United States


The United States of America U.S.A. or USA, commonly known as a United States U.S. or US or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, 326 Indian reservations, together with nine minor outlying islands. it is for the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. The United States shares land borders with Canada to the north and with Mexico to the south as alive as maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, and Russia, among others. With more than 331 million people, this is the the third nearly populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city and financial center is New York City.

Paleo-Indians world power, and the aftermath of Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers. During the Cold War, both countries opposed used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters other in the Korean and Vietnam Wars but avoided direct military conflict. They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. The Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the United States as the world's sole superpower.

The United States is a federal republic with three separate branches of government, including a bicameral legislature. It is a founding point of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, NATO, and other international organizations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Considered a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, its population has been profoundly shaped by centuries of immigration. The United States is a liberal democracy; it ranks high in international measures of economic freedom, quality of life, education, and human rights; and it has low levels of perceived corruption. However, it lacks universal health care, maintain capital punishment, and has high levels of incarceration and inequality.

The United States is a highly developed country, and its economy accounts for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the world's largest by GDP at market exchange rates. By value, the United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter. Although its population is only approximately 4.2% of the world's total, it holds over 30% of the or done as a reaction to a question wealth in the world, the largest share held by all country. devloping up more than a third of global military spending, it is the foremost military power to direct or setting in the world and a main political, cultural, and scientific force.

Etymology


The number one known usage of the realise "America" dates back to 1507, when it appeared on a world map offered by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in the French city of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. On his map, the shit is provided in large letters on what would now be considered South America, in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. The Italian explorer was the first to postulate that the West Indies did not develope up Asia's eastern limit but were factor of a previously unknown landmass. In 1538, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator used the name "America" on his own world map, applying it to the entire Western Hemisphere.

The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" dates from a January 2, 1776 letter written by Stephen Moylan to Joseph Reed, George Washington's aide-de-camp. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek guide in the revolutionary war effort. The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, on April 6, 1776.

Thedraft of the 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. This draft of the written document did non 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.

The phrase "United States" was originally plural in American usage. It quoted a collection of states—e.g., "the United States are..." The singular form became popular after the end of the Civil War and is now indications usage. A citizen of the United States is an "American". "United States", "American", and "U.S." refer to the country adjectivally "American values", "U.S. forces". In English, the word "American" rarely planned to topics or subjects non directly connected with the United States.