but was acquitted by the Senate and remained in office. The presidential election of 2000, one of the closest in U.S. history, was ultimately resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, President Bush launched the War on Terrorism. In late 2001, U.S. forces led a NATO invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.^[41] Lacking the support of NATO or an explicit UN mandate for military intervention, Bush organized a Coalition of the Willing; coalition forces preemptively invaded Iraq in 2003, removing President Saddam Hussein from power. Though most Americans now view the invasion as a mistake, the U.S.-led coalition maintains a presence in Iraq.^[42] The U.S. has been criticized for human rights violations in its pursuit of the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War.^[43]

The collapse of the U.S. housing bubble and the related subprime mortgage crisis led to a broader economic crisis in late summer 2008. In the upcoming 2008 presidential election, the Republican Party candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war, will face the Democratic Party candidate, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the first African American to head a major political party's presidential ticket.

Government and elections

Main articles: Federal government of the United States and Elections in the United States

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law."^[44] It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though U.S. citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials.^[45] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document and as a social contract for the American people. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels. Federal and state judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the executive branch and approved by the legislature, although some state judges and officials are elected by popular vote.

The federal government is composed 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 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 legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
• Judicial: 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 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. The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.

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 judiciary is voided. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights.

Parties, ideology and politics

Main articles: Politics of the United States and Political ideologies in the United States

The United States has operated under a two-party system for virtually all of its history. For elective offices at all levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered "center-right" or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered "center-left" or liberal. The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and much of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative. A plurality of Americans identify as Democrats, yet significantly more Americans identify as conservative than liberal.^[46]

The incumbent president, Republican George W. Bush, is the 43rd U.S. president. All presidents to date have been white men. If Democrat Barack Obama wins the 2008 election, he will be the first African American president; if Republican John McCain wins, he will be the oldest man to take the office, and his running mate, Sarah Palin, will be the first female vice president. Following the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party controls both the House and the Senate. Every member of the U.S. Congress is a Democrat or a Republican except two independent members of the Senate. An overwhelming majority of state and local officials are also Democrats or Republicans.

Geographic divisions

Main articles: U.S. state, Territorial evolution of the United States, and Territorial acquisitions of the United States

The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Most of the rest have been carved from territory obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. The exceptions are Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii; each was an independent republic before joining the union. Early in the country's history, three states were created out of the territory of existing ones: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The states do not have the right to secede from the union.

The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. also possesses five major territories with indigenous populations: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in the territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S. citizenship.

Foreign relations and military

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

The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. 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, Sudan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.

The U.S. enjoys a special relationship with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Australia, New Zealand, 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. In 2005, the U.S. spent $27 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. However, as a share of gross national income (GNI), the U.S. contribution of 0.22% ranked twentieth of twenty-two donor states. Nongovernmental sources such as private foundations, corporations, and educational and religious institutions donated $96 billion. The combined total of $123 billion is also the most in the world and seventh as a percentage of GNI.^[47]

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, 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 2005, the military had 1.38 million personnel on active duty,^[48] along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard for a total of 2.3 million troops. The Department of Defense also employs about 700,000 civilians, disregarding contractors. Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System. American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport 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. Outside of the U.S., the military is deployed to 770 bases and facilities, on every continent except Antarctica.^[49] The extent of this global military presence has prompted scholars to describe the U.S. as maintaining an "empire of bases."^[50]

Total U.S. military spending in 2006, over $528 billion, was 46% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. (In purchasing power parity terms, it was larger than the next six such expenditures combined.) The per capita spending of $1,756 was about ten times the world average.^[51] At 4.06% of GDP, U.S. military spending is ranked 27th out of 172 nations.^[52] The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2009, $515.4 billion, is a 7% increase over 2008 and a nearly 74% increase over 2001.^[53] The estimated cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. through 2016 is $2.267 trillion.^[54] As of September 22, 2008, the U.S. had suffered 4,169 military fatalities during the war and over 30,000 wounded.^[55]

Economy

Main article: Economy of the United States

Economic indicators
Unemployment	6.1%August 2008[56]
GDP growth	1.9%2Q 2008[57] [2.2%2007][1]
CPI inflation	5.4%August 2007–August 2008[58]
National debt	$9.792 trillionSeptember 24, 2008[59]
Poverty	12.5%2007[60]

The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of more than $13 trillion constitutes over 25.5% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).^[4] The largest national GDP in the world, it was slightly less than the combined GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2006.^[61] The country ranks eighth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and fourth in GDP per capita at PPP.^[4] The U.S. is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.^[62] The leading export commodity is electrical machinery, while vehicles constitute the leading import.^[63]

The private sector constitutes the bulk of the economy, with government activity accounting for 12.4% of GDP. The economy is postindustrial, with the service sector contributing 67.8% of GDP.^[64] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is finance and insurance.^[65] The U.S. remains an industrial power, with chemical products the leading manufacturing field.^[66] The U.S. is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.^[67] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,^[64] the U.S. is the world's top producer of corn^[68] and soybeans.^[69] The leading cash crop is marijuana, despite federal laws making its cultivation and sale illegal.^[70] The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest by dollar volume.^[71] Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.^[72]

In 2005, 155 million persons were employed with earnings, of whom 80% had full-time jobs.^[73] The majority, 79%, were employed in the service sector.^[1] With about 15.5 million people, health care and social assistance is the leading field of employment.^[74] About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.^[75] The World Bank ranks the U.S. first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.^[76] Between 1973 and 2003, a year's work for the average American grew by 199 hours.^[77] Partly as a result, the U.S. maintains the highest labor productivity in the world. However, it no longer leads in productivity per hour as it did from the 1950s through the early 1990s; workers in Norway, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg are now more productive per hour.^[78] The U.S. ranks third in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index.^[76] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income taxes are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption taxes are lower.^[79]

Income and human development

Main articles: Income in the United States, Income inequality in the United States, Poverty in the United States, and Affluence in the United States

According to the United States Census Bureau, the pretax median household income in 2007 was $50,233. The median ranged from $68,080 in Maryland to $36,338 in Mississippi.^[60] Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, the overall median is similar to the most affluent cluster of developed nations. After declining sharply during the middle of the 20th century, poverty rates have plateaued since the early 1970s, with 11–15% of Americans below the poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.^[5][81] In 2007, 37.3 million Americans lived in poverty.^[60] The U.S. welfare state is now among the most austere in the developed world, reducing both relative poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations.^[82][83] While the American welfare state does well in reducing poverty among the elderly,^[84] the young are given relatively short shrift.^[85] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the U.S. next to last.^[86]

Despite strong increases in productivity, low unemployment, and low inflation, income gains since 1980 have been slower than in previous decades, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic insecurity. Between 1947 and 1979, real median income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor Americans rising faster than those of the rich.^[87][88] Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980,^[89] largely owing to more dual-earner households, the closing of the gender gap, and longer work hours, but growth has been slower and strongly tilted toward the very top (see graph).^[82][87][90] Consequently, the share of income of the top 1% has doubled since 1979,^[91] leaving the U.S. with the greatest income inequality among developed nations.^[82][92] Wealth, like income, is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share among developed nations.^[93] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.^[94]

Science and technology

Main articles: Science and technology in the United States and Technological and industrial history of the United States

The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.^[95] The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to immigrate to the U.S. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers. The U.S. largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, the bulk of research and development funding, 64%, comes from the private sector.^[96] The U.S. leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.^[97] Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods,^[98] and almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet service.^[99] 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.^[100]

Transportation

Main article: Transportation in the United States

As of 2003, there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 Americans, compared to 472 per 1,000 inhabitants of the European Union the following year.^[101] About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.^[102] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, travelling 29 miles (47 km).^[103] The U.S. intercity passenger rail system is relatively weak.^[104] Only 9% of total U.S. work trips use mass transit, compared to 38.8% in Europe.^[105] Bicycle usage is minimal, well below European levels.^[106] The civil airline industry is entirely privatized, while most major airports are publicly owned. The five largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are American; American Airlines is number one.^[107] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the U.S., including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).^[108]

Energy

Main articles: Energy use in the United States and Energy policy of the United States

The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, compared to Germany's 4.2 tons and Canada's 8.3 tons. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources.^[109] The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.^[110] For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries. Recently, applications for new nuclear plants have been filed.^[111]

Demographics

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

The United States population is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 305,339,000,^[2] including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants.^[112] The U.S. is the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India. Its population growth rate is 0.89%,^[1] compared to the European Union's 0.16%.^[113] The birth rate of 14.16 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, is higher than any European country's except Albania and Ireland.^[114] In fiscal year 2007, 1.05 million immigrants were granted legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.^[115] The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.^[116]

The U.S. has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members.^[117] White Americans are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.^[117] African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group.^[118][117] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ancestry groups are Chinese and Filipino.^[117] In 2007, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 million people with some American Indian or Alaskan native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and over 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).^[118][119]

The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 45.4 million Americans of Hispanic descent are collated into a distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.^[120] Between 2000 and 2007, the country's Hispanic population increased 27% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 3.6%.^[118] Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2006, 12.1% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America.^[121] 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 non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).^[116]

Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau, all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constitute 34% of the population; they are projected to be the majority by 2042.^[122] However, White Americans overall (non-Hispanic Whites together with White Hispanics) are projected to remain the racial majority at 73.1% (or 303 million out of 420 million) in 2050.^[123][124]

About 79% of Americans live in urban areas (as defined by the Census Bureau, such areas include the suburbs); about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.^[125] In 2006, 254 incorporated places 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).^[126] There are fifty metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.^[127] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, twenty-three are in the West and twenty-five in the South. The metro areas of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and Riverside all grew by more than three-quarters of a million people between 2000 and 2006.^[128]

Leading population centers
Rank	Core city	State	Pop.[126][129]	Metro area rank	Metro area pop.[127]	Region[130]		New York City Los Angeles
1	New York City	New York	8,250,567	1	18,818,536	Northeast
2	Los Angeles	California	3,849,378	2	12,950,129	West
3	Chicago	Illinois	2,833,321	3	9,505,748	Midwest
4	Houston	Texas	2,169,248	6	5,539,949	South
5	Phoenix	Arizona	1,512,986	13	4,039,182	West
6	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	1,448,394	5	5,826,742	Northeast
7	San Antonio	Texas	1,296,682	29	1,942,217	South
8	San Diego	California	1,256,951	17	2,941,454	West
9	Dallas	Texas	1,232,940	4	6,003,967	South
10	San Jose	California	929,936	30	1,787,123	West
2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates

Language

Main articles: Languages of the United States and Language Spoken at Home (U.S. Census)

English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2003, about 215 million, or 82% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by over 10% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language.^[131][132] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.^[133] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.^[134] 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.^[135] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.^[136] Several insular territories 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.

Religion

Main articles: Religion in the United States, History of religion in the United States, Freedom of religion in the United States, Separation of church and state in the United States, and List of religious movements that began in the United States

The United States is an officially secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance. The government does not audit Americans' religious beliefs.^[137] In a private survey conducted in 2001, 76.5% of adults identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4% in 1990. Protestant denominations accounted for 52%, while Roman Catholics, at 24.5%, were the largest individual denomination.^[138] A different study describes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;^[139] evangelicals of all races are estimated at 30–35%.^[140] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2001 was 3.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.4%), Islam (0.5%), Buddhism (0.5%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). Between 1990 and 2001, the number of Muslims and Buddhists more than doubled. From 8.2% in 1990, 14.1% in 2001 described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion,^[138] still significantly less than in other postindustrial countries such as Britain (2005:44%) and Sweden (2001:69%, 2005:85%).^[141]

Education

Main articles: Education in the United States, Educational attainment in the United States, and Higher education in the United States

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 required 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.^[142] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.^[143] The U.S. has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.^[144] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.^[1][145] The United Nations assigns the U.S. an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.^[146]

Health

Main article: Health care in the United States

The United States life expectancy of 77.8 years at birth^[147] is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.^[148] Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has dropped from 11th to 42nd in the world.^[149] The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand likewise places the U.S. 42nd out of 221 countries, behind all of Western Europe.^[150] U.S. cancer survival rates are the highest in the world.^[151] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;^[152] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.^[153] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by healthcare professionals.^[154] 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.^[155] Abortion, legal on demand, is highly controversial. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the 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.^[156]

The U.S. healthcare system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.^[158] Unlike most developed countries, the healthcare system is not universal, and largely relies on private funding. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditure, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.^[159] The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. healthcare system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance. The U.S. is a leader in medical innovation. In 2004, the nonindustrial sector spent three times as much as Europe per capita on biomedical research.^[160] Medical bills are the most common reason for personal bankruptcy.^[161] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The main cause of this decline is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.^[162] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance;^[163] California is considering similar legislation.^[164]

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 sheriff'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.

Among developed nations, the U.S. has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.^[165] In 2006, there were 5.7 murders per 100,000 persons,^[166] three times the rate in neighboring Canada.^[167] The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 42% between 1991 and 1999, has been roughly steady since.^[166] This high rate of homicide may be related to the country's high rate of gun ownership, in turn associated with gun laws that are permissive compared to those of other developed countries.^[168]

The U.S. has the highest documented incarceration rate^[169] and total prison population^[170] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.^[171] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure.^[172] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.^[169] In 2006, the U.S. incarceration rate was over three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.^[173] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely caused by changes in sentencing and drug policies.^[169][174] Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the U.S. for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-seven states. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been over 1,000 executions.^[175] In 2006, the country had the sixth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan.^[176] In December 2007, New Jersey became the first state to abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision.

Culture

Main articles: Culture of the United States and Social class in the United States

The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.^[7][177] There is no "American" ethnicity; aside from the now relatively small Native American population, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.^[178] The culture held in common by most 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, Irish, and Scottish cultures have also been very influential.^[7] Certain cultural attributes of Mandé and Wolof slaves from West Africa were adopted by the American mainstream; based more on the traditions of Central African Bantu slaves, a distinct African American culture developed that would also deeply affect the mainstream.^[179] Westward expansion integrated the Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the Southwest and brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. 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 cultural mix may be described as a homogeneous melting pot, or as a pluralistic salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.^[7]

While the mainstream culture holds that the U.S. is a classless society,^[180] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.^[181] The American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary social trends such as feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism.^[182] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.^[183] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.^[184] Though the American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants, some analysts find that the U.S. has less social mobility than Western Europe and Canada.^[185]

Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.^[186] In 2005, 28% of households were married childless couples, the most common arrangement.^[187] The extension of marital rights to homosexuals is contentious—several states permit civil unions in lieu of marriage. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional;^[188] the Supreme Court of California ruled similarly in 2008.^[189] Forty-three states still restrict marriages to heterosexual couples.^[190]

Popular media

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

The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time.^[191] 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. The major film studios of Hollywood have produced the most commercially successful movies in history, such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry.^[192]

Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world,^[193] and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006.^[194] 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.^[195] Aside from web portals and web search engines, the most popular websites are eBay, MySpace, Amazon.com, The New York Times, and Apple.^[196] Twelve million Americans keep a blog.^[197]

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 20th century. Country music, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll emerged between the 1920s and 1950s. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's greatest songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.

Literature, philosophy, and the arts

Main articles: American literature, Visual arts of the United States, Theater in the United States, and American classical music

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 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an essential American poet. 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."

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 20th century.^[198] Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.

The transcendentalists, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. Quine and Richard Rorty helped popularize analytic philosophy among U.S. academics.

In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.^[199] Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new styles, displaying a highly individualistic sensibility. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has also brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.

One of the first major promoters of 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 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater 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 American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a unique synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th-century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography, with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Ansel Adams. The newspaper comic strip and the comic book are both U.S. innovations. Superman, the quintessential comic book superhero, has become an American icon.

Food

Main article: Cuisine of the United States

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, white-tailed deer venison, 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, potato chips, 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. Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.^[200] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages.^[201] During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;^[200] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American "obesity epidemic." Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American's caloric intake.^[202]

Sports

Main article: Sports in the United States

Since the late 19th century, baseball has been regarded as the national sport; American 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 several measures the most popular spectator sport.^[203] Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. Soccer is played widely at the youth and amateur levels and is growing in popularity as a professional spectator sport. Tennis and many outdoor sports are also popular.

While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the U.S. The U.S. has won 2,301 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country,^[204] and 216 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most.^[205]

See also

• List of basic United States topics
• International rankings of the United States

References

External links

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Overviews and Data

• InfoUSA Portal to U.S. Information Agency resources
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• United States CIA World Factbook entry
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History

• Historical Documents Collected by the National Center for Public Policy Research
• U.S. National Mottos: History and Constitutionality Analysis by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
• USA Collected links to historical data

Maps

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Other

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Official government site
• United States Travel guide and tourist information from Wikitravel (not affiliated with Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation)

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