The
United States of America
(
USA
), commonly referred to as the
United States
(
U.S.
) or
America
, is a
federal republic
composed of 50
states
, the
federal district of Washington, D.C.
, five major
self-governing territories
, and
various possessions
.
[3]
The
48 contiguous states and federal district
are in central
North America
between
Canada
and
Mexico
, with the
state of Alaska
in the northwestern part of North America and the
state of Hawaii
comprising an
archipelago
in the mid-
Pacific
. The
territories
are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the
Caribbean Sea
. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km
2
)
[19]
and with over 320 million people, the U.S. is the world's
third largest country by total area
(and fourth largest by land area) and the
third most populous
. It is one of the world's most
ethnically diverse
and
multicultural
nations, the product of
large-scale immigration from many other countries
.
[209]
The
geography
and
climate
are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife.
[25]
Paleo-Indians migrated from Asia
to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago,
[31]
with
European colonization
beginning in the 16th century. The United States emerged from
13 British colonies
along the
East Coast
. Numerous disputes between
Great Britain
and the colonies led to the
American Revolution
, which began in 1775. On July 4, 1776, as the colonies were fighting Great Britain in the
American Revolutionary War
, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously adopted the
Declaration of Independence
. The war ended in 1783 with
recognition of the independence of the United States
by the Kingdom of Great Britain, and was the first successful war of independence against a European
colonial empire
.
[33]
The
current constitution
was adopted in 1788, after the
Articles of Confederation
, adopted in 1781, were felt to have provided inadequate federal powers. The first ten amendments, collectively named the
Bill of Rights
, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many
fundamental civil liberties
.
The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century,
[34]
displacing American Indian tribes
,
acquiring new territories
, and gradually
admitting new states
until it spanned the continent by 1848.
[34]
During the second half of the 19th century, the
American Civil War
led to the end of legal
slavery in the country
.
[36]
[37]
By the end of that century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean,
[38]
and its economy, driven in large part by the
Industrial Revolution
, began to soar. The
Spanish–American War
and
World War I
confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from
World War II
as a global
superpower
, the
first country to develop nuclear weapons
, the only country to
use them
in warfare, and a
permanent member
of the
United Nations Security Council
. The end of the
Cold War
and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991 left the United States as the world's
sole superpower
.
[44]
The United States is a highly
developed country
, with the world's largest
economy by nominal and real GDP
. It ranks highly in several measures of socioeconomic performance, including
average wage
,
[45]
human development
,
per capita GDP
, and productivity per person.
[46]
While the
U.S. economy
is considered
post-industrial
, characterized by the dominance of
services
, the manufacturing sector remains the second largest in the world.
[47]
Though its population is only 4.4% of the world total, the United States accounts for nearly a quarter of world GDP and almost a third of
global military spending
,
[48]
making it the world's foremost
military
and economic power. The United States is a prominent political and
cultural
force internationally, and a leader in
scientific research and technological innovations
.
[51]
Etymology
In 1507 the
German
cartographer
Martin 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
).
[52]
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.
[53]
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.
[55]
[57]
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.'"
[58]
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
'
".
[59]
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
.
[60]
[62]
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.
[58]
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".
[63]
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 1700s, derives its origin from
Christopher Columbus
; it appears in the name "
District of Columbia
".
[64]
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.
[66]
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".
[67]
The difference is more significant than usage; it is a difference between a collection of states and a unit.
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"). "
American
" rarely refers to subjects not connected with the United States.
History
The
first inhabitants of North America
migrated from
Siberia
by way of the
Bering land bridge
and arrived at least 15,000 years ago, though increasing evidence suggests an even earlier arrival.
[31]
Some, such as the
pre-Columbian
Mississippian culture
, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies.
[68]
After the Spanish
conquistadors
made the first contacts, the
native population declined
for various reasons, primarily diseases such as
smallpox
and
measles
. Violence was not a significant factor in the overall decline, though warfare did reduce the population of specific tribes.
[69]
[7]
[7]
[7]
In the
Hawaiian Islands
, the earliest indigenous inhabitants arrived around 1 AD from
Polynesia
. Europeans under the British explorer
Captain James Cook
arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778.
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.
[7]
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.
[7]
[7]
Settlements
After Spain sent
Columbus
'
on 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.
[7]
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.
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.
[8]
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.
[8]
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.
[8]
[8]
[8]
Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery and colonies passed acts for and against the practice. But by the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were replacing indentured servants for cash crop labor, especially in southern regions.
With the British colonization of
Georgia
in 1732, the
13 colonies
that would become the United States of America were established.
[70]
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.
[71]
With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly. Relatively small Native American populations were eclipsed. The
Christian revivalist
movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the
Great Awakening
fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty.
[72]
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
, who were being conquered and displaced, those 13 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. The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivated monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.
[73]
Independence and expansion (1776–1865)
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
, "no taxation without representation". The British insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and
the conflict
escalated into war.
[74]
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.
[75]
Britain recognized the independence of the United States following their
defeat at Yorktown
. 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.
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.
[76]
[10]
The
Second Great Awakening
, beginning about 1800, converted millions to
evangelical
Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including
abolitionism
;
[77]
in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.
[10]
Americans' eagerness to
expand westward
prompted a long series of
American Indian Wars
.
[78]
The
Louisiana Purchase
of French-claimed territory in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size.
[10]
The
War of 1812
, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism.
[80]
A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led
Spain to cede
it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819.
[81]
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.
[10]
From 1820 to 1850,
Jacksonian democracy
began a set of reforms which included wider male suffrage; it led to the rise of the
Second Party System
of Democrats and Whigs as the dominant parties from 1828 to 1854. The
Trail of Tears
in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that moved Indians into the west to their own reservations. The U.S. annexed the
Republic of Texas
in 1845 during a period of expansionist
Manifest destiny
.
[82]
The 1846
Oregon Treaty
with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day
American Northwest
.
[83]
Victory in the
Mexican–American War
resulted in the 1848
Mexican Cession
of California and much of the present-day American Southwest.
[84]
The
California Gold Rush
of 1848–49 spurred western migration and the creation of additional western states.
[85]
After the
American Civil War
, new transcontinental
railways
made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade and increased conflicts with Native Americans.
[86]
Over a half-century, the loss of the
American bison
(sometimes called "buffalo") was an existential blow to many
Plains Indians
cultures.
[87]
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.
Civil War and Reconstruction Era
Differences of opinion and social order
between northern and southern states in early United States society, particularly regarding
Black slavery
, ultimately led the U.S. into the American Civil War.
[2]
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.
[90]
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 U.S. government maintained that secession was illegal.
[90]
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.
[2]
Following the
Union
victory in 1865,
three amendments
to the U.S. Constitution brought about the
prohibition of slavery
, gave
U.S. citizenship
to the nearly four million
African Americans
who had been slaves,
[2]
and
promised them voting rights
. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in
federal power
[2]
aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves.
[92]
Following the
Reconstruction Era
, throughout the South
Jim Crow laws
soon effectively
disenfranchised
most blacks and some poor whites. Over the subsequent decades, in both the North and the South blacks and some whites faced systemic discrimination, including
racial segregation
and occasional
vigilante violence
, sparking
national movements
against these abuses.
[92]
Industrialization
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.
[93]
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 impact communication and urban life.
[2]
The end of the
Indian Wars
further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets.
[2]
Mainland expansion was completed by the
purchase of Alaska
from
Russia
in 1867.
[2]
In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii
overthrew
the
monarchy
and formed the
Republic of Hawaii
, which the U.S.
annexed
in 1898.
Puerto Rico
,
Guam
, and the
Philippines
were ceded by Spain in the same year, following the
Spanish–American War
.
[2]
Rapid economic development
at the end of the 19th century produced many prominent industrialists, and the U.S. economy became the world's largest.
[2]
Dramatic changes were accompanied by social unrest and the rise of
populist
,
socialist
, and
anarchist
movements.
[2]
This period eventually ended with the advent of the
Progressive Era
, which saw significant reforms in many societal areas, including
women's suffrage
,
alcohol prohibition
, regulation of consumer goods, greater
antitrust measures
to ensure competition and attention to worker conditions.
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
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.
In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a
constitutional amendment
granting
women's suffrage
. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of
radio
for
mass communication
and the invention of early
television
.
[2]
The prosperity of the
Roaring Twenties
ended with the
Wall Street Crash of 1929
and the onset of the
Great Depression
. After his election as president in 1932,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
responded with the
New Deal
, which included the establishment of the
Social Security
system.
[2]
The
Great Migration
of millions of African Americans out of the American South began before World War I and extended through the 1960s;
[2]
whereas the
Dust Bowl
of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.
[2]
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
.
[102]
During the war, the United States was referred as one of the "
Four Policemen
"
[2]
of Allies power who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union and China. Though the nation lost more than 400,000 soldiers,
[2]
it emerged
relatively undamaged
from the war with even greater economic and military influence.
[2]
The United States played a leading role in the
Bretton Woods
and
Yalta
conferences with the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allies, which signed agreements on new international financial institutions and Europe's postwar reorganization. As an
Allied victory was won in Europe
, a 1945
international conference
held in
San Francisco
produced the
United Nations Charter
, which became active after the war.
[2]
The United States developed the
first nuclear weapons
and used them on Japan; the Japanese
surrendered
on September 2, ending World War II.
[2]
Cold War and civil rights era
After World War II the United States and the
Soviet Union
jockeyed for power during what is known as the
Cold War
, driven by an ideological divide between
capitalism
and
communism
[107]
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 U.S. often opposed
Third World
movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored. American troops fought communist
Chinese
and
North Korean
forces in the
Korean War
of 1950–53. The Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the
first artificial satellite
and its 1961 launch of the
first manned spaceflight
initiated a "
Space Race
" in which the United States became the first nation to
land a man on the moon
in 1969. A proxy war in Southeast Asia eventually evolved into full American participation, as the
Vietnam War
.
At home, the U.S. experienced
sustained economic expansion
and a
rapid growth of its population
and middle class. Construction of an
Interstate Highway System
transformed the nation's infrastructure over the following decades. Millions moved from farms and
inner cities
to large
suburban
housing developments.
[2]
[108]
In 1959
Hawaii
became the 50th and last U.S. state added to the country.
[109]
A growing
civil rights movement
used
nonviolence
to confront segregation and discrimination, with
Martin Luther King, Jr.
becoming a prominent leader and figurehead. A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
, sought to end racial discrimination.
[2]
[2]
[2]
Meanwhile, a
counterculture movement
grew which was fueled by
opposition to the Vietnam war
,
black nationalism
, and the
sexual revolution
. The launch of a "
War on Poverty
" expanded entitlements and welfare spending.
[2]
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.
[2]
[2]
[2]
[2]
[2]
After a surge in female labor participation over the previous decade, by 1985 the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed.
[2]
The late 1980s brought a "
thaw
" in relations with the USSR, and
its collapse
in 1991 finally ended the Cold War.
[2]
[2]
[2]
[2]
This brought about
unipolarity
[2]
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.
Contemporary history
After the Cold War, the 1990s saw the
longest economic expansion
in modern U.S. history, ending in 2001.
[2]
Originating in
U.S. defense networks
, the
Internet
spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly impacting the global economy, society, and culture.
[2]
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 3,000 people.
[2]
In response, the United States launched the
War on Terror
, which included
war in Afghanistan
and the 2003–11
Iraq War
.
[2]
[2]
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 partners has soared since the agreement went into force.
[2]
Barack Obama
, the first
African American
,
[2]
and
multiracial
[2]
president, was elected in 2008 amid the
Great Recession
,
[2]
which began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
[2]
Geography, climate, and environment
The land area of the
contiguous United States
is 2,959,064 square miles (7.7 Mm
2
). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state at 663,268 square miles (1.7 Mm
2
).
Hawaii
, occupying an archipelago in the central
Pacific
, southwest of North America, is 10,931 square miles (28,311 km
2
) 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 km
2
).
[144]
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 (9.5 Mm
2
)
[2]
to 3,717,813 square miles (9.6 Mm
2
)
[2]
to 3,796,742 square miles (9.8 Mm
2
)
[6]
to 3,805,927 square miles (9.9 Mm
2
).
[19]
Measured by only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.
[147]
The coastal plain of the
Atlantic
seaboard gives way further inland to
deciduous
forests and the rolling hills of the
Piedmont
.
[2]
The
Appalachian Mountains
divide the eastern seaboard from the
Great Lakes
and the grasslands of the
Midwest
.
[150]
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.
[150]
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
.
[2]
Farther west are the rocky
Great Basin
and deserts such as the
Chihuahua
and
Mojave
.
[2]
The
Sierra Nevada
and
Cascade
mountain ranges run close to the
Pacific coast
, both ranges reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m). The
lowest and highest points
in the
contiguous
United States are in the state of
California
,
[2]
and only about 84 miles (135 km) apart.
[2]
At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's
Denali
(Mount McKinley) is the highest peak in the country and North America.
[2]
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.
[2]
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.
[2]
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.
[2]
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.
[2]
Wildlife
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.
[2]
The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 bird species, 311 reptile species, and 295 amphibian species.
[165]
About 91,000 insect species have been described.
[2]
The
bald eagle
is both the
national bird
and
national animal
of the United States, and is an enduring symbol of the country itself.
[167]
There are 58
national parks
and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and
wilderness
areas.
[2]
Altogether, the government owns about 28% of the country's land area.
[169]
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.
[170]
[172]
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
,
[2]
[2]
and international responses to global warming.
[2]
[2]
Many federal and state agencies are involved. The most prominent is the
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), created by presidential order in 1970.
[175]
The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.
[2]
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
.
[176]
Demographics
Population
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. The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900.
[2]
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.
[180]
In the 1800s the average woman had 7.04 children, by the 1900s this number had decreased to 3.56. 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.
[2]
The foreign born population reached 45 million in 2015.
[182]
[3]
The United States has a birth rate of 13 per 1,000, which is 5 births below the world average.
[3]
Its
population growth
rate is positive at 0.7%,
higher than that of many developed nations
.
[3]
In fiscal year 2012, over one million
immigrants
(most of whom entered through
family reunification
) were granted
legal residence
.
[190]
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.
[3]
As of 2012, approximately 11.4 million residents are
illegal immigrants
.
[3]
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.
[182]
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
.
[22]
[22]
A 2012
Gallup
poll also concluded that 3.5% 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%.
[22]
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.
[22]
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).
[200]
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.
[200]
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
[200]
are identified as sharing a distinct "
ethnicity
" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of
Mexican descent
.
[201]
Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%.
[202]
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
.
[22]
[23]
About 82% of Americans live in
urban areas
(including suburbs);
[6]
about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.
[210]
The US has numerous clusters of cities known as megaregions, the largest being the
Great Lakes Megalopolis
followed by the
Northeast Megalopolis
and
Southern California
. In 2008, 273
incorporated places
had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four
global cities
had over two million (
New York City
,
Los Angeles
,
Chicago
, and
Houston
).
[212]
There are 52
metropolitan areas
with populations greater than one million.
[214]
Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 47 are in the West or South.
[215]
The metro areas of
San Bernardino
,
Dallas
, Houston,
Atlanta
, and
Phoenix
all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.
[214]
Language
Languages spoken at home by more than 1 million persons in the U.S. (2010)
[218]
Language
|
Percent of
population
|
Number of
speakers
|
Number who
speak English
well or very well
|
English
(only)
|
80%
|
233,780,338
|
All
|
Combined total of all languages
other than English
|
20%
|
57,048,617
|
43,659,301
|
Spanish
(excluding
Puerto Rico
and
Spanish Creole
)
|
12%
|
35,437,985
|
25,561,139
|
Chinese
(including
Cantonese
and
Mandarin
)
|
0.9%
|
2,567,779
|
1,836,263
|
Tagalog
|
0.5%
|
1,542,118
|
1,436,767
|
Vietnamese
|
0.4%
|
1,292,448
|
879,157
|
French
(including
Cajun
but not
Haitian Creole
)
|
0.4%
|
1,288,833
|
1,200,497
|
Korean
|
0.4%
|
1,108,408
|
800,500
|
German
|
0.4%
|
1,107,869
|
1,057,836
|
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%).
English
(
American 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. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in 28 states.
[15]
Both
Hawaiian
and English are official languages in Hawaii, by state law. Alaska recognizes
twenty Native languages
. 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
. Other states, such as
California
, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms. 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
;
Cherokee
is officially recognized by the
Cherokee Nation
within the Cherokee tribal jurisdiction area in eastern Oklahoma;
[24]
Spanish is an official language of
Puerto Rico
and is more widely spoken than English there.
[220]
According to the
Center for Immigration Studies
,
Arabic
and
Urdu
(
Pakistan
's national language) are the fastest growing foreign languages spoken at American households. According to the survey, more than 63.2 million US residents speak a language other than English at home. In recent years, Arabic speaking residents increased by 29%, Urdu by 23% and
Persian
by 9%.
[221]
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
.
[24]
[24]
18% of all Americans claim to speak at least one language in addition to English.
[24]
Religion
The
First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the
free exercise
of religion and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its
establishment
.
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.
[24]
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.
[227]
As with other Western countries, the U.S. is becoming less religious.
Irreligion
is growing rapidly among Americans under 30.
[24]
Polls show that overall American confidence in organized religion has been declining since the mid to late 1980s,
[229]
and that younger Americans in particular are becoming increasingly irreligious.
[225]
[230]
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.
[231]
[232]
[233]
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.
[234]
According to a 2014 survey, 70.6% of adults identified themselves as
Christian
,
[235]
Protestant
denominations accounted for 46.5%, while
Roman Catholicism
, at 20.8%, was the largest individual denomination.
[236]
The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2014 was 5.9%.
[236]
Other religions include
Judaism
(1.9%),
Islam
(0.9%),
Buddhism
(0.7%),
Hinduism
(0.7%).
[236]
The survey also reported that 22.8% of Americans described themselves as
agnostic
,
atheist
or simply having
no religion
, up from 8.2% in 1990.
[236]
[237]
[238]
There are also
Unitarian Universalist
,
Baha'i
,
Sikh
,
Jain
,
Shinto
,
Confucian
,
Taoist
,
Druid
,
Native American
,
Wiccan
,
humanist
and
deist
communities.
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 is the only state where a majority of the population is Catholic.
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
.
[239]
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
.
[227]
Family structure
As of 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married. Women now work mostly outside the home and receive a majority of
bachelor's degrees
.
[241]
The U.S.
teenage pregnancy
rate is 26.5 per 1,000 women. The rate has declined by 57% since 1991.
[242]
In 2013, the highest teenage birth rate was in
Alabama
, and the lowest in
Wyoming
.
[242]
[243]
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.
[244]
In 2013, the average age at first birth was 26 and 40.6% of births were to unmarried women.
[245]
The
total fertility rate
(TFR) was estimated for 2013 at 1.86 births per woman.
[246]
Adoption in the United States
is common and relatively easy from a legal point of view (compared to other Western countries).
[247]
In 2001, with over 127,000 adoptions, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of the total number of adoptions worldwide.
[25]
Same-sex marriage
is legal nationwide and it is legal for same-sex
couples to adopt.
Polygamy
is illegal throughout the U.S.
[249]
Government 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
".
[25]
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.
[25]
For 2014, the U.S. ranked 19th on the
Democracy Index
[25]
and 17th on the
Corruption Perceptions Index
.
[25]
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 rare at lower levels.
[25]
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
,
[25]
and has the power of
impeachment
, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
[25]
-
Executive
:
The President
is the
commander-in-chief
of the military, can veto
legislative bills
before they become law (subject to Congressional override), and appoints the
members of the Cabinet
(subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
[25]
-
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
.
[262]
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.
[264]
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
.
[265]
The Supreme Court, led by the
Chief Justice of the United States
, has nine members, who serve for life.
[267]
However, the court currently has one vacant seat after the death of Associate Justice
Antonin Scalia
.
[268]
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion;
Nebraska
uniquely has a
unicameral
legislature.
[269]
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; 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) in a decision handed down by
Chief Justice John Marshall
.
Political divisions
The United States is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district, five territories and eleven uninhabited island possessions.
[33]
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.
[33]
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.
[33]
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 US territories.
[33]
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.
[33]
Parties and elections
The United States has operated under a
two-party system
for most of its history.
[278]
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. The President and Vice-president are elected through the
Electoral College
system.
[279]
Within American
political culture
, the
center-right
Republican Party is considered "
conservative
" and the
center-left
Democratic Party is considered "
liberal
".
[33]
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
and
2012 presidential elections
, Democrat
Barack Obama
, is the 44th, and current,
U.S. president
. Current leadership in the Senate includes Democratic Vice President
Joseph Biden
, Republican President Pro Tempore (Pro Tem)
Orrin Hatch
,
Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell
, and Minority Leader
Harry Reid
.
[281]
Leadership in the House includes Speaker of the House
Paul Ryan
,
Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy
, and Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi
.
[282]
In the
114th United States Congress
, both the
House of Representatives
and the
Senate
are controlled by the Republican Party. The Senate currently consists of 54 Republicans, and 44 Democrats with two
independents
who caucus with the Democrats; the House consists of 246 Republicans and 188 Democrats, with one vacancy.
[283]
In state governorships, there are 31 Republicans, 18 Democrats and one independent.
[284]
Among the DC mayor and the 5 territorial governors, there are 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats (one is also in the
PPD
), and 2 Independents.
[286]
Foreign relations
The United States has an established structure of foreign relations. It is a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council
, and New York City is home to the
United Nations Headquarters
. It is a member of the
G7
,
[288]
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,
Iran
,
North Korea
,
Bhutan
, and the
Republic of China
(Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States (although the U.S. still maintains relations with Taiwan and supplies it with
military equipment
).
[290]
The United States has a "
Special Relationship
" with the
United Kingdom
[291]
and strong ties with
Canada
,
[36]
Australia
,
[36]
New Zealand
,
[36]
the Philippines
,
[36]
Japan
,
[36]
South Korea
,
[36]
Israel
,
[36]
and several
European Union
countries, including
France
,
Italy
,
Germany
, and
Spain
. 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 22 donor states. By contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.
[36]
The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for three sovereign nations through
Compact of Free Association
with
Micronesia
, the
Marshall Islands
and
Palau
. These are Pacific island nations, once part of the U.S.-administered
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
after World War II, which gained independence in subsequent years.
[36]
Government finance
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
.
[37]
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%).
[304]
Based on CBO estimates,
[305]
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.
[306]
U.S. taxation is generally
progressive
, especially the federal income taxes, and is among the most progressive in the developed world.
[37]
[37]
[37]
[37]
The highest 10% of income earners pay a majority of federal taxes,
[37]
and about half of all taxes.
[320]
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.
[321]
[322]
The historic reasoning for the regressive nature of the payroll tax is that entitlement programs have not been viewed as welfare transfers.
[323]
[325]
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.
[326]
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.
[327]
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.
[329]
[331]
The
incidence
of
corporate income tax
has been a matter of considerable ongoing controversy for decades.
[335]
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.
[336]
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%).
[304]
The total
national debt of the United States
in the United States was $18.527 trillion (106% of the GDP) in 2014.
[337]
Military
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 by the
Department of the Navy
during times 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.
[343]
Military service is voluntary, though
conscription
may occur in wartime through the
Selective Service System
.
[345]
American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's 10 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,
[347]
and maintains
deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel
in 25 foreign countries.
[44]
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
.
[44]
U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP ranked 23rd globally in 2012 according to the CIA.
[44]
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.
[44]
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.
[44]
The last American troops serving in Iraq departed in December 2011;
[44]
4,484 service members were killed during the
Iraq War
.
[44]
Approximately 90,000 U.S. troops were serving in Afghanistan in April 2012;
[358]
by November 8, 2013 2,285 had been killed during the
War in Afghanistan
.
[44]
Law enforcement and crime
Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and
sheriff
's departments, with
state police
providing broader services. The
New York City Police Department
(NYPD) is the largest in the country. Federal agencies such as the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and the
U.S. Marshals Service
have specialized duties, including protecting
civil rights
,
national security
and enforcing
U.S. federal courts
' rulings and federal laws.
[45]
At the federal level and in almost every state, a legal system operates on a
common law
. State courts conduct most criminal trials;
federal courts
handle certain designated crimes as well as certain appeals from the state criminal courts.
Plea bargaining in the United States
is very common; the vast majority of criminal cases in the country are settled by
plea bargain
rather than
jury trial
.
[45]
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.
[45]
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.
[45]
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."
[45]
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.
[45]
In 2012, Louisiana had the highest rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the U.S., and New Hampshire the lowest.
[45]
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.
[45]
Capital punishment
is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and used in 31 states.
[45]
[45]
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
.
[46]
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
.
[46]
The United States has the
highest documented incarceration rate
and
total prison population
in the world.
[46]
At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.
[46]
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.
[46]
The prison population has quadrupled since 1980,
[46]
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.
[46]
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
[46]
and the rate for pre-trial/remand prisoners is 153 per 100,000 residents in 2012.
[46]
The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in
sentencing guidelines
and
drug policies
.
[390]
According to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons
, the majority of inmates held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses.
[47]
The
privatization of prisons
and prison services which began in the 1980s has been a subject of debate.
[47]
[47]
In 2008, Louisiana
had the highest incarceration rate
,
[47]
and Maine the lowest.
[47]
Economy
The United States has a
capitalist
mixed economy
which is fueled by abundant
natural resources
and high productivity. According to the
International Monetary Fund
, the U.S. GDP of $16.8 trillion constitutes 24% of the
gross world product
at market exchange rates and over 19% of the gross world product at
purchasing power parity
(PPP).
[411]
The US's nominal GDP is estimated to be $17.528 trillion as of 2014 From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the
G7
.
[412]
The country ranks ninth in the world in
nominal GDP per capita
and sixth in
GDP per capita at PPP
.
[411]
The
U.S. dollar
is the world's primary
reserve currency
.
The United States is the
largest importer
of goods and
second largest exporter
, though
exports per capita
are relatively low. In 2010, the total
U.S. trade deficit
was $635 billion.
[413]
Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.
[414]
In 2010, oil was the largest import commodity, while transportation equipment was the country's largest export.
[413]
Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt.
[416]
The largest holder of the U.S. debt are American entities, including federal government accounts and the
Federal Reserve
, who hold the majority of the debt.
[417]
[418]
[419]
[420]
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%.
[424]
The number of employees at all levels of government outnumber those in manufacturing by 1.7 to 1.
[48]
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.
[427]
The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing.
[48]
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.
[48]
Chemical products are the leading manufacturing field.
[48]
The United States is the largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its second largest importer.
[48]
It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as
liquid natural gas
,
sulfur
, phosphates, and
salt
. The
National Mining Association
provides data pertaining to
coal
and
minerals
that include
beryllium
,
copper
,
lead
,
magnesium
,
zinc
,
titanium
and others.
[48]
[48]
Agriculture
accounts for just under 1% of GDP,
[427]
yet the United States is the world's top producer of corn
[48]
and soybeans.
[48]
The
National Agricultural Statistics Service
maintains agricultural statistics for products that include
peanuts
,
oats
,
rye
,
wheat
,
rice
,
cotton
,
corn
,
barley
,
hay
,
sunflowers
, and
oilseeds
. In addition, the
United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) provides livestock statistics regarding
beef
,
poultry
,
pork
, and
dairy products
. The country is the primary developer and grower of
genetically modified food
, representing half of the world's biotech crops.
[51]
Consumer spending
comprises 68% of the U.S. economy in 2015.
[51]
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
.
[51]
The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.
[443]
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.
[51]
The United States is the only advanced economy that does not
guarantee its workers paid vacation
[51]
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
.
[51]
However, 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.
[446]
While federal law currently does not require sick leave, it's a common benefit for government workers and full-time employees at corporations.
[446]
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
.
[51]
The
2008–2012 global recession
had a significant impact on the United States, with output still below potential according to the
Congressional Budget Office
.
[51]
It brought high
unemployment
(which has been decreasing but remains above pre-recession levels), along with low
consumer confidence
, the
continuing decline in home values and increase in foreclosures and personal bankruptcies
, an escalating federal debt crisis,
inflation
, and
rising petroleum and food prices
. There remains a record proportion of
long-term unemployed
, continued decreasing
household income
, and tax and
federal budget increases
.
[449]
[52]
[52]
Income, poverty and wealth
Americans have the highest average
household
and
employee
income among OECD nations, and in 2007 had the second highest
median household income
.
[453]
[454]
According to the Census Bureau real median household income was $50,502 in 2011, down from $51,144 in 2010.
[52]
The
Global Food Security Index
ranked the U.S. number one for food affordability and overall food security in March 2013.
[52]
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.
[457]
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).
[52]
There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s.
[52]
However, the gap between total compensation and productivity is not as wide because of increased employee benefits such as health insurance.
[53]
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.
[53]
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.
[53]
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 had a significant impact on
income inequality
,
[465]
leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations.
[470]
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.
[53]
The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.
[53]
[53]
United States' families median net worth
source: Fed Survey of Consumer Finances
[53]
in 2013 dollars
|
1998
|
2013
|
change
|
All families
|
$102,500
|
$81,200
|
-20.8%
|
Bottom 20% of incomes
|
$8,300
|
$6,100
|
-26.5%
|
2nd lowest 20% of incomes
|
$47,400
|
$22,400
|
-52.7%
|
Middle 20% of incomes
|
$76,300
|
$61,700
|
-19.1%
|
Top 10%
|
$646,600
|
$1,130,700
|
+74.9%
|
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%.
[53]
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.
[55]
Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth was down $14 trillion, but has since increased $14 trillion over 2006 levels.
[55]
[55]
At the end of 2014,
household debt
amounted to $11.8 trillion,
[55]
down from $13.8 trillion at the end of 2008.
[55]
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.
[55]
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.
[55]
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.
[55]
Education
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.
[55]
About 12% of children are enrolled in
parochial
or
nonsectarian
private schools
. Just over 2% of children are
homeschooled
.
[55]
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.
[495]
Some 80% of U.S. college students attend
public universities
.
[57]
The United States has many competitive private and public
institutions of higher education
. The majority of world's top universities listed by different ranking organizations are in the US.
[57]
[57]
[57]
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.
[57]
The basic
literacy
rate is approximately 99%.
[6]
[57]
The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.
[57]
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.
[495]
[57]
As of 2012,
student loan debt
exceeded one trillion dollars, more than Americans owe on credit cards.
[57]
Culture
The United States is home to
many cultures
and a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. Aside from the
Native American
,
Native Hawaiian
, and
Native Alaskan
populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors settled or immigrated within the past five centuries. 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
. 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.
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,
[508]
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.
[509]
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%.
[510]
[511]
The
American Dream
, or the perception that Americans enjoy high
social mobility
, plays a key role in attracting immigrants.
[512]
Whether this perception is realistic has been a topic of debate.
[515]
[516]
[517]
[518]
[412]
[59]
While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a
classless society
,
[59]
scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting
socialization
, language, and values.
[59]
Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.
[59]
While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being
ordinary or average
is generally seen as a positive attribute.
[59]
Food
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
[520]
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.
[59]
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.
[522]
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.
[524]
Americans drink three times as much coffee as tea.
[525]
Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous
breakfast
beverages.
[60]
[60]
American eating habits owe a great deal to that of their
British culinary
roots with some variations. Although American lands could grow newer vegetables England could not, most colonists would not eat these new foods until accepted by Europeans.
[526]
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"
.
[527]
The American
fast food
industry, the world's largest,
[60]
pioneered the
drive-through
format in the 1940s.
[529]
Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;
[524]
frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "
obesity epidemic
".
[60]
Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake.
[62]
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.
[62]
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),
F. Scott Fitzgerald
's
The Great Gatsby
(1925) and
Harper Lee
's
To Kill a Mockingbird
(1960)— may be dubbed the "
Great American Novel
".
[62]
Eleven U.S. citizens have won the
Nobel Prize in Literature
, most recently
Toni Morrison
in 1993.
William Faulkner
,
Ernest Hemingway
and
John Steinbeck
are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century.
[62]
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
.
[534]
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. O. Quine
and
Richard Rorty
, and later
Noam Chomsky
, brought
analytic philosophy
to the fore of American philosophical academia.
John Rawls
and
Robert Nozick
led a revival of
political philosophy
.
Cornel West
and
Judith Butler
have led a continental tradition in American philosophical academia.
Chicago school economists
like
Milton Friedman
,
James M. Buchanan
, and
Thomas Sowell
have impacted various fields in social and political philosophy.
[62]
[62]
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.
[62]
Georgia O'Keeffe
,
Marsden Hartley
, and others experimented with new, individualistic styles. 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
.
[537]
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
.
[539]
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
.
[540]
Music
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, as have contemporary musical artists such as
Taylor Swift
,
Britney Spears
,
Katy Perry
, and
Beyoncé
as well as hip hop artists
Jay Z
,
Eminem
and
Kanye West
.
[63]
Rock bands such as
Metallica
, the
Eagles
, and
Aerosmith
are among the
highest grossing
in worldwide sales.
[63]
[63]
[63]
Cinema
Hollywood
, a northern district of
Los Angeles
, California, is one of the leaders in motion picture production.
[63]
The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using
Thomas Edison
's
Kinetoscope
.
[63]
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.
[63]
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
.
[555]
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,
[556]
with screen actors such as
John Wayne
and
Marilyn Monroe
becoming iconic figures.
[557]
[558]
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",
[559]
grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period.
[560]
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.
[561]
Notable films topping the
American Film Institute
's
AFI 100
list include
Orson Welles
's
Citizen Kane
(1941), which is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time,
[562]
[564]
Casablanca
(1942),
The Godfather
(1972),
Gone with the Wind
(1939),
Lawrence of Arabia
(1962),
The Wizard of Oz
(1939),
The Graduate
(1967),
On the Waterfront
(1954),
Schindler's List
(1993),
Singin' in the Rain
(1952),
It's a Wonderful Life
(1946) and
Sunset Boulevard
(1950).
[565]
The
Academy Awards
, popularly known as the Oscars, have been held annually by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
since 1929,
[566]
and the
Golden Globe Awards
have been held annually since January 1944.
[567]
Sports
American football
is by several measures the most popular spectator sport;
[66]
the
National Football League
(NFL) has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world, and the
Super Bowl
is watched by millions globally.
Baseball
has been regarded as the U.S.
national sport
since the late 19th century, with
Major League Baseball
(MLB) being the top league.
Basketball
and
ice hockey
are the country's next two
leading professional team sports
, with the top leagues being the
National Basketball Association
(NBA) and the
National Hockey League
(NHL). These four major sports, when played professionally, each occupy a season at different, but overlapping, times of the year.
College football
and
basketball
attract large audiences.
[66]
In
soccer
, the country hosted the
1994 FIFA World Cup
, the
men's national soccer team
qualified for ten World Cups and the
women's team
has won the
FIFA Women's World Cup
three times;
Major League Soccer
is the sport's highest league in the United States. The market for professional sports in the United States is roughly $69 billion, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.
[66]
Eight
Olympic Games
have taken place in the United States. As of 2014, the United States has won 2,400 medals at the
Summer Olympic Games
, more than any other country, and 281 in the
Winter Olympic Games
, the second most behind Norway.
[66]
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices,
basketball
,
volleyball
,
skateboarding
, and
snowboarding
are American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries.
Lacrosse
and
surfing
arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. The most watched
individual sports
are
golf
and
auto racing
, particularly
NASCAR
.
[66]
[578]
The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the
National Broadcasting Company
(NBC),
Columbia Broadcasting System
(CBS), the
American Broadcasting Company
(ABC) and
Fox
. The four major broadcast
television networks
are all commercial entities.
Cable television
offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches.
[579]
Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercial, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day.
[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, there are 15,433 licensed full-power radio stations in the US according to the
U.S. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC).
[581]
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. Aside from
web portals
and
search engines
, the most popular websites are
Facebook
,
YouTube
,
Wikipedia
,
Yahoo.com
,
eBay
,
Amazon
and
Twitter
.
[582]
More than 800 publications are produced in Spanish, the second most widely spoken mother tongue behind English.
[583]
[584]
Infrastructure
Transportation
Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 4 million miles (6.4 million km) of public roads,
[586]
including one of the world's
longest highway systems
at 57,000 miles (91700 km).
[587]
The world's second largest automobile market,
[588]
the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans.
[589]
About 40% of
personal vehicles
are vans,
SUVs
, or light trucks.
[590]
The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).
[591]
Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips
.
[594]
[595]
Transport of goods by rail
is extensive, though relatively low numbers of passengers (approximately 31 million annually) use intercity rail to travel, partly because of the low population density throughout much of the U.S. interior.
[596]
[597]
However, ridership on
Amtrak
, the national intercity passenger
rail system
, grew by almost 37% between 2000 and 2010.
[598]
Also,
light rail development
has increased in recent years.
[599]
Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal.
[600]
The
civil airline industry
is entirely privately owned and has been largely
deregulated since 1978
, while
most major airports
are publicly owned.
[601]
The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based;
American Airlines
is number one after its 2013 acquisition by
US Airways
.
[602]
Of the
world's 50 busiest passenger airports
, 16 are in the United States, including the busiest,
Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport
, and the fourth-busiest,
O'Hare International Airport
in
Chicago
.
[604]
Energy
The
United States energy
market is about 29,000
terawatt hours
per year.
[610]
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.
[611]
The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
[612]
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.
[613]
The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.
[615]
It is the world's largest producer of natural gas and crude oil.
[616]
Water supply and sanitation
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
.
[617]
[618]
Science and technology
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
.
[622]
In 1876,
Alexander Graham Bell
was awarded the first U.S.
patent for the telephone
.
Thomas Edison
's
research laboratory
, one of the first of its kind, developed the
phonograph
, the first
long-lasting light bulb
, and the first viable
movie camera
.
[623]
The latter lead to emergence of the worldwide
entertainment industry
. 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
.
[625]
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.
[626]
During World War II, the
Manhattan Project
developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the
Atomic Age
, while the
Space Race
produced rapid advances in rocketry,
materials science
, and
aeronautics
.
[69]
[69]
The invention of the
transistor
in the 1950s, a key active component in practically all modern
electronics
, led to many technological developments and a significant expansion of the U.S. technology industry.
[69]
[69]
[69]
This in turn led to the establishment of many new technology companies and regions around the county such as
Silicon Valley
in California. Advancements by American
microprocessor
companies such as
Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD), and
Intel
along with both computer
software
and
hardware
companies that include
Adobe Systems
,
Apple Computer
,
IBM
,
GNU-Linux
,
Microsoft
, and
Sun Microsystems
created and popularized the
personal computer
. The
ARPANET
was developed in the 1960s to meet
Defense Department
requirements, and became the first of a
series of networks which evolved
into the
Internet
.
[631]
These advancements then lead to greater
personalization
of technology for individual use.
[69]
As of 2013, 83.8% of American households owned at least one
computer
, and 73.3% had high-speed Internet service.
[69]
91% of Americans also own a mobile phone as of May 2013.
[69]
The United States ranks highly with regard to freedom of use of the internet.
[635]
In the 21st century, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector.
[637]
The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and
impact factor
.
[638]
Health
The United States has a life expectancy of 79.8 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990.
[639]
[640]
[644]
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.
[645]
Obesity rates in the United States
are amongst the highest in the world.
[646]
Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;
[647]
the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century. Obesity-related
type 2 diabetes
is considered epidemic by health care professionals.
[7]
The infant mortality rate of 6.17 per thousand places the United States 169th highest out of 224 countries, with the 224th country having the lowest mortality rate.
[7]
In 2010,
coronary artery disease
,
lung cancer
,
stroke
,
chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases
, and traffic accidents caused the most years of life lost in the U.S. Low back pain,
depression
,
musculoskeletal disorders
, neck pain, and
anxiety
caused the most years lost to disability. The most deleterious
risk factors
were poor diet, tobacco smoking, obesity,
high blood pressure
,
high blood sugar
,
physical inactivity
, and alcohol use.
Alzheimer's disease
, drug abuse,
kidney disease
and cancer, and falls caused the most additional years of life lost over their age-adjusted 1990 per-capita rates.
[644]
U.S. teenage pregnancy and abortion rates are substantially higher than in other Western nations, especially among blacks and Hispanics.
[7]
U.S. underage drinking among teenagers is among the lowest in industrialized nations.
[7]
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.
[7]
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.
[7]
The U.S. health-care system far
outspends
any other nation, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.
[7]
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
.
[7]
The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.
[7]
[7]
In 2006,
Massachusetts
became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.
[7]
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 impact are issues of controversy.
[7]
[7]