This article is about the United States of America.
United States of America |
|
Motto: In God We Trust (official)
E Pluribus Unum (traditional)
(Latin: Out of Many, One) |
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner" |
|
Capital | Washington, D.C.
38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W / 38.883; -77.017 |
Largest city | New York City |
Official language(s) | None at federal level[a] |
National language | English (de facto)[b] |
Demonym | American |
Government | Federal presidential constitutional republic |
- | President | Barack Obama (D) |
- | Vice President | Joe Biden (D) |
- | Speaker of the House | John Boehner (R) |
- | Chief Justice | John Roberts |
Legislature | Congress |
- | Upper House | Senate |
- | Lower House | House of Representatives |
Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain |
- | Declared | July 4, 1776 |
- | Recognized | September 3, 1783 |
- | Current constitution | June 21, 1788 |
Area |
- | Total | 9,826,675 km2 [1][c](3rd/4th)
3,794,101 sq mi |
- | Water (%) | 6.76 |
Population |
- | 2010 census | 308,745,538[2](April) |
- | Density | 33.7/km2
87.4/sq mi |
GDP (PPP) | 2009 estimate |
- | Total | $14.256 trillion[3] (1st) |
- | Per capita | $47,701[3] (6th) |
GDP (nominal) | 2009 estimate |
- | Total | $14.256 trillion[3] (1st) |
- | Per capita | $46,381[3] (9th) |
Gini (2007) | 45.0[1] (44th) |
HDI (2010) | 0.902[4] (very high) (4th) |
Currency | United States dollar ($) (USD ) |
Time zone | (UTC−5 to −10) |
- | Summer (DST) | (UTC−4 to −10) |
Date formats | m/d/yy (AD) |
Drives on the | right |
Internet TLD | .us .gov .mil .edu |
Calling code | +1 |
^ a. English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official".[5] English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii. ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language.
^ c. Whether the United States or the People's Republic of China is larger is disputed. The figure given is from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the 50 states and the District of Columbia, not the territories.
^ d. The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than 4 million U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States. | | | | | | | | |
The
United States of America (also referred to as the
United States, the
U.S., the
USA, or
America) is a
federal constitutional republic comprising
fifty states and a
federal district. The country is situated mostly in central
North America, where its
forty-eight contiguous states and
Washington, D.C., the
capital district, lie between the
Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans, bordered by
Canada to the north and
Mexico to the south. The state of
Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and
Russia to the west across the
Bering Strait. The state of
Hawaii is an
archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses
several territories in the
Caribbean and Pacific.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km
2) and with over 308 million people, the United States is the
third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest both by
land area and
population. It is one of the world's most
ethnically diverse and
multicultural nations, the product of large-scale
immigration from many countries.
The
U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2009
GDP of $14.3 trillion (24% of
nominal global GDP and 20% of global GDP at
purchasing power parity).
Indigenous peoples of
Asian origin have inhabited what is now the mainland United States for many thousands of years. This
Native American population was greatly reduced by disease and warfare after
European contact. The United States was founded by
thirteen British colonies located along the
Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the
Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to
self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated the
British Empire in the
American Revolution, the first successful
colonial war of independence. The current
United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The
Bill of Rights, comprising ten
constitutional amendments guaranteeing many
fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from
France,
Spain, the
United Kingdom,
Mexico, and
Russia, and
annexed the
Republic of Texas and the
Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the
agrarian South and
industrial North over
states' rights and the expansion of the
institution of slavery provoked the
American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the
end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world's largest.The
Spanish–American War and
World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from
World War II as the
first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council. The end of the
Cold War and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for 43% of
global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.
Government and elections
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."
[46] 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. In the
American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to
three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the
local government's duties are commonly split between
county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a
plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no
proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
- Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
- Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet (subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
- Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find unconstitutional.
The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a
congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are
apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. As of the
2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected
at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office
no more than twice. The president is
not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect
electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme Court, led by the
Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion;
Nebraska uniquely has a
unicameral legislature. The
governor (chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by popular vote.
All laws and governmental procedures are subject to judicial review, and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution is voided. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states.
Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of
habeas corpus, and
Article Three guarantees the
right to a jury trial in all criminal cases.
Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the
Bill of Rights, and the
Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights.
Parties, ideology, and politics
The United States has operated under a
two-party system for most of its history. For elective offices at most levels, state-administered
primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent
general elections. Since the
general election of 1856, the major parties have been the
Democratic Party,
founded in 1824, and the
Republican Party,
founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one
third-party presidential candidate—former president
Theodore Roosevelt, running as a
Progressive in
1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.
Within American
political culture, the Republican Party is considered center-right or "
conservative" and the Democratic Party is considered center-left or "
liberal". The states of the
Northeast and
West Coast and some of the
Great Lakes states, known as "
blue states", are relatively liberal. The "
red states" of the
South and parts of the
Great Plains and
Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative.
The winner of the
2008 presidential election, Democrat
Barack Obama, is the
44th U.S. president. All previous presidents were men of solely European descent. The
2010 midterm elections saw the Republican Party
take control of the House and
make gains in the Senate, where the Democrats retain the majority. In the
112th United States Congress, the Senate comprises 51 Democrats, two
independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans; the House comprises 242 Republicans and 193 Democrats. There are 29 Republican and 20 Democratic
state governors, as well as one independent.
Political divisions
The United States is a
federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the
thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Early in the country's history, three new states were organized on territory separated from the claims of the existing states:
Kentucky from
Virginia;
Tennessee from
North Carolina; and
Maine from
Massachusetts. Most of the other states have been carved from territories obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. One set of exceptions comprises
Vermont,
Texas, and
Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the union. During the
American Civil War,
West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The states
do not have the right to
secede from the union.
The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the
federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and
Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but
incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also possesses five major overseas territories:
Puerto Rico and the
United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and
American Samoa,
Guam, and the
Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in the major territories (except for American Samoa) possess
U.S. citizenship. American citizens residing in the territories have many of the same rights and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however, they are generally exempt from federal income tax, may not vote for president, and have only
nonvoting representation in the U.S. Congress.
[47]
Foreign relations and military
The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the
United Nations Headquarters. It is a member of the
G8,
G20, and
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Almost all countries have
embassies in Washington, D.C., and many have
consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host
American diplomatic missions. However,
Cuba,
Iran,
North Korea,
Bhutan,
Sudan, and the
Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.
The United States has a "
special relationship" with the
United Kingdom[48] and strong ties with
Canada,
Australia,
New Zealand,
Japan,
South Korea, and
Israel. 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
gross national income (GNI), however, the U.S. contribution of 0.18% ranked last among twenty-two donor states. In contrast, private overseas giving by Americans is relatively generous.
[49]
The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the
secretary of defense and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. The
United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the
Army,
Navy,
Marine Corps, and
Air Force. The
Coast Guard is run by the
Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the
Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million personnel on active duty. The
Reserves and
National Guard brought the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.
[50]
Military service is voluntary, though
conscription may occur in wartime through the
Selective Service System. American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft, the Navy's eleven active aircraft carriers, and
Marine Expeditionary Units at sea with the Navy's
Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The military operates 865 bases and facilities abroad,
[51] and maintains
deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.
[52] The extent of this global military presence has prompted some scholars to describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases."
[53]
Total U.S. military spending in 2008, more than $600 billion, was over 41% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. The per capita spending of $1,967 was about nine times the world average; at 4% of GDP, the rate was the second-highest among the top fifteen military spenders, after
Saudi Arabia.
[54] The proposed base
Department of Defense budget for 2011, $549 billion, is a 3.4% increase over 2010 and 85% higher than in 2001; an additional $159 billion is proposed for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[55] As of September 2010, the United States is scheduled to have 96,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan, and 50,000 to Iraq.
[56] As of January 5, 2011, the United States had suffered 4,432 military fatalities during the
Iraq War,
[57] and 1,448 during the
War in Afghanistan.
[58]
Economy
The United States has a
capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant
natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.
[65] According to the
International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $14.4 trillion constitutes 24% of the
gross world product at market exchange rates and almost 21% of the gross world product at
purchasing power parity (PPP).
[3] It has the largest national GDP in the world, though it is about 5% less than the GDP of the
European Union at PPP in 2008. The country ranks ninth in the world in
nominal GDP per capita and sixth in
GDP per capita at PPP.
[3]
The United States is the
largest importer of goods and
third largest exporter, though
exports per capita are relatively low. In 2008, the total
U.S. trade deficit was $696 billion.
[66] Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.
[67] In 2007, vehicles constituted both the leading import and leading export commodity.
[68] Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt, having surpassed China in early 2010.
[69] The United States ranks second in the
Global Competitiveness Report.
[70]
In 2009, the
private sector was estimated to constitute 55.3% of the economy, with federal government activity accounting for 24.1% and state and local government activity (including federal transfers) the remaining 20.6%.
[71] The economy is
postindustrial, with the
service sector contributing 67.8% of GDP, though the United States remains an industrial power.
[72] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is manufacturing.
[73] Chemical products are the leading manufacturing field.
[74] The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.
[75] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While
agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,
[72] the United States is the world's top producer of corn
[76] and soybeans.
[77] The
New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest by dollar volume.
[78] Coca-Cola and
McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.
[79]
In August 2010, the American labor force comprised 154.1 million people. With 21.2 million people, government is the leading field of employment. The largest private employment sector is health care and social assistance, with 16.4 million people.
[59] About 12% of workers are
unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.
[80] The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.
[81] In 2009, the United States had the third highest labor productivity per person in the world, behind Luxembourg and Norway. It was fourth in productivity per hour, behind those two countries and the Netherlands.
[82] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate
income tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly,
consumption tax rates are lower.
[83]
Income and human development
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the pretax
median household income in 2007 was $49,777. The median ranged from $65,469 among Asian American households to $32,584 among African American households.
[62] Using
purchasing power parity exchange rates, the overall median is similar to the most affluent cluster of
developed nations. After declining sharply during the middle of the 20th century,
poverty rates have plateaued since the early 1970s, with 11–15% of Americans below the
poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.
[84][85] In 2009, 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty.
[62]
The U.S. welfare state is one of the least extensive in the developed world, reducing both
relative poverty and
absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations,
[86][87] though combined private and public social expenditures per capita are higher than in any of the
Nordic countries.
[88] While the American welfare state does well in reducing poverty among the elderly,
[89] the young receive relatively little assistance.
[90] A 2007
UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the United States next to last.
[91]
Despite strong increases in productivity, low unemployment, and low inflation, income gains since 1980 have been slower than in previous decades, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic insecurity. Between 1947 and 1979,
real median income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor Americans rising faster than those of the rich.
[92][93] Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980,
[94] largely owing to more dual-earner households, the closing of the
gender gap, and longer work hours, but growth has been slower and strongly tilted toward the very top (see graph).
[86][92][95] Consequently, the share of income of the top 1%—21.8% of total reported income in 2005—has more than doubled since 1980,
[96] leaving the United States with the greatest income inequality among developed nations.
[86][97] The top 1% pays 27.6% of all federal taxes; the top 10% pays 54.7%.
[98] Wealth, like income, is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share among developed nations.
[99] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.
[100]
Science and technology
The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876,
Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S.
patent for the telephone.
Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the
phonograph, the first
long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable
movie camera.
Nikola Tesla pioneered
alternating current, the
AC motor, and radio. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of
Ransom E. Olds and
Henry Ford promoted the
assembly line. The
Wright brothers, in 1903, made the
first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.
[101]
The rise of
Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including
Albert Einstein and
Enrico Fermi, to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the
Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the
Atomic Age. The
Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry,
materials science, and computers. The United States largely developed the
ARPANET and its successor, the
Internet. Today, the bulk of research and development funding, 64%, comes from the private sector.
[102] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and
impact factor.
[103] Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods,
[104] and almost half of U.S. households have
broadband Internet access.
[105] The country is the primary developer and grower of
genetically modified food, representing half of the world's biotech crops.
[106]
Transportation
Everyday personal
transportation in the United States is dominated by the automobile driving on one of 13 million roads.
[108] As of 2003, there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 Americans, compared to 472 per 1,000 inhabitants of the European Union the following year.
[109] About 40% of
personal vehicles are vans,
SUVs, or light trucks.
[110] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km).
[111]
The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned, while most major airports are publicly owned. The four largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are American;
Southwest Airlines is number one.
[112] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the United States, including the busiest,
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
[113] While transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel, within or between cities.
[114] Mass transit accounts for 9% of total U.S. work trips, compared to 38.8% in Europe.
[115] Bicycle usage is minimal, well below European levels.
[116]
Energy
A coal mine in
Wyoming. The United States has 27% of global coal reserves.
[117] The
United States energy market is 29,000
terawatt hours per year.
Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, compared to Germany's 4.2 tons and Canada's 8.3 tons. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and
renewable energy sources.
[118] The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
[119] For decades,
nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part due to public perception in the wake of the 1979
Three Mile Island accident. In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed.
[120]
Demographics
Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000.
The 2010 U.S. Census reported 308,745,538 residents; the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Clock projects the country's population now to be 311,943,000,
[122] including an estimated 11.2 million
illegal immigrants.
[123] The third most populous nation in the world, after
China and
India, the United States is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.
[124] With a birth rate of 13.82 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, its
population growth rate is 0.98%, significantly higher than those of Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea.
[125] In fiscal year 2009, 1.1 million immigrants were granted
legal residence.
[126] Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.
[127]
The United States has a very
diverse population—thirty-one
ancestry groups have more than one million members.
[128] White Americans are the largest
racial group;
German Americans,
Irish Americans, and
English Americans constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.
[128] African Americans are the nation's largest
racial minority and third largest ancestry group.
[128][121] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ethnic groups are
Chinese Americans and
Filipino Americans.
[128] In 2008, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.9 million people with some
American Indian or Alaskan natives ancestry (3.1 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.1 million with some
native Hawaiian or
Pacific island ancestry (0.6 million exclusively).
[121]
The population growth of
Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major
demographic trend. The 46.9 million Americans of Hispanic descent
[121] are identified as sharing a distinct "
ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of
Mexican descent.
[129] Between 2000 and 2008, the country's Hispanic population increased 32% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.3%.
[121] Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in
Latin America.
[130] Fertility is also a factor; the average Hispanic woman gives birth to 3.0 children in her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the
replacement rate of 2.1).
[124] Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau, all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constitute 34% of the population; they are projected to be the majority by 2042.
[131]
About 82% of Americans live in
urban areas (as defined by the Census Bureau, such areas include the
suburbs);
[1] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.
[132] In 2008, 273
incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four
global cities had over 2 million (
New York City,
Los Angeles,
Chicago, and
Houston).
[133] There are fifty-two
metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.
[134] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, forty-seven are in the West or South.
[135] The metro areas of
Dallas, Houston,
Atlanta, and
Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008.
[134]
| This article is outdated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. (January 2011) |
Leading U.S. population centers - see full lists of largest cities and largest metro areas |
Rank | Core city | Pop.[133] | Metro rank | Metropolitan Statistical Area | Metro area pop.[134] | Region[136] |
New York City
Los Angeles
Chicago
|
1 | New York City, New York | 8,363,710 | 1 | New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA | 19,006,798 | Northeast |
2 | Los Angeles, California | 3,833,995 | 2 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA | 12,872,808 | West |
3 | Chicago, Illinois | 2,853,114 | 3 | Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA | 9,569,624 | Midwest |
4 | Houston, Texas | 2,242,193 | 6 | Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX MSA | 5,728,143 | South |
5 | Phoenix, Arizona | 1,567,924 | 12 | Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ MSA | 4,281,899 | West |
6 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | 1,447,395 | 5 | Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA | 5,838,471 | Northeast |
7 | San Antonio, Texas | 1,351,305 | 28 | San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX MSA | 2,031,445 | South |
8 | Dallas, Texas | 1,279,910 | 4 | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA | 6,300,006 | South |
9 | San Diego, California | 1,279,329 | 17 | San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA | 3,001,072 | West |
10 | San Jose, California | 948,279 | 31 | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA MSA | 1,819,198 | West |
42 | Miami, Florida | 433,136 (2009) | 7 | Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA | 5,514,772 | South |
33 | Atlanta, Georgia | 540,922 (2009) | 8 | Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA | 5,376,285 | South |
27 | Washington, DC | 599,657 (2009) | 9 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA | 5,358,130 | South |
20 | Boston, Massachusetts | 645,169 (2009) | 10 | Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA | 4,522,858 | Northeast |
2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates |
Language
English is the de facto
national language. Although there is no
official language at the federal level, some laws—such as
U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2007, about 226 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.
[137][138] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.
[5] Both
Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.
[139]
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.
[140] Other states, such as
California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.
[141] Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English:
Samoan and
Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively;
Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.
Religion
A
Presbyterian church; most Americans identify as Christian.
The United States is officially a
secular nation; the
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any
religious governance. In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives," a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.
[142] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as
Christian,
[143] down from 86.4% in 1990.
[144] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while
Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white
evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;
[143] another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%.
[145] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990.
[144] The leading non-Christian faiths were
Judaism (1.7%),
Buddhism (0.7%),
Islam (0.6%),
Hinduism (0.4%), and
Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).
[143] The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as
agnostic,
atheist, or simply having
no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990.
[143][144]
Education
American
public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the
United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally,
kindergarten or
first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through
twelfth grade, the end of
high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.
[146] About 12% of children are enrolled in
parochial or
nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are
homeschooled.
[147]
The United States has many competitive private and public
institutions of higher education, as well as local
community colleges with open admission policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a
bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.
[148] The basic
literacy rate is approximately 99%.
[1][149] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.
[150]
Health
The United States life expectancy of 77.8 years at birth
[151] is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.
[152] Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has dropped from 11th to 42nd in the world.
[153] The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand likewise places the United States 42nd out of 221 countries, behind all of Western Europe.
[154] Approximately
one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;
[155] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.
[156] Obesity-related
type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.
[157]
The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is nearly four times that of France and five times that of Germany.
[159] Abortion, legal on demand, is highly controversial.
Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.
[160]
The U.S. health care system far
outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.
[161] The
World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health care system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance. The United States is a leader in medical innovation. In 2004, the nonindustrial sector spent three times as much as Europe per capita on biomedical research.
[162]
Unlike in all other developed countries, health care coverage in the United States is not
universal. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.
[163] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The main cause of this rise is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.
[164] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.
[165] A 2009 study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with nearly 45,000 deaths a year.
[166] In 2006,
Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.
[167] Federal legislation passed in early 2010 will create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014.
Crime and law enforcement
Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and
sheriff's departments, with
state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the
U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a
common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials;
federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as certain
appeals from the state systems.
Among
developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of
gun violence and
homicide.
[168] In 2007, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons,
[169] three times the rate in neighboring Canada.
[170] The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 42% between 1991 and 1999, has been roughly steady since.
[169] Gun ownership rights are the subject of
contentious political debate.
The United States has the highest documented
incarceration rate
[171] and total prison population
[172] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.
[173] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure.
[174] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.
[171] In 2006, the U.S. incarceration rate was over three times the figure in Poland, the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.
[175] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to
sentencing and
drug policies.
[171][176]
Though it has been abolished in most Western nations,
capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-six states. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been more than 1,000 executions.
[177] In 2006, the country had the sixth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran,
Pakistan, Iraq, and
Sudan.
[178] In 2007,
New Jersey became the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision, followed by
New Mexico in 2009.
Culture
American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the
American flag The United States is a
multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.
[6][179] Aside from the now small
Native American and
Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.
[180] The culture held in common by most Americans—mainstream American culture—is a
Western culture largely derived from the
traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as
traditions brought by slaves from Africa.
[6][181] More recent immigration from
Asia and especially
Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as both a homogenizing
melting pot and a heterogeneous
salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.
[6]
According to
Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions analysis, the United States has the highest
individualism score of any country studied.
[182] While the mainstream culture holds that the United States is a
classless society,
[183] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting
socialization, language, and values.
[184] The
American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary social trends such as
modern feminism,
environmentalism, and multiculturalism.
[185] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.
[186] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being
ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.
[187] Though the
American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high
social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants, various studies indicate that the United States has less social mobility than Canada and the Nordic countries.
[188]
Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of
bachelor's degrees.
[189] In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.
[190] Same-sex marriage is contentious. Some states permit
civil unions in lieu of marriage. Since 2003,
several states have permitted gay marriage as the result of judicial or legislative action, while voters in more than a dozen states have barred the practice via
referendum.
Popular media
The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using
Thomas Edison's
Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of
sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around
Hollywood, California. Director
D. W. Griffith was central to the development of
film grammar and
Orson Welles's
Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time.
[191] American screen actors like
John Wayne and
Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur
Walt Disney was a leader in both
animated film and movie
merchandising. The
major film studios of Hollywood have produced the most commercially successful movies in history, such as
Star Wars (1977) and
Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry.
[192]
Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world,
[193] and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006.
[194] The four major broadcast networks are all commercial entities. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day.
[195] Aside from
web portals and
search engines, the most popular websites are
Facebook,
YouTube,
Wikipedia,
Blogger,
eBay, and
Craigslist.
[196]
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.
[197]
Literature, philosophy, and the arts
In the 18th century and early 19th century, 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.
[198] A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as
Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and
F. Scott Fitzgerald's
The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "
Great American Novel."
[199]
Eleven U.S. citizens have won the
Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently
Toni Morrison in 1993.
William Faulkner and
Ernest Hemingway are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century.
[200] Popular literary genres such as the
Western and
hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The
Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have
postmodernist authors such as
John Barth,
Thomas Pynchon, and
Don DeLillo.
The
transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and
Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major
American philosophical movement. After the Civil War,
Charles Sanders Peirce and then
William James and
John Dewey were leaders in the development of
pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of
W. V. O. Quine and
Richard Rorty, built upon by
Noam Chomsky, brought
analytic philosophy to the fore of U.S. academics.
John Rawls and
Robert Nozick led a revival of
political philosophy.
In the visual arts, the
Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the tradition of European
naturalism. The
realist paintings of
Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913
Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European
modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.
[201] Georgia O'Keeffe,
Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new styles, displaying a highly individualistic sensibility. Major artistic movements such as the
abstract expressionism of
Jackson Pollock and
Willem de Kooning and the
pop art of
Andy Warhol and
Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then
postmodernism has brought fame to American architects such as
Frank Lloyd Wright,
Philip Johnson, and
Frank Gehry.
One of the first major promoters of
American theater was impresario
P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower
Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of
Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular
musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on
Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as
Irving Berlin,
Cole Porter, and
Stephen Sondheim have become
pop standards. Playwright
Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple
Pulitzer Prize winners
Tennessee Williams,
Edward Albee, and
August Wilson.
Though largely overlooked at the time,
Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition; other experimentalists such as
Henry Cowell and
John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition.
Aaron Copland and
George Gershwin developed a new synthesis of popular and classical music.
Choreographers Isadora Duncan and
Martha Graham helped create
modern dance, while
George Balanchine and
Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of
photography, with major photographers including
Alfred Stieglitz,
Edward Steichen, and
Ansel Adams. The newspaper
comic strip and the
comic book are both U.S. innovations.
Superman, the quintessential comic book
superhero, has become an American icon.
[202]
Food
Mainstream
American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles.
Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere.
Syncretic cuisines such as
Louisiana creole,
Cajun, and
Tex-Mex are regionally important.
Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.
[203] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages.
[204] During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;
[203] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American "obesity epidemic." Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American's caloric intake.
[205]
Sports
Since the late 19th century, baseball has been regarded as the
national sport;
American football,
basketball, and
ice hockey are the country's three other leading professional team sports.
College football and
basketball attract large audiences. Football is now by several measures the most popular
spectator sport.
Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and
auto racing, particularly
NASCAR.
Soccer is played widely at the youth and amateur levels.
Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as well.
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American inventions.
Lacrosse and
surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight
Olympic Games have
taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,301 medals at the
Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country,
and 253 in the
Winter Olympic Games, the second most.
Measurement systems
The country retains
United States customary units, constituted largely by British
imperial units such as
yards,
miles, and
degrees Fahrenheit. Distinct units include the U.S. gallon and pint volume measurements. The United States is one of three countries, along with
Burma and
Liberia, that has not officially adopted the
metric system. However,
metric units are increasingly used in science, medicine, and many industrial fields.
Source : Wikipedia