In 1507, the
GermancartographerMartin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere
"America" after the Italian explorer and cartographer
Amerigo Vespucci (
Latin: Americus Vespucius).[44] The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by
Stephen Moylan, Esq.,
George Washington's
aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the
Continental Army. Addressed to
Lt. Col. Joseph Reed, Moylan expressed his wish to carry the "full and ample powers of the United States of America" to Spain to assist in the revolutionary war effort.[45][46][47]
The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776.[48][49] The second draft of the
Articles of Confederation, prepared by
John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the 'United States of America.'"[50] The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".[51] In June 1776,
Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the
Declaration of Independence.[52][53] This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation.[50] In the final
Fourth of July version of the Declaration, the title was changed to read, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".[54] The
preamble of the
Constitution states "...establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms are the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names are the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "
Columbia", a name popular in poetry and songs of the late 18th century, derives its origin from
Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "
District of Columbia".[55] In non-English languages, the name is frequently the translation of either the "United States" or "United States of America", and colloquially as "America". In addition, an abbreviation (e.g. USA) is sometimes used.[56]
The phrase "United States" was originally plural, a description of a collection of independent states—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. The singular form—e.g., "the United States is"—became popular after the end of the American Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".[57] The difference is more significant than usage; it is a difference between a collection of states and a unit.[58]
A citizen of the United States is an "
American". "United States", "American" and "U.S." refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). In English, the word "
American" rarely refers to topics or subjects not connected with the United States.[59]
In the early days of colonization, many European settlers were subject to food shortages, disease, and attacks from Native Americans. Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and allied with Europeans in their colonial wars. At the same time, however, many natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts, natives for guns, ammunition and other European wares.[67] Natives taught many settlers where, when and how to cultivate corn, beans and squash. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural techniques and lifestyles.[68][69]
After Spain sent
Columbuson his first voyage to the
New World in 1492, other explorers followed. The Spanish set up small settlements in New Mexico and Florida. France had several small settlements along the
Mississippi River. Successful
English settlement on the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at
Jamestown and the
Pilgrims'Plymouth Colony in 1620. Early experiments in communal living failed until the introduction of private farm holdings.[70] Many settlers were
dissenting Christian groups who came seeking
religious freedom. The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's
House of Burgesses created in 1619, and the
Mayflower Compact, signed by the Pilgrims before disembarking, established precedents for the pattern of representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[71][72]
Most settlers in every colony were small farmers, but other industries developed within a few decades as varied as the settlements.
Cash crops included tobacco, rice and wheat. Extraction industries grew up in furs, fishing and lumber. Manufacturers produced rum and ships, and by the late colonial period Americans were producing one-seventh of the world's iron supply.[73] Cities eventually dotted the coast to support local economies and serve as trade hubs. English colonists were supplemented by waves of
Scotch-Irish and other groups. As coastal land grew more expensive freed
indentured servants pushed further west.[74]
Slave cultivation of cash crops began with the Spanish in the 1500s, and was adopted by the English, but life expectancy was much higher in North America because of less disease and better food and treatment, leading to a rapid increase in the numbers of slaves.[75][76][77] Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery and colonies passed acts for and against the practice.[78][79] But by the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were replacing indentured servants for cash crop labor, especially in southern regions.[80]
With the British colonization of
Georgia in 1732, the
13 colonies that would become the United States of America were established.[81] 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.[82] With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly. Relatively small Native American populations were eclipsed.[83] The
Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the
Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty.[84]
During the
Seven Years' War (in America, known as 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, who were being conquered and displaced, the 13 British colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[85] The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivated monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.[86]
The American Revolutionary War was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power. Americans had developed an ideology of "
republicanism" asserting that government rested on the will of the people as expressed in their local legislatures. They demanded their
rights as Englishmen and "no taxation without representation". The British insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and
the conflict escalated into war.[87]
Following the passage of the
Lee Resolution, on July 2, 1776, which was the actual vote for independence, the
Second Continental Congress adopted the
Declaration of Independence on July 4, which proclaimed, in a long preamble, that humanity is created equal in their unalienable rights and that those rights were not being protected by Great Britain, and declared, in the words of the resolution, that the
Thirteen Colonies were independent states and had no allegiance to the British crown in the United States. The fourth day of July is celebrated annually as
Independence Day. In 1777, the
Articles of Confederation established a weak government that operated until 1789.[88]
Britain recognized the independence of the United States following their
defeat at Yorktown in 1781.[89] In the
peace treaty of 1783, American sovereignty was recognized from the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. Nationalists led the
Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the
United States Constitution,
ratified in state conventions in 1788. The federal government was reorganized into three branches, on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances, in 1789. George Washington, who had led the revolutionary army to victory, was the first
president elected under the new constitution. The
Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of
personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.[90]
Although the federal government criminalized the international slave trade in 1808, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the
Deep South, and along with it, the slave population.[91][92][93] The
Second Great Awakening, especially 1800–1840, converted millions to
evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including
abolitionism;[94] in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.[95]
Americans' eagerness to
expand westward prompted a long series of
American Indian Wars.[96] The
Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory in 1803 almost doubled the nation's area.[97] The
War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism.[98] A series of military incursions into Florida led
Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.[99] Expansion was aided by
steam power, when
steamboats began traveling along America's large water systems, which were connected by new
canals, such as the
Erie and the
I&M; then, even faster railroads began their stretch across the nation's land.[100]
The
California Gold Rush of 1848–49 spurred western migration and the creation of additional western states.[104] After the
American Civil War, new transcontinental
railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and increased conflicts with Native Americans.[105] Over a half-century, the loss of the
American bison (sometimes called "buffalo") was an existential blow to many
Plains Indians cultures.[106] In 1869, a new
Peace Policy sought to protect Native-Americans from abuses, avoid further war, and secure their eventual U.S. citizenship, although conflicts, including several of the largest Indian Wars, continued throughout the West into the 1900s.[107]
Differences of opinion and social order between northern and southern states in early United States society, particularly regarding
Black slavery, ultimately led to the American Civil War.[108] Initially, states entering the Union alternated between
slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. But with additional western territory and more free-soil states, tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over federalism and disposition of the territories, whether and how to expand or restrict slavery.[109]
With the 1860 election of
Abraham Lincoln, the first president from the largely anti-slavery
Republican Party, conventions in thirteen slave states ultimately declared secession and formed the
Confederate States of America, while the federal government maintained that secession was illegal.[109] The ensuing war was at first for Union, then after 1863 as casualties mounted and Lincoln delivered his
Emancipation Proclamation, a second war aim became abolition of slavery. The war remains the deadliest military conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of approximately 618,000 soldiers as well as many civilians.[110]
Following the
Union victory in 1865,
three amendments were added to the U.S. Constitution: the
Thirteenth Amendment prohibited slavery, the
Fourteenth Amendment provided citizenship to the nearly four million
African Americans who had been slaves,[111] and the
Fifteenth Amendment ensured that they had the right to vote. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in
federal power[112] aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves.
Southern white conservatives, calling themselves "Redeemers" took control after the end of Reconstruction. By the 1890–1910 period
Jim Crow lawsdisenfranchised most blacks and some poor whites. Blacks faced
racial segregation, especially in the South.[113] Racial minorities occasionally experienced
vigilante violence.[114]
In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented
influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture.[115] National infrastructure including
telegraph and
transcontinental railroads spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the
American Old West. The later invention of
electric light and the
telephone would also affect communication and urban life.[116]
The United States remained neutral from the outbreak of
World War I, in 1914, until 1917 when it joined the war as an "associated power", alongside the formal
Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the
Central Powers. In 1919, President
Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the
Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the
League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this, and did not ratify the
Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations.[122]
At first effectively neutral during
World War II while Germany conquered much of continental Europe, the United States began supplying material 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.[128] During the war, the United States was referred as one of the "
Four Policemen"[129] of Allies power who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union and China.[130][131] Though the nation lost more than 400,000 soldiers,[132] it emerged
relatively undamaged from the war with even greater economic and military influence.[133]
After World War II the United States and the
Soviet Union jockeyed for power during what became known as the
Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between
capitalism and
communism[138] and, according to the school of
geopolitics, a divide between the maritime Atlantic and the continental Eurasian camps. They dominated the military affairs of
Europe, with the U.S. and its
NATO allies on one side and the USSR and its
Warsaw Pact allies on the other. The U.S.
developed a policy of containment towards the expansion of communist influence. While the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in
proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict.
The 1970s and early 1980s saw the onset of
stagflation. After his election in 1980, President
Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with
free-market oriented reforms. Following the collapse of
détente, he abandoned "containment" and initiated the more aggressive "
rollback" strategy towards the USSR.[147][148][149][150][151] After a surge in female labor participation over the previous decade, by 1985 the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed.[152]
The late 1980s brought a "
thaw" in relations with the USSR, and
its collapse in 1991 finally ended the Cold War.[153][154][155][156] This brought about
unipolarity[157] with the U.S. unchallenged as the world's dominant superpower. The concept of
Pax Americana, which had appeared in the post-World War II period, gained wide popularity as a term for the post-Cold War
new world order.
After the Cold War, the conflict in the Middle East triggered a crisis in 1990, when
Iraq under
Sadaam Husseininvaded and attempted to annex Kuwait, an ally of the United States. Fearing that the instability would spread to other regions, President
George H.W. Bush launched
Operation Desert Shield, a defensive force buildup in Saudi Arabia, and
Operation Desert Storm, in a staging titled the Gulf War; waged by
coalition forces from 34 nations, led by the United States against Iraq ending in the successful expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, restoring the former monarchy.[158]
Originating in
U.S. defense networks, the
Internet spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly affecting the global economy, society, and culture.[159]
Due to the
dot-com boom, stable monetary policy under
Alan Greenspan, and
reduced social welfare spending, the 1990s saw the
longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history, ending in 2001.[160] Beginning in 1994, the U.S. entered into the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), linking 450 million people producing $17 trillion worth of goods and services. The goal of the agreement was to eliminate trade and investment barriers among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico by January 1, 2008. Trade among the three partners has soared since NAFTA went into force.[161]
In 2010, the Obama administration passed the
Affordable Care Act, which made the most sweeping reforms to the
nation's healthcare system in nearly five decades, including
mandates,
subsidies and
insurance exchanges. The law caused a significant reduction in the number and percentage of people without health insurance, with 24 million covered during 2016,[178] but remains controversial due to its impact on healthcare costs, insurance premiums, and economic performance.[179] Although the recession reached its trough in June 2009, voters remained frustrated with the slow pace of the economic recovery. The Republicans, who stood in opposition to Obama's policies, won control of the House of Representatives with
a landslide in 2010 and control of the Senate in
2014.[180]
The land area of the
contiguous United States is 2,959,064 square miles (7,663,940.6 km2). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 663,268 square miles (1,717,856.2 km2).
Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central
Pacific, southwest of North America, is 10,931 square miles (28,311 km2) in area. The populated territories of
Puerto Rico,
American Samoa,
Guam,
Northern Mariana Islands, and
U.S. Virgin Islands together cover 9,185 square miles (23,789 km2).[188]
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 (9,522,055.0 km2)[189] to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091.5 km2)[190] to 3,796,742 square miles (9,833,516.6 km2)[13] to 3,805,927 square miles (9,857,306 km2).[14] Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[191]
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.[200] The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains have an
alpine climate. 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. Hawaii and the southern tip of
Florida are tropical, as are the populated territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific.[201] 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
Tornado Alley areas in the Midwest and South.[202]
The U.S. ecology is
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.[204] The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 bird species, 311 reptile species, and 295 amphibian species.[205] About 91,000 insect species have been described.[206] The
bald eagle is both the
national bird and
national animal of the United States, and is an enduring symbol of the country itself.[207]
There are 58
national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and
wilderness areas.[208] Altogether, the government owns about 28% of the country's land area.[209] Most of this is
protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; about .86% is used for military purposes.[210][211]
Environmental issues have been on the national agenda since 1970. Environmental controversies include debates on oil and
nuclear energy, dealing with air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife, logging and
deforestation,[212][213] and international responses to global warming.[214][215] Many federal and state agencies are involved. The most prominent is the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by presidential order in 1970.[216] The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.[217] The
Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service.[218]
The
U.S. Census Bureau estimated the country's population to be 323,425,550 as of April 25, 2016, and to be adding 1 person (net gain) every 13 seconds, or about 6,646 people per day.[222] The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900.[223] 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.[224] In the 1800s the average woman had 7.04 children, by the 1900s this number had decreased to 3.56.[225] Since the early 1970s the birth rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 with 1.86 children per woman in 2014. Foreign born immigration has caused the US population to continue its rapid increase with the foreign born population doubling from almost 20 million in 1990 to over 40 million in 2010, representing one third of the population increase.[226] The foreign born population reached 45 million in 2015.[227][fn 8]
The United States has a birth rate of 13 per 1,000, which is 5 births below the world average.[231] Its
population growth rate is positive at 0.7%,
higher than that of many developed nations.[232] In fiscal year 2012, over one million
immigrants (most of whom entered through
family reunification) were granted
legal residence.[233]Mexico has been the leading source of new residents since the
1965 Immigration Act. China, India, and the
Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year since the 1990s.[234] As of 2012[update], approximately 11.4 million residents are
illegal immigrants.[235] As of 2015, 47% of all immigrants are Hispanic, 26% are Asian, 18% are white and 8% are black. The percentage of immigrants who are Asian is increasing while the percentage who are Hispanic is decreasing.[227]
According to a survey conducted by the Williams Institute, nine million Americans, or roughly 3.4% of the adult population identify themselves as
homosexual,
bisexual, or
transgender.[236][237] A 2016
Gallup poll also concluded that 4.1% of adult Americans identified as
LGBT. The highest percentage came from the District of Columbia (10%), while the lowest state was North Dakota at 1.7%.[238] In a 2013 survey, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 96.6% of Americans identify as straight, while 1.6% identify as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identify as being bisexual.[239]
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).[240] 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, over 18.5 million (97%) of whom are of Hispanic ethnicity.[240]
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[240] are identified as sharing a distinct "
ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of
Mexican descent.[241] Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%.[242] Much of this growth is from immigration; in 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population was
foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in
Latin America.[243][fn 9]
English (
American English) is the
de factonational 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.[255][256] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in 32 states.[257]
Both
Hawaiian and English are official languages in
Hawaii, by state law.[258]Alaska recognizes
twenty Native languages.[259] 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.[260] Other states, such as
California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[261] Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials, especially voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions.
According to the
Center for Immigration Studies,
Arabic and
Urdu are the fastest-growing foreign languages spoken in American households. In recent years, Arabic-speaking residents increased by 29%, Urdu by 23% and
Persian by 9%.[267]
The
most widely taught foreign languages at all levels in the United States (in terms of enrollment numbers) are: Spanish (around 7.2 million students), French (1.5 million), and German (500,000). Other commonly taught languages (with 100,000 to 250,000 learners) include
Latin,
Japanese,
American Sign Language,
Italian, and
Chinese.[268][269] 18% of all Americans claim to speak at least one language in addition to English.[270]
Christianity is by far the most common religion practiced in the U.S., but other religions are followed, too. In a 2013 survey, 56% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.[271] In a 2009 Gallup poll, 42% of Americans said that they attended church weekly or almost weekly; the figures ranged from a low of 23% in
Vermont to a high of 63% in Mississippi.[272]
As with other Western countries, the U.S. is becoming less religious.
Irreligion is growing rapidly among Americans under 30.[273] Polls show that overall American confidence in organized religion has been declining since the mid to late 1980s,[274] and that younger Americans in particular are becoming increasingly irreligious.[10][275] According to a 2012 study, Protestant share of U.S. population dropped to 48%, thus ending its status as religious category of the majority for the first time.[276][277] Americans with no religion have 1.7 children compared to 2.2 among Christians. The unaffiliated are less likely to get married with 37% marrying compared to 52% of Christians.[278]
Protestantism is the largest Christian religious grouping in the United States. Baptists collectively form the largest branch of Protestantism, and the
Southern Baptist Convention is the largest individual Protestant denomination. About 26% of Americans identify as
Evangelical Protestants, while 15% are Mainline and 7% belong to a traditionally Black church.
Roman Catholicism in the United States has its origin in the
Spanish and
French colonization of the Americas, and later grew because of Irish, Italian, Polish, German and Hispanic immigration. Rhode Island has the highest percentage of Catholics with 40 percent of the total population.[284]Lutheranism in the U.S. has its origin in immigration from
Northern Europe and
Germany.
North and
South Dakota are the only states in which a plurality of the population is Lutheran.
Presbyterianism was introduced in North America by
Scottish and
Ulster Scots immigrants. Although it has spread across the United States, it is heavily concentrated on the East Coast.
Dutch Reformed congregations were founded first in
New Amsterdam (New York City) before spreading westward.
Utah is the only state where
Mormonism is the religion of the majority of the population. The
Mormon Corridor also extends to parts of
Idaho,
Nevada and
Wyoming.[285]
The
Bible Belt is an informal term for a region in the
Southern United States in which socially conservative Evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. By contrast, religion plays the least important role in
New England and in the
Western United States.[272]
As of 2007[update], 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.[286] Women now work mostly outside the home and receive a majority of
bachelor's degrees.[287]
The U.S.
teenage pregnancy rate is 26.5 per 1,000 women. The rate has declined by 57% since 1991.[288] In 2013, the highest teenage birth rate was in
Alabama, and the lowest in
Wyoming.[288][289]Abortion is legal throughout the U.S., owing to Roe v. Wade, a 1973
landmark decision by the
Supreme Court of the United States. 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.[290] In 2013, the average age at first birth was 26 and 40.6% of births were to unmarried women.[291]
The
total fertility rate (TFR) was estimated for 2013 at 1.86 births per woman.[292]Adoption in the United States is common and relatively easy from a legal point of view (compared to other Western countries).[293] In 2001, with over 127,000 adoptions, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of the total number of adoptions worldwide.[294]Same-sex marriage is legal nationwide and it is legal for same-sex
couples to adopt.Polygamy is illegal throughout the U.S.[295]
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. At the
2010 census, seven states had the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, had 53.[306]
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.[307] The Supreme Court, led by the
Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.[308] However, the court currently has one vacant seat after the death of Associate Justice
Antonin Scalia.[309]
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion;
Nebraska uniquely has a
unicameral legislature.[310] 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. The Constitution has been amended 27 times;[311] 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 by the courts to be in violation of the Constitution is voided. The principle of judicial review, not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was established by the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (1803)[312] in a decision handed down by
Chief Justice John Marshall.[313]
The United States is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district, five territories and eleven uninhabited island possessions.[315] The states and territories are the principal administrative districts in the country. These are divided into subdivisions of counties and independent cities. The District of Columbia is a federal district which contains the capital of the United States, Washington DC.[316] The states and the District of Columbia choose the President of the United States. Each state has presidential electors equal to the number of their Representatives and Senators in Congress; the District of Columbia has three.[317]
Congressional Districts are reapportioned among the states following each decennial Census of Population. Each state then draws single member districts to conform with the census apportionment. The total number of Representatives is 435, and delegate Members of Congress represent the District of Columbia and the five major U.S. territories.[318]
The United States also observes
tribal sovereignty of the American Indian nations to a limited degree, as it does with the states' sovereignty. American Indians are U.S. citizens and tribal lands are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress and the federal courts. Like the states they have a great deal of autonomy, but also like the states tribes are not allowed to make war, engage in their own foreign relations, or print and issue currency.[319]
In the
115th United States Congress, both the
House of Representatives and the
Senate are controlled by the Republican Party. The Senate currently consists of 52 Republicans, and 46 Democrats with 2
Independents who caucus with the Democrats; the House consists of 241 Republicans and 194 Democrats.[328] In state governorships, there are 31 Republicans, 18 Democrats and 1 Independent.[329] Among the DC mayor and the 5 territorial governors, there are 2 Republicans, 1 Democrat, 1
Popular Democrat, and 2 Independents.[330]
Taxes in the United States are levied at the federal, state and local government level. These include taxes on income, payroll, property, sales, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2010 taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.8% of
GDP.[345] During FY2012, the federal government collected approximately $2.45 trillion in tax revenue, up $147 billion or 6% versus FY2011 revenues of $2.30 trillion. Primary receipt categories included individual income taxes ($1,132B or 47%), Social Security/Social Insurance taxes ($845B or 35%), and corporate taxes ($242B or 10%).[346] Based on CBO estimates,[347] under 2013 tax law the top 1% will be paying the highest average tax rates since 1979, while other income groups will remain at historic lows.[348]
U.S. taxation is generally
progressive, especially the federal income taxes, and is among the most progressive in the developed world.[349][350][351][352][353] The highest 10% of income earners pay a majority of federal taxes,[354] and about half of all taxes.[355] Payroll taxes for Social Security are a flat
regressive tax, with no tax charged on income above $118,500 (for 2015 and 2016) and no tax at all paid on
unearned income from things such as stocks and capital gains.[356][357] The historic reasoning for the regressive nature of the payroll tax is that entitlement programs have not been viewed as welfare transfers.[358][359] However, according to the
Congressional Budget Office the net effect of Social Security is that the benefit to tax ratio ranges from roughly 70% for the top earnings quintile to about 170% for the lowest earning quintile, making the system progressive.[360]
The top 10% paid 51.8% of total federal taxes in 2009, and the top 1%, with 13.4% of pre-tax national income, paid 22.3% of federal taxes.[361] In 2013 the Tax Policy Center projected total federal effective tax rates of 35.5% for the top 1%, 27.2% for the top quintile, 13.8% for the middle quintile, and −2.7% for the bottom quintile.[362][363] The
incidence of
corporate income tax has been a matter of considerable ongoing controversy for decades.[352][364] State and local taxes vary widely, but are generally less progressive than federal taxes as they rely heavily on broadly borne
regressive sales and property taxes that yield less volatile revenue streams, though their consideration does not eliminate the progressive nature of overall taxation.[352][365]
During FY 2012, the federal government spent $3.54 trillion on a budget or cash basis, down $60 billion or 1.7% vs. FY 2011 spending of $3.60 trillion. Major categories of FY 2012 spending included: Medicare & Medicaid ($802B or 23% of spending), Social Security ($768B or 22%), Defense Department ($670B or 19%), non-defense discretionary ($615B or 17%), other mandatory ($461B or 13%) and interest ($223B or 6%).[346]
The
military budget of the United States in 2011 was more than $700 billion, 41% of global military spending and equal to the next 14 largest national military expenditures combined. At 4.7% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top 15 military spenders, after
Saudi Arabia.[375] U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP ranked 23rd globally in 2012 according to the CIA.[376] Defense's share of U.S. spending has generally declined in recent decades, from Cold War peaks of 14.2% of GDP in 1953 and 69.5% of federal outlays in 1954 to 4.7% of GDP and 18.8% of federal outlays in 2011.[377]
The proposed base
Department of Defense budget for 2012, $553 billion, was a 4.2% increase over 2011; an additional $118 billion was proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.[378] The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;[379] 4,484 service members were killed during the
Iraq War.[380] Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan in April 2012;[381] by November 8, 2013 2,285 had been killed during the
War in Afghanistan.[382]
In 2015, there were 15,696 murders which was 1,532 more than in 2014, a 10.8 per cent increase, the largest since 1971.[386] The murder rate in 2015 was 4.9 per 100,000 people.[387] In 2012 there were 4.7 murders per 100,000 persons in the United States, a 54% decline from the modern peak of 10.2 in 1980.[388] In 2001–2, the United States had above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of
gun violence compared to other developed nations.[389] A cross-sectional analysis of the
World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States "homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher."[390][needs update]Gun ownership rights continue to be the subject of
contentious political debate.
From 1980 through 2008 males represented 77% of homicide victims and 90% of offenders. Blacks committed 52.5% of all homicides during that span, at a rate almost eight times that of whites ("whites" includes most Hispanics), and were victimized at a rate six times that of whites. Most homicides were intraracial, with 93% of black victims killed by blacks and 84% of white victims killed by whites.[391] In 2012, Louisiana had the highest rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the U.S., and New Hampshire the lowest.[392] The FBI's
Uniform Crime Reports estimates that there were 3,246 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents in 2012, for a total of over 9 million total crimes.[393]
Capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and used in 31 states.[394][395] No executions took place from 1967 to 1977, owing in part to a
U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down arbitrary imposition of the death penalty. In 1976, that Court ruled that, under appropriate circumstances, capital punishment may constitutionally be imposed. Since the decision there have been more than 1,300 executions, a majority of these taking place in three states: Texas, Virginia, and
Oklahoma.[396] Meanwhile,
several states have either abolished or struck down death penalty laws. In 2014, the country had the fifth-highest number of executions in the world, following China,
Iran,
Saudi Arabia, and
Iraq.[397]
The United States has the
highest documented incarceration rate and
total prison population in the world.[398] At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[399] At year end 2012, the combined U.S. adult correctional systems supervised about 6,937,600 offenders. About 1 in every 35 adult residents in the United States was under some form of correctional supervision at yearend 2012, the lowest rate observed since 1997.[400] The prison population has quadrupled since 1980,[401] and state and local spending on prisons and jails has grown three times as much as that spent on public education during the same period.[402] However, the imprisonment rate for all prisoners sentenced to more than a year in state or federal facilities is 478 per 100,000 in 2013[403] and the rate for pre-trial/remand prisoners is 153 per 100,000 residents in 2012.[404] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in
sentencing guidelines and
drug policies.[405] According to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons, the majority of inmates held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses.[406] The
privatization of prisons and prison services which began in the 1980s has been a subject of debate.[407][408] In 2008, Louisiana
had the highest incarceration rate,[409] and Maine the lowest.[410]
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%.[434] The number of employees at all levels of government outnumber those in
manufacturing by 1.7 to 1.[435] 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.[436] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing.[437] In the
franchising business model,
McDonald's and
Subway are the two most recognized brands in the world.
Coca-Cola is the most recognized
soft drink company in the world.[438]
Consumer spending comprises 68% of the U.S. economy in 2015.[446] In August 2010, the American labor force consisted of 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.[447] The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.[448] The United States is ranked among the top three in the
Global Competitiveness Report as well. It has a smaller
welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than European nations tend to.[449]
The United States is the only advanced economy that does not
guarantee its workers paid vacation[450] and is one of just a few countries in the world without
paid family leave as a legal right, with the others being
Papua New Guinea,
Suriname and
Liberia.[451] While federal law currently does not require sick leave, it is a common benefit for government workers and full-time employees at corporations.[452] 74% of full-time American workers get paid sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although only 24% of part-time workers get the same benefits.[452] In 2009, the United States had the third-highest
workforce productivity per person in the world, behind
Luxembourg and
Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the
Netherlands.[453]
Americans have the highest average
household and
employee income among OECD nations, and in 2007 had the second-highest
median household income.[458][459] According to the Census Bureau, median household income was $53,657 in 2014.[460] Despite accounting for only 4.4% of the global population, Americans collectively possess 41.6% of the world's total wealth,[461] and Americans make up roughly half of the world's population of millionaires.[462] The
Global Food Security Index ranked the U.S. number one for food affordability and overall food security in March 2013.[463] Americans on average have over twice as much living space per dwelling and per person as
European Union residents, and more than every EU nation.[464] For 2013 the
United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 5th among 187 countries in its
Human Development Index and 28th in its
inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI).[465]
There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s.[466] However, the gap between total compensation and productivity is not as wide because of increased employee benefits such as health insurance.[467] While
inflation-adjusted ("real")
household income had been increasing almost every year from 1947 to 1999, it has since been flat on balance and has even decreased recently.[468] According to
Congressional Research Service, during this same period,
immigration to the United States increased, while the lower 90% of tax filers incomes became stagnant, and eventually decreasing since 2000.[469] The rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1 percent, which has more than doubled from 9 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2011, has significantly affected
income inequality,[470] leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations.[471] The post-recession income gains have been very uneven, with the top 1 percent capturing 95 percent of the income gains from 2009 to 2012.[472] The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.[473][disputed –
discuss][474]
Wealth, like income and taxes, is
highly concentrated; the richest 10% of the adult population possess 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom half claim only 2%.[476] Between June 2007 and November 2008 the
global recession led to falling asset prices around the world. Assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value.[477] Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth was down $14 trillion, but has since increased $14 trillion over 2006 levels.[478][479] At the end of 2014,
household debt amounted to $11.8 trillion,[480] down from $13.8 trillion at the end of 2008.[481]
There were about 578,424 sheltered and unsheltered
homeless persons in the U.S. in January 2014, with almost two-thirds staying in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program.[482] In 2011
16.7 million children lived in food-insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels, though only 1.1% of U.S. children, or 845,000, saw reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at some point during the year, and most cases were not chronic.[483] According to a 2014 report by the Census Bureau, one in five young adults lives in
poverty today, up from one in seven in 1980.[484]
Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4 million miles (6.4 million km) of public roads,[486] including one of the world's
longest highway systems at 57,000 miles (91700 km).[487] The world's second-largest automobile market,[488] the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans.[489] About 40% of
personal vehicles are vans,
SUVs, or light trucks.[490] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).[491]
The
United States energy market is about 29,000
terawatt hours per year.[503]Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons (7076 kg) 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.[504] The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.[505]
For decades,
nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part because of public perception in the wake of a
1979 accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.[506] The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.[507] It is the world's largest producer of natural gas and crude oil.[508]
Issues that affect water supply in the United States include droughts in the West,
water scarcity,
pollution, a backlog of investment, concerns about the affordability of water for the poorest, and a rapidly retiring workforce. Increased variability and intensity of rainfall as a result of
climate change is expected to produce both more severe droughts and flooding, with potentially serious consequences for water supply and for pollution from
combined sewer overflows.[509][510][fn 13]
American
public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the
United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. In most states, children are required to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally,
kindergarten or
first grade) until they turn 18 (generally bringing them through
twelfth grade, the end of
high school); some states allow students to leave school at 16 or 17.[513]
About 12% of children are enrolled in
parochial or
nonsectarianprivate schools. Just over 2% of children are
homeschooled.[514] The U.S. spends more on education per student than any nation in the world, spending more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student.[515] Some 80% of U.S. college students attend
public universities.[516]
The United States has many competitive private and public
institutions of higher education. The majority of the world's top universities listed by different ranking organizations are in the U.S.[517][518][519] There are also local
community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans 25 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.[520] The basic
literacy rate is approximately 99%.[13][521] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.[522]
As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. trails some other
OECD nations but spends more per student than the OECD average, and more than all nations in combined public and private spending.[515][523] As of 2012[update],
student loan debt exceeded one trillion dollars, more than Americans owe on credit cards.[524]
Core American culture was established by
Protestant British colonists and shaped by the
frontier settlement process, with the traits derived passed down to descendants and transmitted to immigrants through assimilation. Americans have traditionally been characterized by a strong
work ethic, competitiveness, and individualism,[528] as well as a unifying belief in an "American
creed" emphasizing liberty, equality, private property, democracy, rule of law, and a preference for limited government.[529] Americans are extremely charitable by global standards. According to a 2006 British study, Americans gave 1.67% of GDP to charity, more than any other nation studied, more than twice the second place British figure of 0.73%, and around twelve times the French figure of 0.14%.[530][531]
The
American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high
social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants.[532] Whether this perception is realistic has been a topic of debate.[533][534][535][536][423][537] While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a
classless society,[538] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting
socialization, language, and values.[539] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.[540] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being
ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.[541]
Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries.
Wheat is the primary cereal grain with about three-quarters of grain products made of wheat flour[542] and many dishes use indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup which were consumed by Native Americans and early European settlers.[543] These home grown foods are part of a shared national menu on one of America's most popular holidays;
Thanksgiving, when some Americans make traditional foods to celebrate the occasion.[544]
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.[546] Americans drink three times as much coffee as tea.[547] Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous
breakfast beverages.[548][549]
American eating habits owe a great deal to that of their
British culinary roots with some variations. Although American lands could grow newer vegetables that Britain could not, most colonists would not eat these new foods until accepted by Europeans.[550] Over time American foods changed to a point that food critic,
John L. Hess stated in 1972: "Our founding fathers were as far superior to our present political leaders in the quality of their food as they were in the quality of their prose and intelligence".[551]
The American
fast food industry, the world's largest,[552] pioneered the
drive-through format in the 1940s.[553] Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[546] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "
obesity epidemic".[554] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake.[555]
Hollywood, a northern district of
Los Angeles, California, is one of the leaders in motion picture production.[571] The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using
Thomas Edison's
Kinetoscope.[572] 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, although in the 21st century an increasing number of films are not made there, and film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization.[573]
Director
D. W. Griffith, American's top filmmaker during the silent film period, was central to the development of
film grammar, and producer/entrepreneur
Walt Disney was a leader in both
animated film and movie
merchandising.[574] Directors such as
John Ford redefined the image of the American Old West and history, and, like others such as
John Huston, broadened the possibilities of cinema with location shooting, with great influence on subsequent directors. The industry enjoyed its golden years, in what is commonly referred to as the "
Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s,[575] with screen actors such as
John Wayne and
Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures.[576][577] In the 1970s, film directors such as
Martin Scorsese,
Francis Ford Coppola and
Robert Altman were a vital component in what became known as "
New Hollywood" or the "Hollywood Renaissance",[578] grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the
post-war period.[579] Since, directors such as
Steven Spielberg,
George Lucas and
James Cameron have gained renown for their blockbuster films, often characterized by high production costs, and in return, high earnings at the box office, with Cameron's Avatar (2009) earning more than $2 billion.[580]
In 1998, the number of U.S. commercial radio stations had grown to 4,793 AM stations and 5,662 FM stations. In addition, there are 1,460 public radio stations. Most of these stations are run by universities and public authorities for educational purposes and are financed by public or private funds, subscriptions and corporate underwriting. Much public-radio broadcasting is supplied by
NPR (formerly National Public Radio). NPR was incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967; its television counterpart,
PBS, was also created by the same legislation. (NPR and PBS are operated separately from each other.) As of September 30, 2014[update], there are 15,433 licensed full-power radio stations in the US according to the
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).[599]
Well-known newspapers are The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Although the cost of publishing has increased over the years, the price of newspapers has generally remained low, forcing newspapers to rely more on advertising revenue and on articles provided by a major wire service, such as the Associated Press or Reuters, for their national and world coverage. With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large chains such as
Gannett or
McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families. Major cities often have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily papers, for example, New York City's The Village Voice or Los Angeles' LA Weekly, to name two of the best-known. Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers for local ethnic and social groups. Early versions of the American newspaper
comic strip and the
American comic book began appearing in the 19th century. In 1938,
Superman, the comic book
superhero of
DC Comics, developed into an American icon.[600] Aside from
web portals and
search engines, the most popular websites are
Facebook,
YouTube,
Wikipedia,
Yahoo.com,
eBay,
Amazon and
Twitter.[601]
More than 800 publications are produced in Spanish, the second most widely spoken mother tongue behind English.[602][603]
The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid 20th century. Methods for producing
interchangeable parts were developed by the U.S. War Department by the Federal Armories during the first half of the 19th century. This technology, along with the establishment of a
machine tool industry, enabled the U.S. to have large scale manufacturing of sewing machines, bicycles and other items in the late 19th century and became known as the
American system of manufacturing. Factory
electrification in the early 20th century and introduction of the
assembly line and other labor saving techniques created the system called
mass production.[604]
These advancements then lead to greater
personalization of technology for individual use.[614] As of 2013[update], 83.8% of American households owned at least one
computer, and 73.3% had high-speed Internet service.[615] 91% of Americans also own a mobile phone as of May 2013[update].[616] The United States ranks highly with regard to freedom of use of the internet.[617]
In the 21st century, approximately two-thirds of research and development funding comes from the private sector.[618] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and
impact factor.[619]
The United States has a life expectancy of 79.8 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990.[620][621][622] 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.[623]Obesity rates in the United States are amongst the highest in the world.[624]
Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[625] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[626] Obesity-related
type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[627] The infant mortality rate of 6.17 per thousand places the United States 56th-lowest out of 224 countries.[628]
The U.S. is a global leader in medical innovation. America solely developed or contributed significantly to 9 of the top 10 most important medical innovations since 1975 as ranked by a 2001 poll of physicians, while the EU and Switzerland together contributed to five.[630] Since 1966, more Americans have received the
Nobel Prize in Medicine than the rest of the world combined. From 1989 to 2002, four times more money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe.[631] The U.S. health-care system far
outspends any other nation, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[632]
Health-care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts and is not
universal. In 2014, 13.4% of the population did not carry
health insurance.[633] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.[634][635] In 2006,
Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[636]Federal legislation passed in early 2010 would ostensibly create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014, though the bill and its ultimate effect are issues of controversy.[637][638]
^In five territories, English as well as one or more indigenous languages are official:
Spanish in Puerto Rico,
Samoan in American Samoa,
Chamorro in both Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Carolinian is also an official language in the Northern Mariana Islands.
^Whether the United States or
China is larger has been
disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Census and United Nations.[14]
^The following two primary sources (non-mirrored) represent the range (min./max.) of total area for China and the United States.
Both sources exclude Taiwan from the area of China.
The Encyclopædia Britannica lists China as world's third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with a total area of 9,572,900 sq km,[24]
and the United States as fourth-largest at 9,526,468 sq km. The figure for the United States is less than in the CIA Factbook because it excludes coastal and territorial waters.[25]
The CIA World Factbook lists the United States as the third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with total area of 9,833,517 sq km,[26] and China as fourth-largest at 9,596,960 sq km.[27] This figure for the United States is greater than in the Encyclopædia Britannica because it includes coastal and territorial waters.
^Fertility is also a factor; in 2010 the average Hispanic woman gave birth to 2.35 children in her lifetime, compared to 1.97 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.79 for non-Hispanic white women (both below the
replacement rate of 2.1).[244]Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau as all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constituted 36.3% of the population in 2010 (this is nearly 40% in 2015),[245] and over 50% of children under age one,[246] and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042.[247] This contradicts the report by the National Vital Statistics Reports, based on the U.S. census data, which concludes that 54% (2,162,406 out of 3,999,386 in 2010) of births were non-Hispanic white.[244] The Hispanic birth rate plummeted 25% between 2006 and 2013 while the rate for non-Hispanics decreased just 5%.[248]
^Source: 2010
American Community Survey,
U.S. Census Bureau. Most respondents who speak a language other than English at home also report speaking English "well" or "very well." For the language groups listed above, the strongest English-language proficiency is among speakers of German (96% report that they speak English "well" or "very well"), followed by speakers of French (93.5%), Tagalog (92.8%), Spanish (74.1%), Korean (71.5%), Chinese (70.4%), and Vietnamese (66.9%).
^In January 2015, U.S. federal government debt held by the public was approximately $13 trillion, or about 72% of U.S. GDP. Intra-governmental holdings stood at $5 trillion, giving a combined total debt of $18.080 trillion.[367][368] By 2012, total federal debt had surpassed 100% of U.S. GDP.[369] The U.S. has a
credit rating of AA+ from
Standard & Poor's, AAA from
Fitch, and AAA from
Moody's.[370]
^The
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, found that the United States'
arms industry was the world's biggest exporter of major weapons from 2005 to 2009,[432] and remained the largest exporter of major weapons during a period between 2010 and 2014, followed by Russia, China (PRC), and Germany.[433]
^Droughts are likely to particularly affect the 66 percent of Americans whose communities depend on surface water.[511] As for drinking water quality, there are concerns about disinfection by-products,
lead,
perchlorates and pharmaceutical substances, but generally
drinking water quality in the U.S. is good.[512]
^"U.S. Code: Title 36, 304". Cornell Law School. August 12, 1998. Retrieved February 9, 2017. The composition by John Philip Sousa entitled 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' is the national march.
^
abcd"United States". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. May 23, 2016. Retrieved June 10, 2016. (area given in square kilometers)
^
abc"
State and other areas", U.S. Census Bureau,
MAF/TIGER database as of August 2010, excluding the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. viewed October 22, 2014.
^DeLear, Byron (July 4, 2013)
Who coined 'United States of America'? Mystery might have intriguing answer. "Historians have long tried to pinpoint exactly when the name 'United States of America' was first used and by whom... ...This latest find comes in a letter that Stephen Moylan, Esq., wrote to Col. Joseph Reed from the Continental Army Headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., during the Siege of Boston. The two men lived with Washington in Cambridge, with Reed serving as Washington's favorite military secretary and Moylan fulfilling the role during Reed's absence." Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA).
^Touba, Mariam (November 5, 2014)
Who Coined the Phrase 'United States of America'? You May Never Guess "Here, on January 2, 1776, seven months before the Declaration of Independence and a week before the publication of Paine's Common Sense, Stephen Moylan, an acting secretary to General George Washington, spells it out, 'I should like vastly to go with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain' to seek foreign assistance for the cause." New-York Historical Society Museum & Library
^Fay, John (July 15, 2016)
The forgotten Irishman who named the 'United States of America' "According to the NY Historical Society, Stephen Moylan was the man responsible for the earliest documented use of the phrase "United States of America." But who was Stephen Moylan?" IrishCentral.com
^Carter, Rusty (August 18, 2012).
"You read it here first". The Virginia Gazette. Archived from
the original on August 22, 2012. He did a search of the archives and found the letter on the front page of the April 6, 1776, edition, published by Hunter & Dixon.
^For example, the U.S. embassy in Spain calls itself the embassy of the "Estados Unidos", literally the words "states" and "united", and also uses the initials "EE.UU.", the doubled letters implying plural use in Spanish
[1] Elsewhere on the site "Estados Unidos de América" is used
[2]
^Greene and Pole, A Companion to the American Revolution p 357. Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (1987) p. 161. Lawrence S. Kaplan, "The Treaty of Paris, 1783: A Historiographical Challenge", International History Review, Sept 1983, Vol. 5 Issue 3, pp 431–442
^Vinovskis, Maris (1990). Toward A Social History of the American Civil War: Exploratory Essays. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 4.
ISBN0-521-39559-3.
^"1860 Census"(PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved June 10, 2007. Page 7 lists a total slave population of 3,953,760.
^De Rosa, Marshall L. (1997). The Politics of Dissolution: The Quest for a National Identity and the American Civil War. Edison, NJ: Transaction. p. 266.
ISBN1-56000-349-9.
^McDuffie, Jerome; Piggrem, Gary Wayne; Woodworth, Steven E. (2005). U.S. History Super Review. Piscataway, NJ: Research & Education Association. p. 418.
ISBN0-7386-0070-9.
^Voris, Jacqueline Van (1996). Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life. Women and Peace Series. New York City: Feminist Press at CUNY. p. vii.
ISBN1-55861-139-8. Carrie Chapmann Catt led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920. ... Catt was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women.
^Axinn, June; Stern, Mark J. (2007). Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need (7th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
ISBN978-0-205-52215-6.
^Lemann, Nicholas (1991). The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. p. 6.
ISBN0-394-56004-3.
^Kennedy, Paul (1989). The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage. p. 358.
ISBN0-679-72019-7. Indeed, World War II ushered in the zenith of U.S. power in what came to be called the
American Century, as
Leffler 2010, p. 67, indicates: "Truman presided over the greatest military and economic power the world had ever known. War production had lifted the United States out of the Great Depression and had inaugurated an era of unimagined prosperity. Gross national product increased by 60 percent during the war, total earnings by 50 percent. Despite social unrest, labor agitation, racial conflict, and teenage vandalism, Americans had more discretionary income than ever before. Simultaneously, the U.S. government had built up the greatest war machine in human history. By the end of 1942, the United States was producing more arms than all the Axis states combined, and, in 1943, it made almost three times more armaments than did the Soviet Union. In 1945, the United States had two-thirds of the world's gold reserves, three-fourths of its invested capital, half of its shipping vessels, and half of its manufacturing capacity. Its GNP was three times that of the Soviet Union and more than five times that of Britain. It was also nearing completion of the atomic bomb, a technological and production feat of huge costs and proportions."
^George W. Bush (January 10, 2007).
"Fact Sheet: The New Way Forward in Iraq". Office of the Press Secretary. Retrieved January 26, 2017. After talking to some Afghan leaders, it was said that the Iran's would be revolting if more troops were to be sent to Iran.
^Lux, Marshall; Robert, Greene (2015).
"The State and Fate of Community Banking". Harvard Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
^
abLew, Alan.
"PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE US". GSP 220 – Geography of the United States. North Arizona University. Archived from
the original on April 9, 2016. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
^Lawrence, E.A. (1990). "Symbol of a Nation: The Bald Eagle in American Culture". The Journal of American Culture. 13 (1): 63–69.
doi:
10.1111/j.1542-734X.1990.1301_63.x.
^Gorte, Ross W.; Vincent, Carol Hardy.; Hanson, Laura A.; Marc R., Rosenblum.
"Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data"(PDF). fas.org. Congressional Research Service. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
^"Field Listing: Birth Rate". Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook. 2014. Archived from
the original on December 11, 2007. Retrieved January 21, 2015.
^"Language Spoken at Home by the U.S. Population, 2010", American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, in World Almanac and Book of Facts 2012, p. 615.
^Yaron Matras; Peter Bakker (2003).
The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and Empirical Advances. Walter de Gruyter. p. 301.
ISBN978-3-11-017776-3. in the Northern Marianas, Chamarro, Carolinian ( = the minority language of a group of Carolinian immigrants), and English received the status of co-official languages in 1985(Rodriguez-Ponga 1995:24–28).
^"Women's Advances in Education". Columbia University, Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. 2006. Archived from
the original on June 9, 2007. Retrieved June 6, 2007.
^Strauss, Lilo T.; et al. (November 24, 2006).
"Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2003". MMWR. 55 (11). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Reproductive Health: 1–32.
PMID17119534. Retrieved June 17, 2007.
^US State Department,
Common Core Document of the United States of America "Constitutional, political and legal structure" report by the US State Department to the UN (22). December 30, 2011. viewed July 10, 2015.
^Etheridge, Eric; Deleith, Asger (August 19, 2009).
"A Republic or a Democracy?". New York Times blogs. Retrieved November 7, 2010. The US system seems essentially a two-party system. ...
^National Governor's Association.
Current Governors, viewed January 14, 2015; DeBonis, Mike. "
Bowser is elected D.C. Mayor", Washington Post November 5, 2014, viewed January 14, 2015.
^Manyin, Mark E., Emma Chanlett-Avery, and Mary Beth Nikitin (July 8, 2011).
"U.S.–South Korea Relations: Issues for Congress"(PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved August 28, 2011.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Budget Office, Congressional.
"The Long-Term Budget Outlook 2013"(PDF). cbo.gov. Congress of the United States Congressional Budget Office. p. 10. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
^Porter, Eduardo (August 14, 2012).
"America's Aversion to Taxes". The New York Times. Retrieved August 15, 2012. In 1965, taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.7 percent of the nation's output. In 2010, they amounted to 24.8 percent. Excluding Chile and Mexico, the United States raises less tax revenue, as a share of the economy, than every other industrial country.
^Isabelle Joumard; Mauro Pisu; Debbie Bloch (2012).
"Tackling income inequality The role of taxes and transfers"(PDF). OECD Journal: Economic Studies: 27. Retrieved September 24, 2015. Various studies have compared the progressivity of tax systems of European countries with that of the United States (see for instance Prasad and Deng, 2009; Piketty and Saez, 2007; Joumard, 2001). Though they use different definitions, methods and databases, they reach the same conclusion: the US tax system is more progressive than those of the continental European countries.
Fullerton, Don; Metcalf, Gilbert E. (2002). "Tax Incidence". In A.J. Auerbach and M. Feldstein (ed.).
Handbook of Public Economics. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V. pp. 1788–1839. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
^Cherian, John (April 7, 2012).
"Turning Point". Frontline.
The Hindu Group. Archived from
the original on December 2, 2012. Retrieved December 2, 2012. There are currently 90,000 U.S. troops deployed in the country.
^Wright, Gavin; Czelusta, Jesse (2007). "Resource-Based Growth Past and Present", in Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor Destiny, ed. Daniel Lederman and William Maloney. World Bank. p. 185.
ISBN0-8213-6545-2.
^"Daily Passenger Travel". 2001 National Household Travel Survey. U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Archived from
the original on May 13, 2005. Retrieved August 15, 2007.
^Todorovich, Petra; Hagler, Yoav (January 2011).
High Speed Rail in America(PDF) (Report). America 2050. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
^IEA Key World Energy Statistics Statistics
2013,
2012,
2011,
2010,
2009,
2006IEA October, crude oil p.11, coal p. 13 gas p. 15
^"Diagram 1: Energy Flow, 2007"(PDF). EIA Annual Energy Review. U.S. Dept. of Energy, Energy Information Administration. 2007. Retrieved June 25, 2008.
^Ames, Paul (May 30, 2013).
"Could fracking make the Persian Gulf irrelevant?". Salon. Retrieved May 30, 2012. Since November, the United States has replaced Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest producer of crude oil. It had already overtaken Russia as the leading producer of natural gas.
^"Human Development Indicators"(PDF). United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Reports. 2005. Archived from
the original(PDF) on June 20, 2007. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
^Thompson, William; Hickey, Joseph (2005). Society in Focus. Boston: Pearson.
ISBN0-205-41365-X.
^Fiorina, Morris P.; Peterson, Paul E. (2000). The New American Democracy. London: Longman, p. 97.
ISBN0-321-07058-5.
^Holloway, Joseph E. (2005). Africanisms in American Culture, 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 18–38.
ISBN0-253-34479-4. Johnson, Fern L. (1999). Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States. Thousand Oaks, Calif., London, and New Delhi: Sage, p. 116.
ISBN0-8039-5912-5.
^Gutfeld, Amon (2002). American Exceptionalism: The Effects of Plenty on the American Experience. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press. p. 65.
ISBN1-903900-08-5.
^Boslaugh, Sarah (2010). "Obesity Epidemic", in Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices, ed. Roger Chapman. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 413–14.
ISBN978-0-7656-1761-3.
^Buell, Lawrence (Spring–Summer 2008). "The Unkillable Dream of the Great American Novel: Moby-Dick as Test Case". American Literary History. 20 (1–2): 132–155.
doi:
10.1093/alh/ajn005.
ISSN0896-7148.
^Quinn, Edward (2006). A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms. Infobase, p. 361.
ISBN0-8160-6243-9. Seed, David (2009). A Companion to Twentieth-Century United States Fiction. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, p. 76.
ISBN1-4051-4691-5. Meyers, Jeffrey (1999). Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Da Capo, p. 139.
ISBN0-306-80890-0.
Acharya, Viral V.; Cooley, Thomas F.; Richardson, Matthew P.; Walter, Ingo (2010). Regulating Wall Street: The Dodd-Frank Act and the New Architecture of Global Finance. Wiley. p. 592.
ISBN978-0-470-76877-8.
Boyer, Paul S.; Clark, Clifford E. Jr.; Kett, Joseph F.; Salisbury, Neal; Sitkoff, Harvard; Woloch, Nancy (2007). The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. Cengage Learning. p. 588.
ISBN978-0-618-80161-9.,
Book
Davis, Kenneth C. (1996). Don't know much about the Civil War. New York: William Marrow and Co. p. 518.
ISBN0-688-11814-3.,
Book
Daynes, Byron W.; Sussman, Glen (eds.) (2010). White House Politics and the Environment: Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Texas A&M University Press. p. 320.
ISBN978-1-60344-254-1. Presidential environmental policies, 1933–2009{{
cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (
help),
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Feldstein, Sylvan G.; Fabozzi, Frank J., CFA (January 13, 2011). The Handbook of Municipal Bonds.
John Wiley & Sons, January 13, 2011. p. 1376.
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Book
Gold, Susan Dudley (2006). United States V. Amistad: Slave Ship Mutiny. Marshall Cavendish. p. 144.
ISBN978-0-7614-2143-6.,
Book
Hughes, David (2007). The British Chronicles. Vol. 1.
Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books. p. 347.
Hoopes, Townsend; Brinkley, Douglas (1997). FDR and the Creation of the U.N. Yale University Press.
ISBN978-0-300-08553-2.
Jacobs, Lawrence R. (2010). Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press.
ISBN978-0-19-978142-3.
Lemon, James T. (1987). "Colonial America in the 18th Century". In Robert D. Mitchell; Paul A. Groves (eds.). North America: the historical geography of a changing continent.
Rowman & Littlefield.,
PDF
Levenstein, Harvey (2003). Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles.
ISBN0-520-23439-1.
Price, David A. (2003). Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation. Random House.
eBook version
Quirk, Joel (2011). The Anti-Slavery Project: From the Slave Trade to Human Trafficking. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 344.
ISBN978-0-8122-4333-8.,
Book
Ranlet, Philip (1999). Alden T. Vaughan (ed.). New England Encounters: Indians and Euroamericans Ca. 1600–1850. North Eastern University Press.
Russell, John Henderson (1913). The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619–1865. Johns Hopkins University. p. 196.,
E'Book
Schneider, Dorothy; Schneider, Carl J. (2007). Slavery in America. Infobase Publishing. p. 554.
ISBN978-1-4381-0813-1.,
Book
Schultz, David Andrew (2009). Encyclopedia of the United States Constitution. Infobase Publishing. p. 904.
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Book
Simonson, Peter (2010). Refiguring Mass Communication: A History. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
ISBN978-0-252-07705-0. He held high the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the nation's unofficial motto, e pluribus unum, even as he was recoiling from the party system in which he had long participated.,
Book
Smith, Andrew F. (2004). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 131–32. ISBN 0-19-515437-1.
Soss, Joe (2010). Hacker, Jacob S.; Mettler, Suzanne (eds.). Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality. Russell Sage Foundation.
ISBN978-1-61044-694-5.,
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Tadman, Michael (2000). "The Demographic Cost of Sugar: Debates on Slave Societies and Natural Increase in the Americas". American Historical Review. 105 (5). Oxford University Press: 1534–1575.
doi:
10.2307/2652029.
JSTOR2652029.
Taylor, Alan (2002). Eric Foner (ed.). American Colonies: The Settling of North America. Penguin Books, New York.
ISBN0-670-87282-2.,
Book
Thornton, Russell (1987). American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Volume 186 of Civilization of the American Indian Series. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 49.
ISBN978-0-8061-2220-5.,
Book
Vaughan, Alden T. (1999). New England Encounters: Indians and Euroamericans Ca. 1600–1850. North Eastern University Press.
Walton, Gary M.; Rockoff, Hugh (2009). History of the American Economy. Cengage Learning.,
Book