| United States of America |
|
|
Motto: In God We Trust (official)
E Pluribus Unum (traditional)
(Latin: Out of Many, One) |
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
|
|
|
| Capital |
Washington, D.C.
 38°53′N 77°01′W |
| Largest city |
New York City |
| Official language(s) |
None at federal level[a] |
| National language |
English (de facto)[b] |
| Demonym |
American |
| Government |
Federal presidential constitutional republic |
| - |
President |
Barack Obama (D) |
| - |
Vice President |
Joe Biden (D) |
| - |
Speaker of the House |
John Boehner (R) |
| - |
Chief Justice |
John Roberts |
| Legislature |
Congress |
| - |
Upper house |
Senate |
| - |
Lower house |
House of Representatives |
| Independence |
from the Kingdom of Great Britain |
| - |
Declared |
July 4, 1776 |
| - |
Recognized |
September 3, 1783 |
| - |
Current constitution |
June 21, 1788 |
| Area |
| - |
Total |
9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th)
3,794,101 sq mi |
| - |
Water (%) |
6.76 |
| Population |
| - |
2012 estimate |
313,281,000[2] (3rd) |
| - |
Density |
33.7/km2
87.4/sq mi |
| GDP (PPP) |
2011 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$15.065 trillion[3] (1st) |
| - |
Per capita |
$48,147[3] (8th) |
| GDP (nominal) |
2011 estimate |
| - |
Total |
$15.065 trillion[3] (1st) |
| - |
Per capita |
$48,147[3] (15th) |
| Gini (2007) |
45.0[1] (39th) |
| HDI (2011) |
 0.910[4] (very high) (4th) |
| Currency |
United States dollar ($) (USD) |
| Time zone |
(UTC−5 to −10) |
| - |
Summer (DST) |
(UTC−4 to −10) |
| Date formats |
m/d/yy (AD) |
| Drives on the |
right |
| Internet TLD |
.us .gov .mil .edu |
| Calling code |
+1 |
^
a. English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources
give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official".[5] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii.
^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language.
^ c. Whether the United States or the People's Republic of China is larger is disputed. The figure given is from 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 50 states and the District of
Columbia, not the territories.
^
d. 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 4 million U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States. |
The
United States of America (also called the
United States, the
U.S., the
USA,
America, and the
States) is a
federal constitutional 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 the 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 in the Pacific and
Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km
2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the
third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both
land area and
population. It is one of the world's most
ethnically diverse and
multicultural nations, the product of large-scale
immigration from many countries.
[6] The
U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011
GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of
nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at
purchasing-power parity).
[3][7] Per capita income is the world's
seventh-highest.
[3]
Indigenous peoples descended from
forebears who
migrated from Asia have inhabited what is now the mainland United States for many thousands of years. This
Native American population was greatly reduced by disease and warfare after
European contact. The United States was founded by
thirteen British colonies located along the
Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the
Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to
self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated the
British Empire in the
American Revolution, the first successful
colonial war of independence.
[8] The current
United States Constitution
was adopted 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.
Through the 19th century, the United States displaced native tribes, acquired the
Louisiana territory from France,
Florida from Spain, part of the
Oregon Country from the United Kingdom,
Alta California and New Mexico from Mexico, and
Alaska from Russia, and annexed the
Republic of Texas and the
Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the
agrarian South and
industrial North over the expansion of the
institution of slavery and
states' rights provoked the
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. By the 1870s, its national economy was the world's largest.
[9] The
Spanish–American War and
World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from
World War II as the
first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council. The end of the
Cold War and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole
superpower. The country accounts for 41% of
global military spending,
[10] and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.
[11]
Etymology
In 1507, German
cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere
"America" after Italian explorer and cartographer
Amerigo Vespucci.
[12] The former British colonies first used the country's modern name in the 1776
Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".
[13] On November 15, 1777, the
Second Continental Congress adopted the
Articles of Confederation,
which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United
States of America'." The Franco-American treaties of 1778 used "United
States of North America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of
America" was used on the country's
bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since.
[14]
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, internationally, the "States". "
Columbia", a once popular name for the United States, derives 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".
Although "United States" is the official appositional term, "American"
and "U.S." are more commonly used to refer to the country adjectivally
("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English
to refer to people not connected to the United States.
[15]
The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States 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".
[16]
Geography and environment
The land area of the
contiguous United States is approximately 1,900 million acres (7,700,000 km
2). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 365 million acres (1,480,000 km
2). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, has just over 4 million acres (16,000 km
2).
[17] The United States is the world's third or fourth
largest nation by total area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and 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 United States is measured:
calculations range from 3,676,486 square miles (9,522,055 km
2)
[18] to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091 km
2)
[19] to 3,794,101 square miles (9,826,676 km
2).
[1] Including only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.
[20]
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 tallest peak in the country and in North America. 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.
[21]
The
bald eagle, national bird of the United States since 1782
The United States, 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.
[22]
The U.S. ecology is considered "
megadiverse": about 17,000 species of
vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of
flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.
[23] The United States is home to more than 400 mammal, 750 bird, and 500 reptile and amphibian species.
[24] About 91,000 insect species have been described.
[25] 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.
[26] Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the country's land area.
[27] Most of this is
protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is used for military purposes.
[27]
Political divisions
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. Early in the country's history,
three new states were organized on territory separated from the claims
of the existing states:
Kentucky from
Virginia;
Tennessee from
North Carolina; and
Maine from
Massachusetts.
Most of the other states have been carved from territories obtained
through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions
comprises
Vermont,
Texas, and
Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the union. During the
American Civil War,
West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959.
[28] 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 United States also possesses five major overseas territories:
Puerto Rico and the
United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and
American Samoa,
Guam, and the
Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.
[29] Those born in the major territories (except for American Samoa) possess
U.S. citizenship.
[30]
American citizens residing in the territories have many of the same
rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however,
they are generally exempt from federal income tax, may not vote for
president, and have only
nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress.
[31]
History
Native American and European settlement
The
indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including
Alaska Natives, are believed to have
migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago.
[32] Some, such as the
pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After
Europeans began settling the Americas,
many millions of indigenous Americans died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.
[33]
In 1492,
Genoese explorer
Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making
first contact with the indigenous people. 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. Spanish settlements in the region were followed by ones in the
present-day
southwestern United States that 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.
[34] 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.
[35] By the turn of the 18th 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, the colonial population grew rapidly. 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. Excluding the
Native Americans
(popularly known as "American Indians"), who were being displaced,
those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about
one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black
slaves.
[36] Though
subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the
Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion
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 to 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
confederal government that operated until 1789.
After the
British defeat by American forces
assisted by the French and
Spanish, Great Britain
recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the
Mississippi River. Those wishing to establish a strong federal government with powers of taxation organized a
constitutional convention in 1787. 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
transatlantic 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.
Territorial acquisitions by date
Americans' eagerness to
expand westward prompted a long series of
Indian Wars. The
Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.
[37] 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
Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the
Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The United States annexed the
Republic of Texas in 1845, amid a period when the concept of
Manifest Destiny was becoming popular.
[38] 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
Tensions between
slave and free states mounted with arguments about 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
Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declared slaves in the Confederacy to be free. 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,
[39] made them citizens, and
gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in
federal power.
[40] The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers.
[41]
After the war, the
assassination of Abraham 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 from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the
country's industrialization.
The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and
transformed American culture. National infrastructure development
spurred economic 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 United States annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the
Spanish–American War the same year demonstrated that the United States was a
world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the
Philippines.
[42] 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
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.
[43] In 1917, the United States joined the
Allies, and the
American Expeditionary Forces helped to turn 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.
[44] 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, including the establishment of the
Social Security system.
[45] The
Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.
The United States, effectively neutral during
World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's
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 Empire of Japan launched a surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the
Axis powers as well as the
internment of Japanese Americans by the thousands.
[46]
Participation in the war spurred capital investment and industrial
capacity. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only
nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of
the war.
[47] Allied conferences at
Bretton Woods and
Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the
United States and
Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As
victory was won in Europe, a 1945
international conference held in
San Francisco produced the
United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.
[48] 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.
[49]
Cold War and protest politics
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, respectively. While they engaged in
proxy wars
and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided
direct military conflict. Resisting leftist land and income
redistribution projects around the world, the United States often
supported authoritarian governments. 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 United States to be first to land
"a man on the moon", achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a
tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing
civil rights movement, symbolized and led by African Americans such as
Rosa Parks and
Martin Luther King, Jr., used
nonviolence to confront 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.
[50][51] He also signed into law the
Medicare and
Medicaid programs.
[52] 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,
black nationalism, and the
sexual revolution.
Betty Friedan,
Gloria Steinem, and others led a
new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women.
As a result of the
Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, to avoid being
impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The
Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by
stagflation and the
Iran hostage crisis. The election of
Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a
rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in
taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the
Iran-Contra scandal and significant
diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War.
Contemporary era
Under President
George H. W. Bush, the United States took a lead role in the UN–sanctioned
Gulf War. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the
Bill Clinton administration and the
dot-com bubble.
[53] A
civil lawsuit and
sex scandal led to
Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The
2000 presidential election, one of the closest in American history, was 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, the
Bush administration launched the global
War on Terror,
invading Afghanistan and 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.
[54][55] Forces of a so-called
Coalition of the Willing invaded Iraq in 2003, ousting
Saddam Hussein. In 2005,
Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the
Gulf Coast, devastating
New Orleans. In 2008, amid a global
economic recession, the first African American president,
Barack Obama, was elected. Major
health care and
financial system reforms were enacted two years later. In 2011, a raid by
Navy SEALs in
Pakistan killed al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden. The
Iraq War ended with the pullout of the remaining U.S. troops from the country.
Government, elections, and politics
The United States is the world's oldest surviving
federation. It is a
constitutional republic and
representative democracy, "in which
majority rule is tempered by
minority rights protected by
law".
[56] 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.
[57] 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.
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 members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) 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 overturn those they find unconstitutional.
The House of Representatives has 435 voting 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 to the states and the
District of Columbia. The Supreme Court, led by the
Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion;
Nebraska uniquely has a
unicameral legislature. The
governor
(chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges
and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective
states, while others are elected by popular vote.
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. All laws and governmental procedures are subject to
judicial review
and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution is voided. The
principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the
Constitution, was declared by the Supreme Court in
Marbury v. Madison (1803).
Parties and ideology
The United States has operated under a
two-party system for most of its history.
[58] For elective offices at most 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 parts of the
Great Plains and
Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.
The winner of the
2008 presidential election, Democrat
Barack Obama, is the
44th U.S. president. The
2010 midterm elections saw the Republican Party
take control of the House and
make gains in the Senate, where the Democrats retain the majority. In the
112th United States Congress, the Senate comprises 51 Democrats, two
independents
who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans; the House comprises
242 Republicans and 192 Democrats—one seat is vacant. There are 29
Republican and 20 Democratic
state governors, as well as one independent.
Foreign relations and military
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. It is a member of the
G8,
[59] G20, and
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have
embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have
consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host
American diplomatic missions. However,
Cuba,
Iran,
North Korea,
Bhutan, and the
Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.
The United States has a "
special relationship" with the
United Kingdom[60] and strong ties with
Canada,
[61] Australia,
[62] New Zealand,
[63] the Philippines,
[64] Japan,
[65] South Korea,
[66] Israel,
[67] and several European countries. It works closely with fellow
NATO members on military and security issues and 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 2008, the United States spent a net $25.4 billion on
official development assistance, the most in the world. As a share of America's large
gross national income
(GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among
twenty-two donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by
Americans is relatively generous.
[68]
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 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The
Reserves and
National Guard
brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of
Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including
contractors.
[69]
Military service is voluntary, though
conscription may occur in wartime through the
Selective Service System.
[70]
American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet
of transport aircraft, the Navy's eleven active aircraft carriers, and
Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's
Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad,
[71] and maintains
deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.
[72]
The extent of this global military presence has prompted some scholars
to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases".
[73]
Total U.S. military spending in 2010, almost $700 billion, was 43% of
global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest
national military expenditures combined. At 4.8% of GDP, the rate was
the second-highest among the top fifteen military spenders, after
Saudi Arabia.
[74] The proposed base
Department of Defense budget
for 2012, $553 billion, is a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional
$118 billion is proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
[75] The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;
[76] 4,484 servicemen were killed during the
Iraq War.
[77] Approximately 100,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan as of November 2011;
[78] as of February 23, 2012, 1,904 had been killed during the
War in Afghanistan.
[79]
Economy
The United States has a capitalist
mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.
[86] According to the
International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $15.1 trillion constitutes 22% of the
gross world product at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at
purchasing power parity (PPP).
[3] Though larger than any other nation's, its national GDP is about 5% smaller than the GDP of the
European Union at PPP in 2008. The country ranks ninth in the world in
nominal GDP per capita and sixth in
GDP per capita at PPP.
[3] The
U.S. dollar is the world's primary
reserve currency.
[87]
The United States is the
largest importer of goods and
third largest exporter, though
exports per capita are relatively low. In 2010, the total
U.S. trade deficit was $634.9 billion.
[88] Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.
[89] In 2010, oil was the largest import commodity, while transportation equipment was the country's largest export.
[88] China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt.
[90]
In 2009, the private sector was estimated to constitute 86.4% of the
economy, with federal government activity accounting for 4.3% and state
and local government activity (including federal transfers) the
remaining 9.3%.
[92] While its economy has reached a
postindustrial level of development and its
service sector constitutes 67.8% of GDP, the United States remains an industrial power.
[93] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing.
[94] Chemical products are the leading manufacturing field.
[95] The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.
[96]
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,
[93] the United States is the world's top producer of corn
[97] and soybeans.
[98] Coca-Cola and
McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.
[99]
In August 2010, the American labor force comprised 154.1 million
people. With 21.2 million people, government is the leading field of
employment. The largest private employment sector is health care and
social assistance, with 16.4 million people. About 12% of workers are
unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.
[100] The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.
[101]
In 2009, the United States had the third highest labor productivity per
person in the world, behind Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in
productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the Netherlands.
[102] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate
income tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption tax rates are lower.
[103]
Income and human development
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the pretax
median household income
in 2010 was $49,445. The median ranged from $64,308 among Asian
American households to $32,068 among African American households.
[83] 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.
[104][105] In 2010, 46.2 million Americans lived in poverty, a figure that rose for the fourth year in a row.
[83]
The U.S.
welfare state is one of the least extensive in the developed world, reducing both
relative poverty and
absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations,
[106][107] though combined private and public social expenditures per capita are relatively high.
[108] While the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly,
[109] it provides relatively little assistance to the young.
[110] A 2007
UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the United States next to last.
[111]
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.
[112] However, income gains since then have been slower, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic insecurity.
[112][113] Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980,
[114] largely owing to more dual-earner households, the closing of the
gender gap, and longer work hours, but the growth has been strongly tilted toward the very top.
[106][112][115] Consequently, the share of income of the top 1%—21.8% of total reported income in 2005—has more than doubled since 1980,
[116] leaving the United States with the greatest income inequality among developed nations.
[106][117] The United States has a
progressive tax system which equates to higher income earners paying a larger percentage of their income in taxes.
[118] The top 1% pays 27.6% of all federal taxes, while the top 10% pays 54.7%.
[119]
Wealth, like income and taxes, 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.
[120] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.
[121] In 2010 the
United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 12th among 139 countries on its
inequality-adjusted human development index (IHDI), eight places lower than in the standard
HDI.
[122]
Infrastructure
Science and technology
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.
Nikola Tesla pioneered
alternating current, the
AC motor, and radio. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of
Ransom E. Olds and
Henry Ford popularized the
assembly line. The
Wright brothers, in 1903, made the
first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.
[123]
The rise of
Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including
Albert Einstein,
Enrico Fermi, and
John von Neumann, to immigrate to the United States. 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.
IBM,
Apple Computer, and
Microsoft refined and popularized the
personal computer. The United States largely developed the
ARPANET and its successor, the
Internet. Today, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector.
[124] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and
impact factor.
[125] Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods,
[126] and almost half of U.S. households have
broadband Internet access.
[127] The country is the primary developer and grower of
genetically modified food, representing half of the world's biotech crops.
[128]
Transportation
Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 13 million roads,
[130] including one of the world's
longest highway systems.
[131] The world's second largest automobile market,
[132] the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans.
[133] About 40% of
personal vehicles are vans,
SUVs, or light trucks.
[134]
The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers)
spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).
[135]
Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips,
[136] ranking last in a survey of 17 countries.
[137] While
transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel,
[138] though ridership on
Amtrak, the national intercity passenger rail system, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010.
[139] Light rail development has increased in recent years but, like
high speed rail, is below European levels.
[140] Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal.
[141]
The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely
deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based;
Delta Airlines is number one.
[142] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the United States, including the busiest,
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
[143]
Energy
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, the 10th highest rate in the
world. 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.
[144] The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
[145] For decades,
nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part due to public perception in the wake of a
1979 accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.
[146] The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.
[147]
Education
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
twelfth grade, the end of
high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.
[149] About 12% of children are enrolled in
parochial or
nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are
homeschooled.
[150]
The United States has many competitive private and public
institutions of higher education.
According to prominent international rankings, 13 or 15 American
colleges and universities are ranked among the top 20 in the world.
[151][152] There are also local
community colleges
with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs,
and lower tuition. 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.
[153] The basic
literacy rate is approximately 99%.
[1][154] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.
[155]
Health
The United States life expectancy of 78.4 years at birth ranks it 50th among 221 nations.
[157]
Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements
elsewhere have contributed to lowering the country's rank in life
expectancy from 1987, when it was 11th in the world.
[158] Approximately
one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;
[159] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.
[160] Obesity-related
type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.
[161]
The infant mortality rate of 6.06 per thousand places the United States
176th out of 222 countries, higher than all of Western Europe.
[162]
The U.S. health care system far
outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.
[163] The
World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health care system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance.
Health care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts, and is not
universal
as in all other developed countries. In 2004, private insurance paid
for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments
covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.
[164]
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 rise is
the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health
insurance.
[165] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.
[166] A 2009 study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with nearly 45,000 deaths a year.
[167] In 2006,
Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.
[168] Federal legislation passed in early 2010 will create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014.
Crime and law enforcement
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 certain appeals from the state systems.
Federal law prohibits a variety of drugs, although states sometimes
pass laws in conflict with federal regulations. The
smoking age is generally 18, and the
drinking age is generally 21.
Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of
gun violence and homicide.
[170] There were 5.0 murders per 100,000 persons in 2009, 10.4% fewer than in 2000.
[171] Gun ownership rights are the subject of
contentious political debate.
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate
[172] and total prison population
[173] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.
[174] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure,
[175] and over three times the figure in Poland, the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.
[176] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.
[172] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to
sentencing and
drug policies.
[172][177]
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-four states. Since 1976, when the U.S.
Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been more than 1,000 executions.
[178] In 2010, the country had the fifth highest number of executions in the world, following China,
Iran,
North Korea, and
Yemen.
[179] In 2007,
New Jersey became the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision, followed by
New Mexico in 2009 and
Illinois in 2011.
[180]
Demographics
Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000
The
U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be 313,281,000,
[2] including an estimated 11.2 million
illegal immigrants.
[182] The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900.
[183] The third most populous nation in the world, after
China and
India, the United States is the only major industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.
[184] Even with a birth rate of 13.82 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, its
population growth rate is positive at 1%, significantly higher than those of many developed nations.
[185] In fiscal year 2010, over 1 million
immigrants (most of whom entered through
family reunification) were granted
legal residence.
[186]
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.
[187]
The United States has a very
diverse population—thirty-one
ancestry groups have more than one million members.
[188] White Americans are the largest
racial group;
German Americans,
Irish Americans, and
English Americans constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.
[188] African Americans are the nation's largest
racial minority and third largest ancestry group.
[188] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ethnic groups are
Chinese Americans and
Filipino Americans.
[188] In 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some
American Indian or
Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some
native Hawaiian or
Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).
[189]
The census counted more than 19 million people of "Some Other Race" who
were "unable to identify with any" of its five official race categories
in 2010.
[189]
The population growth of
Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major
demographic trend. The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent
[189] are identified as sharing a distinct "
ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of
Mexican descent.
[190] Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%.
[181]
Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2007, 12.6% of the U.S.
population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in
Latin America.
[191]
Fertility is also a factor; the average Hispanic woman gives birth to
3.0 children in her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for non-Hispanic black
women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the
replacement rate of 2.1).
[184] Minorities
(as defined by the Census Bureau as all those beside non-Hispanic,
non-multiracial whites) constitute 36.3% of the population in 2010,
[192] and nearly 50% of children under age 1,
[193] and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042.
[194]
About 82% of Americans live in
urban areas (including suburbs);
[1] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.
[195] In 2008, 273
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).
[196] There are fifty-two
metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.
[197] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, forty-seven are in the West or South.
[198] The metro areas of
Dallas, Houston,
Atlanta, and
Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.
[197]
| Leading population centers |
|
| Rank |
Core city |
Metro area pop.[199] |
Metropolitan Statistical Area |
Region[200] |
New York City
Los Angeles
Chicago |
| 1 |
New York City |
18,897,109 |
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA |
Northeast |
| 2 |
Los Angeles |
12,828,837 |
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA |
West |
| 3 |
Chicago |
9,580,567 |
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA |
Midwest |
| 4 |
Dallas |
6,371,773 |
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA |
South |
| 5 |
Philadelphia |
5,965,343 |
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA |
Northeast |
| 6 |
Houston |
5,946,800 |
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX MSA |
South |
| 7 |
Washington, D.C. |
5,582,170 |
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA |
South |
| 8 |
Miami |
5,564,635 |
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA |
South |
| 9 |
Atlanta |
5,390,463 |
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA |
South |
| 10 |
Boston |
4,552,403 |
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA |
Northeast |
| based on the 2010 U.S. Census |
Language
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 2010, about 230 million, or 80% of the population aged five
years and older, spoke only English at home.
Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language.
[201][202] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.
[5] Both
Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.
[203]
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.
[204] Other states, such as
California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.
[205]
Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce
government materials, especially voting information, in the most
commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions. Several insular
territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along
with English:
Samoan and
Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively;
Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.
Religion
A
Presbyterian church; most Americans identify as Christian.
The United States is officially a
secular nation; the
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any
religious governance.
In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very
important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any
other wealthy nation.
[206] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as
Christian,
[207] down from 86.4% in 1990.
[208] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while
Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white
evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;
[207] another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%.
[209] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990.
[208] The leading non-Christian faiths were
Judaism (1.7%),
Buddhism (0.7%),
Islam (0.6%),
Hinduism (0.4%), and
Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).
[207] The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as
agnostic,
atheist, or simply having
no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.
[207][208]
Family structure
In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.
[210] Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of
bachelor's degrees.
[211]
Same-sex marriage is a contentious issue. Some states permit
civil unions or
domestic partnerships in lieu of marriage. Since 2003,
several states have legalized gay marriage as the result of judicial or legislative action. Meanwhile, the
federal government and a majority of states define marriage as between a man and a woman and/or explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage.
Public opinion on the issue has shifted from general opposition in the 1990s to a statistical deadlock
as of 2011.
[212]
The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among OECD nations.
[213] Abortion policy was left to the states until the Supreme Court
legalized the practice in 1973. The issue remains highly controversial, with
public opinion closely divided for many years.
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.
[214]
Culture
The
Statue of Liberty is a globally recognized symbol of both the United States and ideals such as freedom, democracy, and opportunity.
[215]
The United States is a
multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.
[6][216] Aside from the now small
Native American and
Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.
[217] Mainstream American culture is a
Western culture largely derived from the
traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as
traditions brought by slaves from Africa.
[6][218] More recent immigration from
Asia and especially
Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as both a homogenizing
melting pot, and a heterogeneous
salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.
[6]
American culture is considered the most
individualistic in the world.
[219] Though the
American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high
social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants, other developed nations offer greater social mobility.
[220] While the mainstream culture holds that the United States is a
classless society,
[221] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting
socialization, language, and values.
[222] The
American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary social trends such as
modern feminism,
environmentalism, and multiculturalism.
[223]
Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations
are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.
[224] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being
ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.
[225]
Popular media
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.
[226] 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.
[227]
Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world,
[228] and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006.
[229]
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.
[230] Aside from
web portals and
search engines, the most popular websites are
Facebook,
YouTube,
Wikipedia,
Blogger,
eBay, and
Craigslist.
[231]
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 developed in the 1920s, and
rhythm and blues in the 1940s.
Elvis Presley and
Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of
rock and roll. In the 1960s,
Bob Dylan emerged from the
folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and
James Brown led the development of
funk. More recent American creations include
hip hop and
house music. American pop stars such as Presley,
Michael Jackson, and
Madonna have become global celebrities.
[232]
Literature, philosophy, and the arts
In the 18th and early 19th 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.
[233] 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".
[234]
Eleven U.S. citizens have won the
Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently
Toni Morrison in 1993.
William Faulkner and
Ernest Hemingway are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century.
[235] 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 Thoreau and
Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major
American philosophical movement. After the Civil War,
Charles Sanders 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, built upon by
Noam Chomsky, brought
analytic philosophy to the fore of U.S. academics.
John Rawls and
Robert Nozick led a revival of
political philosophy.
In the visual arts, the
Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European
naturalism. The
realist paintings of
Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913
Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European
modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.
[236] 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 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 little known at the time,
Charles Ives's
work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in
the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as
Henry Cowell and
John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition.
Aaron Copland and
George Gershwin developed a new 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.
[237]
Food
Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western
countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American
cuisine uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes,
sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, which were consumed by
Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef
barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are
distinctively American foods.
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.
[238]
Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries
is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous
breakfast beverages.
[239]
The American
fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the
drive-through
format in the 1930s. Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;
[238] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "
obesity epidemic".
[240] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for 9% of American caloric intake.
[241]
Sports
Baseball has been regarded as the
national sport since the late 19th century, while
American football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport.
[242] Basketball and
ice hockey are the country's next two leading professional team sports.
College football and
basketball attract large audiences. Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports,
[243] but they have been eclipsed by
golf and
auto racing, particularly
NASCAR.
Soccer is played widely at the youth and amateur levels.
Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as well.
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices,
volleyball,
skateboarding,
snowboarding, and
cheerleading are American inventions. Basketball was invented in Massachusetts by Canadian-born
James Naismith.
Lacrosse and
surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight
Olympic Games have
taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,301 medals at the
Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country,
[244] and 253 in the
Winter Olympic Games, the second most.
[245]
Measurement systems
The nation retains United States customary units, comprising mainly former British
imperial units such as miles,
yards,
and degrees Fahrenheit. Distinct units include the U.S. gallon and U.S.
pint volume measurements. The United States is one of only three
countries that do not rely primarily on the
International System of Units. However,
metric units are increasingly used in science, medicine, and many industrial fields.
[246]
See also
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Lihat FotoReaksi striker Chelsea Didier Drogba setelah mencetak gol melawan Barcelona saat laga pertama semifinal Liga Champion di Stanford Bridge di London, Kamis (19/4) dinihari WIB.
