United States

United States (2015)
	Crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants
Type of crime	Rate
Homicides	4.9
Rapes	38.6
Robberies	101.9
Aggravated assaults	237.8
Total violent crimes	372.6
Burglary	491.4
Larceny-theft	1,775.4
Motor vehicle theft	220.2
Total property crimes	2,487
	Source: Crime in the United States by Volume and Rate per 100,000 Inhabitants, 1996–2015 (table 1)

Largest cities of the United States
	2010 estimate

United States of America
United States of America
	Flag Coat of arms
	Motto: In God we trust
	Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner; File:Star Spangled Banner instrumental.ogg
Capital	Washington, D.C.; 38°53′N 77°02′W / 38.883°N 77.033°W
Largest city	New York; 40°43′N 74°00′W / 40.717°N 74.000°W
Official languages	None at the federal level
Demonyms	American; (Spanish: estadounidense, norteamericano, -a, americano, -a)
Government	Federal constitutional republic
• President	Donald Trump
• Vice President	Mike Pence
Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain
• Declared	July 4, 1776
• Recognized	September 3, 1783
Area
• Total	9,147,593 km2 (3,531,905 sq mi) (4th)
• Water (%)	2.2
• Borders	12,048 km
• Coastline	19,924 km
Population
• 2017 estimate	325,719,178
• 2010 census	309,349,689 (3rd)
• Density	32.8/km2 (85.0/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2018 estimate
• Total	USD 20.413 trillion (2nd)
• Per capita	USD 62,670
GDP (nominal)	2018 estimate
• Total	USD 20.413 trillion (1st)
• Per capita	USD 62,670
HDI (2017)	0.924; very high (13th)
Currency	United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone	UTC−5 to UTC−10
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 to UTC−10
Calling code	+1
ISO 3166 code	US
Internet TLD	.us .mil .gov
	ISO code: 840 / USA / US. Radio prefix: WAA–WZZ. Vehicle registration: USA. Aircraft registration: N. Member of: OAS, UN, NATO, APEC, OECD, OSCE, NAFTA, G-8, G-20, UN Security Council

The United States^{[nota 6]} (English: United States, whose abbreviation in Spanish is EE. UU.),^{[nota 7]} officially the United States of America (United States of America, whose official acronym in English is USA and its Spanish counterpart is EUA),^[10] is a sovereign country constituted as a federal constitutional republic composed of fifty states and one federal district. Most of the country is located in the middle of North America—where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the federal district, are found—between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans; it borders Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, bordering Canada to the east, and separated from Russia to the west by the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is a Polynesian archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and is the only one of its states that is not located in America. The country possesses several unincorporated territories in the Caribbean Sea and in the Pacific.

With 9.83 million km²,^[4] and with more than 325 million inhabitants, the country is the fourth largest in total area, the fifth largest in contiguous area and the third in population. It is one of the nations with the greatest ethnic diversity and multiculturalism, the product of large-scale immigration.^[11]

It is the largest national economy in the world in nominal terms, with a GDP estimated at 15.7 trillion dollars (one quarter of nominal global GDP) and one fifth of global GDP in purchasing power parity.^[8] The country is the leading capitalist force on the planet, in addition to having been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the 19th century and, since the beginning of the 20th century, the leading industrial country. In GDP PPP, the U.S. is the second-largest economy, behind the People's Republic of China.^[12]

Amerindian peoples have inhabited what is now the continental territory of the United States for thousands of years. This Amerindian population was reduced by disease and war after the first contact with Europeans. The United States was founded by thirteen British colonies along the Atlantic coast. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to free self-determination and the establishment of a cooperative union. The rebel states defeated the British Empire in the War of Independence, the first successful colonial war of independence.^[13] The Constitution of the United States 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, which comprises ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and liberties, was ratified in 1791.

In the 19th century, the United States acquired territories from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Russia and Japan, in addition to annexing the republics of Florida, Texas, California and Hawaii. In the 1860s, disputes between the agrarian and conservative South and the industrial and progressive North over states' rights and the abolition of slavery provoked the Civil War. The victory of the North prevented a permanent division of the country and led to the end of legal slavery. By the 1890s, the national economy was the largest in the world^[14] and the Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed its status as a military power. After World War II, it emerged 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 it as the only international superpower. The country accounts for two fifths of world military spending and is a leading economic, political and cultural force in the world.^[15]^[16]

Etymology

In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a planisphere in which he called the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America", in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.^[17] The former British colonies first used the name of the modern country in the Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America" adopted by the "representatives of the United States of America" on July 4, 1776.^[18] The current name was determined on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, which stipulate, "The name of this Confederation shall be 'The United States of America'". "Columbia", a once-popular name for the United States, derives from the name of Christopher Columbus and still remains in the name of the District of Columbia. It is occasionally, and incorrectly, called "United States of North America", which leads to confusion in its demonym.

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is the terms estadounidense (or estadunidense in Honduras and Mexico).^[10] Gringo and yanqui are also used, which may or may not carry a derogatory nuance, depending on the usage, the context and the tone of voice.^[19] "Norteamericano" is sometimes used as a synonym of "estadounidense", but it should be borne in mind that the region of North America is made up of Canada, the United States and most of Mexico, up to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The demonym "americano" should be avoided when referring exclusively to the natives of the United States^[10] because this word encompasses all the inhabitants of the American continent. For this reason, the recommended demonym is the word "estadounidense". To write the name of this country in abbreviated form, the abbreviation "EE. UU." (Estados Unidos)^[20] or the acronym "EUA" (Estados Unidos de América) are correctly used. Although frequent, in Spanish it is incorrect to use the English acronym "USA".^[10]

History

Native Americans and first European settlements

It is commonly thought that the indigenous peoples of the continental United States, including the natives of Alaska, migrated from Asia between 12,000 and 40,000 years ago.^[21] Some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, great architectural works and societies with a hierarchical order. After Europeans began to settle in America, millions of indigenous Americans died due to epidemics of diseases brought from Europe, such as smallpox.^[22]

In 1492, the explorer Christopher Columbus, sponsored by the Spanish Crown, arrived from Europe at several Caribbean islands, making first contact with the indigenous peoples. On April 2, 1513, the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed in what he called La Florida, this being the first documented European arrival in U.S. territory. The Spanish settlements in the region were followed by others in the present-day Southwestern United States. French fur traders settled in New France, around the Great Lakes area; eventually France would claim much of the interior of the United States, down to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English settlements were the Virginia colony at Jamestown in 1607 and the Plymouth Colony, founded by pilgrims in 1620. In 1628, the establishment of the Province of Massachusetts Bay gave rise to a new wave of immigration: by 1634, New England was inhabited by about 10,000 Puritans. Between the 1610s and the War of Independence, about 50,000 convicts were sent from the Old Continent to the colonies.^[23] From 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, founding New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan.

In 1674, the Netherlands ceded its territory to England and the Province of New Netherland was renamed New York, which has been the most important city of the United States since the mid-19th century. Many newly arrived immigrants, especially in the South, were hired as servants, to such an extent that about two thirds of all the immigrants who arrived in Virginia between 1630 and 1680 worked as servants.^[24] By the end of that century, African slaves had become the main source of labor in conditions of servitude. With the division of the Carolinas in 1729 and the colonization of Georgia in 1732, the British Thirteen Colonies were established, which would eventually become the United States of America. All of them had an elected local government, attached to republicanism, and in addition the slave trade was legalized. With high birth rates, low mortality rates and constant immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s, known as "the Great Awakening", fueled interest in subjects such as religion and freedom of worship. In the French and Indian War, British forces wrested Canada from France, but the French-speaking population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Not counting the Native Americans (popularly known as "Indians"), who were eventually displaced against their will, in 1770 the Thirteen Colonies had a population of 2.6 million inhabitants, about one third that of Britain, although almost one in five Americans was a black slave.^[25] However, the American colonists had no representation in the British Parliament.

Independence and expansion

Tensions between the colonists and the British during the 1760s and 1770s led to the War of Independence, which lasted from 1775 to 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are born equal" and endowed with "certain inalienable rights", the Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776.^[26] Independence Day of the United States is celebrated annually on this date. Thus, the United States became the first American nation to declare its independence. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak confederal government, which operated until 1789.

After the British defeat by American forces, assisted by the French and the Spanish, Great Britain recognized its independence and its sovereignty over the territory east of the Mississippi River. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those who wished to establish a strong national government. The Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1788 and a year later George Washington became the first President. The Bill of Rights, which prohibited federal restriction of human rights and guaranteed a series of measures for their legal protection, was adopted in 1791.^[27]

With the new autonomy, attitudes toward slavery changed; a clause in the Constitution protected the slave trade until 1808. The northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution". The "Second Great Awakening", which began around 1800, made the evangelical churches one of the main forces behind several of the reform movements of the time, including abolitionism.^[28]

In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase from France during the term of President Thomas Jefferson nearly doubled the size of the nation,^[29] while the Anglo-American War of 1812 further strengthened nationalism among the population. Defeated by the United Kingdom and after his second and definitive abdication of the French throne in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte tried to escape to the United States, then a rival of the United Kingdom, but was captured by British forces and deported to Saint Helena. In 1819, a series of military incursions into Florida forced Spain to cede this and other territories on the Gulf coast.^[29] The Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplifies the policy of Indian Removal, which stripped several indigenous peoples of their lands. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, a period during which the concept of Manifest Destiny became popular.^[30] In 1846, the signing of the Oregon Treaty with the United Kingdom granted the country the present-day territories of the Northwest.^[29] Two years later, victory in the war against Mexico led to the cession of California and most of the present-day Southwest.^[29] The gold rush of 1848 and 1849 further stimulated migration to the west, and the new railroads facilitated the relocation of settlers and the increase of conflicts with Native Americans. Over half a century, up to 40 million American bison were slaughtered for their hides and meat to facilitate the spread of the railroads. The loss of the buffalo, a main source of food for the indigenous peoples of the Plains, was a mortal blow to many native cultures.^[31]

Civil war and industrialization

Tensions between pro-slavery states and abolitionists, together with growing disagreements over the relationship between the federal and state governments, provoked violent conflicts over the expansion of slavery into the new territories. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the Republican Party and a great abolitionist, was elected President in 1860. Before he took office, the seven slave states declared their secession from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. The federal government declared secession illegal and soon the secessionists attacked Fort Sumter, thus beginning the American Civil War on April 12, 1861.^[32]

After the victory of the Union on April 9, 1865, three amendments were added to the Constitution to guarantee the freedom of the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, making them citizens and giving them the right to vote.^[33] The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in the powers of the federal government.^[34]

After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, there followed the period known as Reconstruction, in which policies were developed aimed at the reintegration and reconstruction of the southern states while at the same time guaranteeing the rights of the newly freed slaves. The disputed presidential elections of 1876 were resolved through the Compromise of 1877, by which the southern Democrats recognized Rutherford B. Hayes as President in exchange for his withdrawing the troops that still remained deployed in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida. From 1876 onward the so-called Jim Crow laws began to be applied, a policy of apartheid that would last until 1965.^[35]

In the North, unprecedented urbanization and an influx of immigrants accelerated the industrialization of the country. The wave of immigration, which lasted until 1929, provided labor for business, in turn transforming the culture. High tariff protection, the creation of national infrastructure and new banking regulations encouraged industrial growth. In 1867 came the Alaska Purchase from Russia, completing the continental expansion of the country.^[29] The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 was the last great armed conflict against the Native American Indians. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup d'état led by American citizens; the archipelago was annexed to the country in 1898.^[29] Victory in the Spanish–American War that same year showed that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines.^[36] The Philippines attained independence in 1946, while Puerto Rico continues to be a Free associated state.

World War I, Great Depression and World War II

When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States declared itself neutral. Later, Americans sided with the British and French, although many citizens, especially those originally from Ireland and Germany, opposed intervention.^[37] In 1917 they joined the Allies, contributing to the defeat of the Central Powers. Reluctant to take part in European affairs, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles (1919), which established the League of Nations, applying a policy of unilateralism that bordered on isolationism.^[38] In 1920, the women's rights movement won the approval of a constitutional amendment granting women suffrage.^[27]

During most of the 1920s, the country enjoyed a period of prosperity, with the imbalance in the balance of payments decreasing while the profits of industrial farms grew. This period, known as the Roaring Twenties, culminated in the crash of 1929, which triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a series of policies that increased government intervention in the economy.^[39] From 1920 to 1933 a dry law known as Prohibition was in force.^[40] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s left several farming communities impoverished and stimulated a new wave of migration toward the west coast.^[41]

The United States, officially neutral during the early stages of World War II, began supplying provisions to the Allies in March 1941, through the Lend-Lease Program. On December 7, 1941, the country joined the Allied fight against the Axis powers, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. World War II boosted the economy by providing investment capital and jobs, leading many women to enter the labor market. Of the main combatants, the United States was the only nation that grew richer because of the war.^[42] The conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta created a new system of international organization that placed the country and the Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. In 1945, when the end of World War II in Europe came, an international conference held in San Francisco drafted the Charter of the United Nations, which entered into force after the war.^[43] Having developed the first nuclear weapon, the government decided to use it on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that same year. Japan surrendered on September 2, putting an end to the war.^[44]

Cold War and political protests

In the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed after World War II, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The former promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the latter spread communism and a government-planned economy. Both supported various dictatorships and took part in proxy wars. Between 1950 and 1953, American troops fought Chinese communist forces in the Korean War.^[45] From the break with the USSR and the beginning of the Cold War until 1957, McCarthyism, also called the Second Red Scare, developed within the United States, in which the State unleashed a wave of political repression and a campaign of fear against those persons who were communists or merely suspected of being so, which some authors point to as characteristic of a totalitarian state. Hundreds of people were arrested, including dozens of celebrities, and between 10,000 and 12,000 people lost their jobs.^[46] The persecution ended when the courts declared it unconstitutional.^[47]

In 1961, the Soviet launch of the first crewed spacecraft led President John F. Kennedy to propose that the country be the first to send "a man to the Moon", a feat achieved in 1969.^[48] Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear conflict with Soviet forces in Cuba, while the economy grew and expanded steadily. A growing civil rights movement, represented and led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and James Bevel, used nonviolence to confront segregation and discrimination.^[49] After the assassination of Kennedy in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed during the term of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, turned a proxy civil war in Southeast Asia into the fruitless Vietnam War.^[45] A widespread countercultural movement grew, driven by opposition to the war, black nationalism and the sexual revolution. A new wave of feminist movements also arose, led by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and other women who sought political, social and economic equity.

In 1974, as a result of the Watergate scandal, Nixon became the first president to resign, in order to avoid being removed from office on charges such as obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford.^[50] The administration of Jimmy Carter in the 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as President in 1980 heralded a change in American politics, which was reflected in major reforms in taxes and fiscal spending. His second term brought with it the Iran–Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse ended the Cold War.

Contemporary era

Under President George H. W. Bush, the country took on a role of hegemonic world leadership, as in the Gulf War (1991). The longest economic expansion in the modern history of the United States, from March 1991 to March 2001, spanned the administration of Bill Clinton and the dot-com bubble.^[51] A civil lawsuit and a sex scandal led to the impeachment of Clinton in 1998, although he managed to finish his term. The presidential elections of 2000, one of the most closely contested in American history, were resolved by a decision of the Supreme Court: George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president, despite having obtained fewer votes than his rival Al Gore.^[52]

On September 11, 2001, terrorists of the al-Qaeda group attacked the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City (which were destroyed) and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., in a series of attacks that took the lives of nearly three thousand people. In response, the Bush administration launched the "war on terror". At the end of 2001, U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban government and destroyed al-Qaeda's training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to wage a guerrilla war. In 2002 Bush began to press for a change of regime to be carried out in Iraq.^[53]^[54] Lacking the support of NATO and without an explicit UN mandate for a military intervention, Bush organized the coalition of the willing; coalition forces quickly invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew the dictator Saddam Hussein. The following year, Bush was reelected as the most-voted President in an election.

President Donald Trump with his predecessor Barack Obama, the first African-American president.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina, which would end up being the deadliest natural disaster in the nation's history, caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast: the city of New Orleans was devastated,^[55] with 1,833 dead.

On November 4, 2008, in the midst of a global economic recession, Barack Obama was elected President, the first African American to hold the office. In May 2011, U.S. special forces succeeded in killing Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Pakistan. The following year, Barack Obama was reelected. During his second term he waged the war against the Islamic State, and diplomatic relations with Cuba were restored.

On November 8, 2016, the tycoon Donald Trump of the Republican Party defeated former first lady Hillary Clinton for the presidency in an unusual election,^[56] and his plans have been described by political analysts as populist, protectionist and nationalist; he was sworn into office on January 20, 2017.

The massacres in Orlando on June 12, 2016, at the gay nightclub Pulse (51 dead)^[57] and in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017 (60) rank as the largest massacres in the country since the 9/11 attacks.

On November 7, 2020, Joe Biden won the presidential election, defeating Donald Trump, who did not achieve presidential reelection. It is the second time a U.S. President has failed to win reelection after George H. W. Bush. Biden was sworn into office on January 20, 2021. On January 6, 2021, supporters of outgoing President Trump stormed the United States Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt the count of the presidential Electoral College votes.^[58]

On November 5, 2024, Donald Trump secured a second term against the Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Government and politics

The United States is the oldest federation in the world. It is a constitutional, democratic and representative republic, "in which majority rule is regulated by the rights of minorities, protected by law".^[59] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances, defined by the Constitution, which serves as the supreme legal document of the country.^[60] In the American federalist system, citizens are generally subject to three levels of government: federal, state and local; the duties of local government are commonly divided between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, officials of the executive and legislative branches are elected by direct suffrage of the citizens of the district.

South façade of the White House, residence and workplace of the President of the United States.

The federal government is divided into three branches of power:^[60]

Legislative branch: The bicameral Congress, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Its function is to make federal laws, make declarations of war, approve treaties and administer public funds, and it holds the power of impeachment, by means of which it can remove government officials from office.
Executive branch: The President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, can veto bills before they become official laws, and appoints the members of the cabinet (subject to the approval of the Senate) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
Judicial branch: The Supreme Court and the lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the President with the approval of the Senate, interpret the laws and strike down those they consider unconstitutional.

The House of Representatives has 435 elected members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term.^[60] The seats in the house are apportioned among the states according to their population every ten years. According to 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, since each state has two senators, elected for a six-year term; one third of the seats in the Senate are elected every two years.^[60] The Supreme Court, led by the chief justice, has nine members, who serve permanently.^[60]

Building of the Supreme Court of the United States, seen from the west.

The President serves a four-year term and may be reelected to the office no more than once. The President is not elected by direct suffrage, but by an indirect system of electoral colleges, in which the determining votes are apportioned by state.^[60] A state can only cast a certain number of votes according to the number of members of Congress it has within the legislative branch: senators (two for each state) and representatives (which varies according to the population of each state); giving a total of 538 members. The country's two-party system means that a presidential candidate, whether Republican or Democrat, needs only 270 votes to secure victory.^[61]

The governments of the fifty states are structured in a more or less similar manner, although Nebraska is the only one with a unicameral legislature.^[62] The Governor (chief executive) of each state is elected by direct suffrage. Some state judges and cabinet officials 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 that runs counter to the Constitution is struck down. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the state governments.^[60] Article I protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus^[27] and Article III guarantees the right to a trial by jury in all criminal cases.^[27] Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three quarters 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 individual guarantees.^[27]

Foreign relations

The United States exerts economic, political and military influence worldwide. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and in addition the Headquarters of the United Nations is located in New York City. It is also a member of the G8, the G-20 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The vast majority of countries have an embassy or a consulate in Washington, D.C. or another major city in the country. In turn, almost every country in the world has a U.S. diplomatic mission.^[63] However, North Korea, Bhutan, Sudan and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the nation.

It also enjoys strong ties with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Israel. It works closely with its colleagues in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on military and security matters, and with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and international treaties such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2012, the United States spent a net 30.46 billion dollars on official development assistance, the largest amount in the world, although in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), its contribution of 0.19% ranked among the last of the twenty-three donor nations. By contrast, private American companies are relatively more generous.^[64]^[65]

Armed forces

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 Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Air Force. The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and by the Department of the Navy in wartime. In 2008, the armed forces had 1.4 million active members. The reserves and the National Guard raise the total number of troops to 2.3 million. The Department of Defense also employs approximately 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.^[66]

Military service is voluntary, although in wartime the State may impose conscription through a selective service system, the so-called "Selective Service System".^[67] As the great military power of the world, the armed forces of the United States possess the most advanced war machines. They have thousands of aircraft, hundreds of vessels, tanks, intercontinental missiles (ICBM), thousands of nuclear warheads and ten active aircraft carriers in the Navy; in addition, they maintain permanent air-naval forces off the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean—Fleet Forces Command—, the Pacific—Pacific Fleet—and the Persian Gulf—Fifth Fleet.

The progressive large-scale installation of the American armed forces began with the division and occupation of Germany in 1945, expanded with the Cold War into the countries within its sphere of influence, and continues to this day.

The military operates around 870 bases and installations abroad^[68] and maintains garrisons of more than 100 active-duty military personnel in 28 different countries.^[69] The scope of this global military presence has led some authors to describe the country as maintaining an "empire of bases".^[70]^[71]

Military spending in 2013, at 642.7 billion dollars,^[72] amounted to 40% of world military spending and was higher than the combined spending of the next fourteen countries with the largest armies. Per capita spending was 1,967 dollars, about nine times the world average, accounting for 4.4% of GDP^[73] and 18% of the federal budget.^[74] The base budget of the Department of Defense for 2010—set at 533.8 billion dollars—was 4% higher than in 2009 and 80% higher than in 2001; an additional 130 billion dollars are to be allocated to the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.^[75] In May 2010 there were 94,000 American soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and 92,000 in Iraq.^[76] By June 2010, the U.S. military had suffered 4,400 casualties during the war in Iraq^[77] and 1,087 during the war in Afghanistan.^[78]

Intelligence Community

According to the available information, the United States has the largest intelligence services in the world, which are grouped and coordinated around the so-called Intelligence Community—United States Intelligence Community (IC). Seventeen federal intelligence agencies make up this community; these agencies are generally subordinate to the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice, while others are considered independent federal agencies, so they need only answer to the Director of National Intelligence and the President of the United States. The agencies of the community—both military and civilian—are engaged in intelligence activities related to foreign affairs and national security and have hundreds of thousands of employees—107,035 in mid-2013, the latest known figure—^[79] and confidential budgets that in 2013 alone amounted to 52.6 billion dollars.^[79] One of the agencies that comprise it is the famous Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).^[80]

In 2010, according to reports by The Washington Post, 1,271 government organizations, 1,931 private companies and 854,000 people with access to top-secret spaces and information were engaged in counterterrorism, intelligence and national security work in the United States.^[81]

Human rights

Status of the main international human rights instruments – United States of America
Instrument	Status
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)	Signed but not ratified
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR-OP)	Neither signed nor ratified
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR)	Signed and ratified
First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR-OP1)	Neither signed nor ratified
Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty (CCPR-OP2)	Neither signed nor ratified
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)	Signed and ratified
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED)	Neither signed nor ratified
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)	Signed but not ratified
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW-OP)	Neither signed nor ratified
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)	Signed and ratified, without recognition of the committee's competence
Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (CAT-OP)	Neither signed nor ratified
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)	Signed but not ratified
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (CRC-OP-AC)	Signed and ratified
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC-OP-SC)	Signed and ratified
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (MWC)	Neither signed nor ratified
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)	Signed but not ratified
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD-OP)	Neither signed nor ratified

Territorial organization

The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The thirteen original states were the successors of the Thirteen Colonies that rebelled against the British Empire. Shortly after independence, three new states were created from existing ones: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. Most of the other states were created from territories obtained through war or purchase by the government. Vermont, Texas and Hawaii are the exception: each of them was an independent republic before joining the Union. During the Civil War, West Virginia separated from Virginia. The most recent state is Hawaii, which achieved recognition as a state on August 21, 1959. The states do not have the right to secede from the Union.

The states make up most of U.S. territory; the other two areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital Washington, D.C. is located, and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory located in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also possesses five large 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 these territories (except for American Samoa) hold U.S. citizenship. U.S. citizens residing in the territories have many of the rights and responsibilities of citizens residing in the states; however, they are generally exempt from paying federal taxes, cannot vote in presidential elections and have only observer representation in Congress.^[82]

Geography

The area of the contiguous United States is approximately 7,700,000 km². Alaska, which is separated from the contiguous United States by Canada, is the largest state in the country, with 1,500,000 km². Hawaii occupies an archipelago located in the central Pacific, southwest of North America, covering just over 16,000 km².^[83] After Russia and Canada, it is the third or fourth largest country in the world by total area (land and water), ranking just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on whether the territories disputed between China and India are counted and on how the total size of the United States is calculated: the CIA's The World Factbook gives 9,833,517 km²,^[4] the United Nations Statistics Division calculates 9,629,091 km²,^[84] and the Encyclopædia Britannica states 9,522,055 km².^[85] Counting only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.^[86]

The national territory has many forms of relief and landforms. Moving inland, the coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to deciduous forest and the Piedmont plateau. The Appalachians separate the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the prairies of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri river, the fourth-longest river system in the world, runs from north to south through the center of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches westward until it is interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, cross the entire country from north to south, reaching altitudes above 4,300 m above sea level in Colorado. Farther west lie the Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. The Sierra Nevada mountains and the Cascade Range lie near the Pacific coast. At 6,194 m above sea level, Mount McKinley in Alaska is the highest point in the country and on the entire continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists solely of volcanic islands. The supervolcano located beneath Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains is the largest volcanic feature on the continent.^[87]

Climate

Because of its great size and geographic variety, the country has most climate types. East of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida and the islands of Hawaii have a tropical climate. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid, while much of the western mountains has an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Great Basin and the deserts of the Southwest, Mediterranean on the coast of California and oceanic on the southern coast of Alaska, Oregon and Washington. Most of Alaskan territory has a subarctic or polar climate. Extreme weather events are not rare—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes develop within the country, mainly in the Tornado Alley area of the Midwest.^[88]

Flora and fauna

The United States is considered a megadiverse country: some 17,000 species of vascular plants live in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and more than 1,800 species of flowering plants can be found in Hawaii alone, few of which grow on the mainland.^[89] The country is home to more than 400 species of mammals, 750 species of birds and 500 species of reptiles and amphibians.^[90] More than 91,000 different kinds of insects have also been discovered here.^[91]

The Endangered Species Act, passed in 1973, protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. In total, the federal government owns 28.8% of the country's total area.^[92] Most of this percentage is made up of the fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other protected natural areas administered by federal and state authorities.^[93] Of the remaining government land, some is leased for the extraction of oil and natural gas, for mining, agriculture or livestock raising; only 2.4% is used for military purposes.^[92]

Economy

One-dollar bills. The dollar has been the country's official currency since 1792.

The economy of the United States is a capitalist mixed economy, characterized by abundant natural resources, developed infrastructure and high productivity.Wright (2007), p. 185 According to the International Monetary Fund, its GDP of US$15.7 trillion constitutes 24% of the gross world product and about 21% of it in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP).^[8] This is the largest GDP in the world, although in 2008 it was 5% smaller than the GDP (PPP) of the European Union. The country has the eleventh-highest nominal GDP per capita and the sixth-highest GDP (PPP) per capita in the world.^[8] In addition, the country ranked second in the 2010 Global Competitiveness Index.^[94]

The United States is the largest importer of goods internationally and the third-largest in terms of exports, although exports per capita are relatively low for a developed country. In 2008, the total U.S. trade balance was 696 billion dollars.^[95] In 2009, automobiles were the main exported and imported products.^[96] Canada, China, Mexico, Germany and Japan are its main trading partners.^[97] The latter is the one holding the largest amount of public debt with the United States, since in early 2010 it surpassed China's holdings, with 34.2 billion dollars.^[98]

Exports to^[99]		Imports from^[100]
Country	Percentage	Country	Percentage
Canada	19%	China	19.6%
Mexico	14.3%	Canada	14.6%
China	7.7%	Mexico	12.3%
Japan	4.1%	Japan	6.1%
		Germany	5%

In 2010, the private sector accounted for an estimated 55.3% of the U.S. economy, federal government activities added up to 24.1%, and the activity of state and local governments made up the remaining 20.6%.^[101] Although the U.S. economy is post-industrial, since the service sector contributes 67.8% of GDP, the nation remains an industrial power.^[102] In the business field, the leading activity by revenue is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is industry,^[103] the chemical industry being the most important.^[104] The United States is the third most important oil producer in the world, as well as the largest importer of this product.^[105]^[106]^[107] It is also the number one producer of electric power and nuclear power, as well as liquefied natural gas, sulfur, phosphates and salt. While agriculture accounts for less than 1% of GDP,^[102] the country is the largest producer of corn^[108] and soybeans.^[109] All this production helps make the New York Stock Exchange the largest in the world.^[110] In turn, the American companies Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Microsoft are the most recognized brands in the world.^[111]

In the third quarter of 2009, the U.S. labor force was 154.4 million people. Of these workers, 81% held a job in the service sector. With 22.4 million people, government is the main field of employment.^[112] Approximately 12% of workers are unionized, compared with 30% in Western Europe.^[113] The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and dismissing workers.^[114] Between 1973 and 2003, the working year for an average American grew by 199 hours.^[115] Partly as a consequence, the country sustains the highest labor productivity in the world. In 2008, it also reached first place in productivity per hour, surpassing Norway, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, which had outranked the United States for most of the preceding decade.^[116] Compared with Europe, corporate and property taxes are higher, while consumer taxes are lower.^[117]

Infrastructure

Transportation

As a developed country, the United States has an advanced transportation infrastructure: 6,465,799 km of highways, 226,427 km of railways, 15,095 airports and 41,009 km of waterways.^[119] Most of its inhabitants use the automobile as their main means of transportation. In 2003 there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 people, compared with 472 per 1,000 inhabitants in the European Union.^[120] More than 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs or light trucks.^[121] The average American adult (including drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes a day in an automobile, traveling a distance of 47 km.^[122]

The civil aviation industry is privately owned, while most airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world are American-owned: Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.^[123] Of the thirty airports with the most passenger traffic in the world, sixteen are in the country, the busiest of all being Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.^[124] While freight transport by rail is very important, relatively few people use this means of transportation to travel, within or between urban areas.^[125] Only 9% of people use public transport to get to work, a very low level compared with 38.8% in Europe.^[126] The use of the bicycle is also minimal, far below European levels.^[127]

Energy

The country's total energy consumption is 3.873 trillion kWh per year, equivalent to per capita consumption of 7.8 tons of oil per year.^[119] In 2005, 40% of this energy came from oil, 23% from coal and 22% from natural gas; the rest came from nuclear power plants and renewable energy sources.^[128] The United States is the largest consumer of oil and natural gas: annually it uses 19.5 million barrels of oil per year and 627.2 billion m³ of natural gas.^[129]^[130] On the other hand, 27% of the world's coal reserves are located in the country.^[131] For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role in energy production compared with most developed countries, due in part to the public reaction after the Three Mile Island accident. However, in 2007 the government received multiple applications for the construction of new nuclear power plants, which could mean a considerable decrease in the consumption of fossil fuels^[132] and a change in energy policy.

Demographics

According to estimates by the Census Bureau, in July 2016 the population of the United States amounted to 323,952,889 inhabitants,^[133] including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants.^[134] This makes it the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India. In addition, the United States is the only industrialized nation where a significant increase in population is projected.^[135] With a birth rate of 13.82 babies per 1,000 inhabitants (30% below the world average), its population growth rate is 0.98%, significantly higher than those of Western Europe, Japan and South Korea.^[136] In fiscal year 2009, 1.1 million immigrants obtained legal residence.^[137] Mexico has been the main country of origin of new residents for more than two decades; since 1998, China, India and the Philippines have also stood out in this respect every year.^[138]

Map of the country's main ethnic groups.

The United States has a very diverse population: thirty-one different ethnic groups have more than one million members.^[139] White Americans are the largest ethnic group; German Americans, Irish Americans and Anglo-Americans make up three of the four most numerous ethnic groups in the country.^[139] African Americans are the largest racial "minority" and the third-largest ethnic group.^[139]^[140] Asians are the racial "minority" with the second-largest presence; within this group, those of Chinese and Filipino origin stand out.^[139] In 2008, the population included an estimated 6 million people of Indigenous ancestry, whether from an American Indian people (1.8 million), Alaskan (3.1 million), Hawaiian (0.5 million) or from a Pacific island (0.6 million).^[140]

The growth of the population of Latin American origin is an important demographic trend. According to the Census Bureau, the 46.9 million people of Latino or Hispanic descent^[140] are a heterogeneous group sharing a distinct "ethnicity"; thus 64% of Hispanics are of Mexican descent.^[141] Between 2000 and 2008, the Hispanic population increased by 32%, while the non-Hispanic population increased by only 4.3%.^[140] Much of this growth is due to immigration; for example, in 2007, 12.6% of the U.S. population had been born abroad, of whom 54% were born in Latin America.^[142] The fertility rate is also a factor: the average Hispanic woman gives birth to three children, while Black women have 2.2 and white women 1.8.^[135] Minorities (defined by the Census Bureau as all those who are not Hispanic or white) make up 34% of the population and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042.^[143]

About 82% of Americans live in urban areas (as defined by the Census Bureau, these areas include suburbs);^[119] about half reside in cities with a population of more than 50,000 inhabitants.^[144] In 2008, 273 localities had more than 100,000 people, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four global cities had more than two million residents (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston).^[145] There are fifty-two metropolitan areas with more than one million inhabitants.^[146] Of the fifty fastest-growing metropolitan areas, forty-seven are in the West and the South.^[147] The metropolitan areas of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Phoenix grew by more than one million people each between 2000 and 2008.^[146]

Education

American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education. Children are required to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or the first grade of elementary school) until they turn eighteen (generally through the twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.^[149] Approximately 12% of children are enrolled in private schools, while 2% are homeschooled.^[150] There are many private and public institutions of higher education, as well as community colleges with open admission policies. Of people over twenty-five, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree and 9.6% earned a graduate degree.^[151] The literacy rate is approximately 99%.^[119] The UN assigns the country an education index of 0.97, the 12th highest in the world.^[152] According to UNESCO, the United States is the country with the second-most institutions of higher education in the world, with a total of 5,758 and an average of more than 15 per state.^[153] The country also has the largest number of university students in the world, amounting to 14,261,778, that is, almost 4.75% of the total population.^[154] Finally, some of the most prestigious and renowned universities in the world are located here. Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are considered the best universities by various publications.^[155]^[156]^[157]

Languages

English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as the Requirements for Naturalization—make English a mandatory language. In 2006, about 224 million people, that is, 80% of the population over the age of five, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population, is the second most widely spoken language and the one most commonly learned as a second language.^[158]^[159] Some people advocate making English the official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.^[160] Hawaiian and English are the official languages of Hawaii.^[161] Although they lack an official language, New Mexico has laws that encourage the use of English and Spanish, in the same way that Louisiana does with English and Cajun French.Dicker (2003), pp. 216, 220–225 In other states, such as California, the publication of certain official documents in Spanish is mandatory.^[162]^[163] The insular territories grant official recognition to native languages alongside English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands, and Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.

In addition to the languages mentioned, a large number of native languages are still spoken on numerous reservations throughout the country and in small localities. Each of these languages has a few thousand speakers, and the most important demographically is Navajo, with almost 200,000 native speakers.

Religion

Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., belonging to the Episcopal Church, although with various daily services of other congregations.

The United States is officially a secular state; the First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion and prohibits the establishment of any religious government.^[27] In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans stated that religion played a "very important role in their lives," a higher figure than that of any other developed nation.^[164] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified as Christian,^[165] a decline since 1990, when they were 86.4%.^[166] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while the Catholic Church, with 23.9%, was the largest religious body. The study classifies white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the largest religious cohort in the country;^[165] another study estimates that evangelicals of all races make up between 30 and 35% of the population.^[167] In 1990, followers of non-Christian religions totaled 3.3%; by 2007 this had grown to 4.7%.^[166] The main non-Christian religions were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%) and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).^[165] The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist or simply without any religion.^[165]^[166]

Health

In 2006, life expectancy was 77.8 years,^[168] one year shorter than the Western European average, and much shorter than that of countries such as Norway, Switzerland and Canada.^[169] Over the last two decades, the country's life expectancy ranking fell from 11th place worldwide to 42nd.^[170] Infant mortality is 6.37 deaths per 1,000 live births.^[171] Approximately one third of the adult population is obese and another third is overweight;^[172] the obesity rate, one of the highest in the world, has doubled in the last twenty-five years.Schlosser (2002), p. 240 The high incidence of obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered an epidemic by some health professionals.^[173] The teenage pregnancy rate amounts to 79.8 per 1,000 women, four times the rate of France and five times that of Germany.^[174] Abortion, legal in some cases, is a highly controversial issue: many states have prohibited public funding of the procedure, restricted abortion when the fetus is already developed, and require parental notification for minors and a waiting period. The abortion rate is declining, as there are 241 per 1,000 births, although it remains higher than that of most Western nations.^[175]

Spending on the health care system exceeds that of any other nation, both in terms of per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP.^[176] In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health system first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance. The United States is a leader in medical innovation. In 2004, this sector invested three times more than any European country in biomedical research.^[177]

The United States is home to many of the best medical centers in the world. Most medical facilities are privately owned and receive some subsidies from local government. Despite being nonprofit associations, many of the country's most important hospitals are affiliated with large corporations or medical schools, which has made it possible for these centers to treat about 70% of all the country's medical patients each year.^[178] Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic are among the best hospitals in the country and in the world.^[179]

Unlike in other developed countries, health system coverage is not universal. In 2004, health insurance paid 36% of health expenditures and the federal and state governments provided 44%.^[180] 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 increase is the decline in the number of jobs that guarantee health insurance.^[181] The issue of uninsured Americans is an important political question.^[182]^[183] A 2009 study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with almost 45,000 deaths a year.^[184] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to implement universal health care.^[185] The federal law passed in early 2010 will create a nearly universal health system for the whole country in 2014.^{[citation needed]}

Major cities

Crime and law enforcement

The legal responsibility for applying and enforcing the law in the United States falls mainly on local police forces, on sheriffs—called sheriff or marshal, depending on the state—and their departments, and on the state police. At the federal level there are several federal agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Marshals Service, specialized in particular functions.^[187] At the federal level and in almost all states, common law prevails. There are two types of courts in the country: state courts, responsible for hearing and judging ordinary offenses, and federal courts, responsible for judging certain designated offenses and resolving appeals of judgments from state courts. Agreements between the parties are the most common way of ending trials, since in the vast majority of criminal cases an agreement is reached with the prosecutor before a jury trial is held.^[188]^[189]

In 2012 there were 4.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the United States, a 54% decline from the peak of 10.2 reached in 1980;^[190]^[191]^[192] however, in 2015 there was a severe rise in the number of homicides, with a rate of 4.9 per 100,000 people, equivalent in figures to 15,696 homicides, 1,532 more than in 2014 (an increase of 10.8%), the largest annual rise since 1971.^[193] Between 1980 and 2008, men committed 77% of homicides and 90% of crimes. The Black population was involved in 52.5% of homicides, a rate eight times higher than the white population (counting most Hispanics as "white"), and were victims at a rate six times higher than whites. Most homicides were between people of the same ethnicity, as 93% of Black victims were killed by Black people and 84% of white victims by white people.^[194] Among developed countries, the United States is by far the country with the highest rate of violent crime, homicide and gun violence.^[195] A 2003 analysis by the World Health Organization revealed that the United States "had a homicide rate 6.9 times higher than the rates recorded in the rest of the high-income countries, a rate driven upward because its firearm homicide rate was 19.5 times higher."^[196] The right to buy and bear firearms, enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, remains a subject of political and social debate.

The death penalty remains a legal form of sentence, and it is still provided for certain federal and military crimes and in 32 of the 50 states of the country.^[197] Between 1967 and 1977 no executions were carried out, due in part to a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that prohibited the arbitrary imposition of capital punishment. In 1976, the same court ruled that, under appropriate circumstances, the death penalty could be applied without violating constitutional legality. Since this decision, the United States has executed more than 1,300 prisoners, most of them in the states of Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma.^[198] On the other hand, several states have abolished the death penalty by law or have simply stopped applying it. In 2010, the United States was the fifth country in number of executions, behind only China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen.^[199]

The United States is the country with the highest documented incarceration rate in the world and has the largest prison population in the world.^[200]^[201] In early 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every hundred adults in the country.^[202] Counting prisoners and people on parole, the penal system supervised one in every 31 adults in the country in 2010,^[203] a figure that by 2012 had dropped to 1 in every 35 adults (the lowest rate since 1997), making a total of 6,937,600 people.^[204] The prison population has quadrupled since 1980.^[205] The cost of maintaining prisoners and facilities, added to the construction of new prisons due to overcrowding, amounts to more than 60 billion dollars a year; this means that some states in the country have to allocate 10% of their revenue to the penal system; in the case of California, the state leading in number of prisoners, in 2010 it spent more money on this area than, for example, on education.^[203] The most common prisoners are African American men, with an incarceration rate three times higher than that of Hispanics and six times higher than that of white men.^[206] The high incarceration rate can be explained in part by the harsh laws enacted in recent decades to combat drug trafficking, possession and use.^[207] In 2008 Louisiana was the state with the highest incarceration rate and Maine the one with the lowest.^[208]

The U.S. penal system is harshly criticized both by analysts and by some organizations. In addition to the progressive privatization of the penal system since the 1980s, in 2014 the NGO Human Rights Watch and other organizations denounced that more than 80,000 prisoners are held in tiny solitary confinement cells, which the NGOs describe as torture chambers.^[209] In 2012, The New York Times reported that some 60,000 undocumented immigrants held in detention centers are used as cheap labor by the government or private companies, with wages that can be as low as 13 cents an hour; in some cases they are not paid at all.^[210] Some states also employ thousands of inmates from their prisons in the factories of certain companies in exchange for a reduction of their sentence or the minimum wage. This saves the companies millions of dollars a year in wages, although its legality is questioned.^[211] Some of the companies involved, directly or through subcontractors, are reported to be Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks and Victoria's Secret, among others.^[211]

Culture

The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions and values.^[11]^[212] Apart from the now small populations of Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated during the last five centuries.^[213] The culture shared by most Americans is a Western culture, largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as the traditions brought by slaves from Africa.^[11]^[214]^[215] More recently, immigrants from Asia and Latin America have added further elements to this cultural mix, which has been described as "a homogenized melting pot and a heterogeneous salad bowl," in which immigrants and their descendants retain, share and absorb various distinctive cultural characteristics.^[11]

According to an analysis of cultural dimensions carried out by Geert Hofstede, the United States has one of the highest individualism scores of any country studied.^[216] While popular culture regards the country as a classless society,^[217] various scholars identify significant differences that can be considered social classes, which affect socialization, language and values.^[218]^[219] The American working middle class has been the initiator of many contemporary social trends such as modern feminism, environmentalism and multiculturalism.^[220] Unlike in other cultures, most women work outside the home and hold some bachelor's degree.^[221] In 2007, 58% of American women over 18 were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced and 25% had never been married.^[222]

The same Hofstede study also revealed that Americans' social outlook, cultural expectations and self-image are associated with their jobs and occupations to an unusually close degree.^[223] There is likewise a tendency to place greater value on socioeconomic achievement, in such a way that being an ordinary or average person is seen as a positive attribute in most cases.^[224] Although the so-called "American Dream" and the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility play a key role in attracting immigrants, some analysts find that the United States has lower social mobility than the countries of Europe and Canada.^[225]^[226]

Art

File:Times Square 1-2.JPG

Times Square in New York, part of the Broadway theater district.

Since European colonization, American art remained attached to the artistic currents of the Old Continent. In the mid-19th century the Hudson River School emerged, one of the first artistic movements developed in the country, although it was still heavily influenced by the European tradition of naturalism. In 1913, the Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of works of European modern art, made a great impact on the public and transformed the American art scene.^[227] Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley and other artists experimented with new styles, displaying a sensibility and technique unprecedented among European artists. The most important 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. Likewise, the currents of modernism and postmodernism brought fame to several American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson and Frank Gehry.

One of the greatest promoters of theater in the United States was the businessman P. T. Barnum, who entered the entertainment business of lower Manhattan in 1841. In the late 1870s, the team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of very successful musical comedies in New York. In the 20th century, the format of the modern musical emerged from Broadway; songs composed by figures such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim became pop music standards. The playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936; other acclaimed American writers include Pulitzer Prize winners such as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and August Wilson.

Choreographers such as Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped develop modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were two of the great figures of 20th-century ballet. Americans have played an important role in the artistic medium of photography, notably Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Ansel Adams.

Film, entertainment and music

The first film showing in history took place in 1894 in New York City, using Thomas Edison's kinetoscope. The following year the first projection of a film for commercial purposes was presented, also in New York, and during the following decades the United States was at the forefront of the development of sound film. Since the early 20th century, the American film industry has been centered largely around the productions of Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was fundamental to the development of the basic structure of a film, and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time.^[228]^[229] Other fundamental American directors in the history of cinema include John Ford, Howard Hawks, Elia Kazan and Michael Curtiz, and, among the more recent, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. American actors such as Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while the producer and businessman Walt Disney was one of the leaders in animation and in the merchandising of his films. The major Hollywood film studios have produced the most commercially successful films in history, such as Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). By the 2020s, Hollywood's products will continue to dominate the film industry worldwide.^[230]

In comics, American production has lost the worldwide leadership it had held since the early 20th century, with several notable newspaper strips such as Flash Gordon, The Phantom and Prince Valiant. After World War II, comics became a minority medium that has recently been experiencing the phenomenon of the graphic novel, in which authors such as Charles Burns, Joe Sacco and Chris Ware stand out. Nevertheless, comic strips and comics are also part of the country's artistic legacy. For example, Superman, one of the best-known superheroes in this medium, has become a true national icon.^[231]

The series *The Simpsons*, a satire of the American family and society.

The United States has the largest number of television viewers in the world,^[232] while the average time devoted to it continues to increase, reaching five hours a day in 2006.^[233] The four most important television networks are all commercial entities. Americans also listen to radio programming, largely commercialized, for an average of two and a half hours a day.^[234] The most popular websites and search engines on the web are American inventions, including Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, eBay and Yahoo!.^[235]

As for music, the work of Charles Ives in the 1910s, largely ignored while it was being developed, led him to become the first successful American composer of classical music; other pioneers such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created an American approach within classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a unique blend of classical music with popular music.

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music have deeply influenced the music of the United States in general, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements of folk music, such as the blues and what is now known as old music, were adapted and transformed into popular genres for a global audience. Jazz was developed by innovative artists such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in the early 20th century. Country emerged in the 1920s and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. In the middle of the following decade, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, the rise of Bob Dylan's career helped revive the influence of folk music, and he became one of the country's most celebrated songwriters; at the same time, James Brown led the development of funk. The most recent American creations include hip hop and house music. Finally, pop stars such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Madonna have become icons recognized worldwide.^[236]

Literature and philosophy

During the 18th century and the early 19th century, American literature took most of its influences from Europe. In the mid-19th century, writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe and Henry David Thoreau established a literature of the country's own. Mark Twain and the poet Walt Whitman were two of the great figures of the second half of the century; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is also considered one of the most important poets of American literature.^[237] A work that captures fundamental aspects of life in the country in its characters—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be considered the "Great American Novel."

Eleven American citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the most recent being Toni Morrison in 1993. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, winners in 1949 and 1954 respectively, are often ranked among the most influential writers of the 20th century.^[238] Several popular literary genres such as the Western and hard-boiled crime fiction developed in the country. The writers of the Beat Generation (Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs...) opened the field to new literary forms, as did postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo. Also worth mentioning are other poets and writers as important as Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, the naturalized Vladimir Nabokov and Raymond Carver; and, within fantastic literature, H. P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, etc., are of international renown.

In the field of philosophy, the Transcendentalists, led by Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the country's first major philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey were the leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the works of W. V. O. Quine, Richard Rorty and Noam Chomsky brought analytic philosophy to American academia. In more recent decades, John Rawls and Robert Nozick were two of the most important leaders of the revival of political philosophy.

Cuisine

The cuisine of the United States is similar to that of other Western countries, with wheat being the most widely used cereal. Traditional American cooking uses ingredients such as turkey, meat of deer, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, maple syrup and other native elements used by the Amerindians and the first European colonists. Barbecued pork and beef, crab cakes, potato chips and chocolate chip cookies are some of the dishes made "American style". Soul food, the traditional cooking of African slaves, is still popular in the South and among African Americans in other parts of the country. Syncretic cuisines, such as Louisiana Creole cuisine, Cajun and Tex-Mex, have great regional importance.

Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, the hamburger and the hot dog come from recipes introduced by immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes adapted from Italian recipes are also widely consumed.^[239] In terms of beverages, Americans prefer coffee to tea. Advertising by American industries has made orange juice and milk the typical breakfast drinks.^[240]^[241] Frequent consumption of fast food is associated with what doctors call the "obesity epidemic". Soft drinks are widely popular: the sugar they contain provides 9% of average caloric intake.^[242]^[243]

Science and technology

The United States has been a pioneer in scientific research and technological innovation since the 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received the first patent granted to an American for the telephone.^[244] Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first incandescent light bulb and the first film projector. Nikola Tesla was a forerunner in experimenting with alternating current, the alternating current motor and radio. In the 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom Eli Olds and Henry Ford promoted assembly line production. In 1903, the Wright brothers made the first powered flight in their aircraft, the Wright Flyer.^[245]

The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to emigrate to the country. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed the first nuclear weapons, heralding the beginning of the nuclear age. The Space Race also produced rapid advances in the construction and development of rockets, materials science and computing. The country was responsible for the development of ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, most of the funding for research and development, 64%, comes from the private sector.^[246] The country is the world leader in scientific research publications and in impact factor.^[247] Americans own technologically advanced consumer goods^[248]^[249]^[250] and almost half of households have broadband Internet access.^[251] It is also the leading developer and grower of genetically modified organisms; more than half of the world's land under biotech crops is in the United States.^[252]

Holidays

Date	Holiday	Local name	Notes
January 1	New Year's Day	New Year's Day	Celebration of the New Year.
January	Birthday of Martin Luther King	Martin Luther King, Jr. Day	Celebrated on the third Monday of January (although Martin Luther King was born on January 15).
February	Presidents' Day	Presidents Day	Celebrated on the third Monday of February, commemorating the birth of George Washington.
May	Mother's Day	Mother's Day	Celebrated on the second Sunday of May.
May	Memorial Day	Memorial Day	Celebrated on the last Monday of May to commemorate those who died in the country's wars.
June	Father's Day	Father's Day	Celebrated on the third Sunday of June.
July 4	Independence Day	Independence Day	Commemoration of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
September	Labor Day	Labor Day	Celebrated on the first Monday of September.
October	Columbus Day	Columbus Day	Celebrated on the second Monday of October, commemorating the Discovery of America.
October 31	Halloween	Halloween	Eve of All Saints' Day.
November 11	Veterans Day	Veterans' Day	Commemoration of the surviving soldiers of the country's wars.
November	Thanksgiving	Thanksgiving	Celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
December 25	Christmas	Christmas	Commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Sports

Since the late 19th century, baseball has been considered the national sport, while American football, basketball and ice hockey are the three other major professional team sports. College leagues also attract large audiences. American football is the most popular sport in the United States.^[254]^[255] Boxing and horse racing were at one time the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and motorsport, particularly by stock car championships such as the most important, the NASCAR Cup, and other national and regional categories of NASCAR and ARCA. Other notable open-wheel championships are IndyCar, formerly the now-defunct Champ Car World Series, and endurance racing such as the United SportsCar Championship. One of the main races in the United States is IndyCar's Indianapolis 500, which enjoys international prestige. Endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Petit Le Mans are of equal importance in world motorsport. The NASCAR Cup's Daytona 500 is the most important stock car race in the world. Soccer, although not one of the main professional sports in the country, has a large presence and fan base. Tennis and other outdoor sports are also popular, along with the US Open, one of the most watched tennis championships in the world.

Although most of the major sports in the United States evolved from European practices, basketball, volleyball, cheerleading and snowboarding are local inventions. Lacrosse and surfing arose from the Amerindians and the natives of Hawaii. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) organized the Olympic Games in Saint Louis in 1904, the Games in Los Angeles in 1932 and 1984, and most recently in 1996 in Atlanta. The United States has won 2802 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 282 medals at the Winter Olympic Games.^[256]

Notes

↑ The traditional motto is E Pluribus Unum (Latin: "Out of many, one").
↑ English is the official language in 28 states, but no official language is recognized at the federal level. Spanish, Cajun French and Hawaiian are officially recognized by several states.
↑ According to the government agency of the United States Census Bureau, which is part of the Department of Commerce, the country has an area of 9,371,174 square kilometers, which places it as the fourth country in the world by area. By contrast, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its publication The World Factbook puts the area at 9,833,517 square kilometers,^[4] since it includes territorial waters and coastal areas, which would place the country in third position ahead of China. For its part, the Encyclopædia Britannica gives the figure of 9,522,055 km², placing it in fourth position.
↑ As well as AS, GU, MP, PR, UM and VI for its dependencies.
↑ Permanent member.
↑ The toponym "Estados Unidos" may be preceded by the article "los". If it is used preceded by the article, the verb goes in the plural and if, on the contrary, only "Estados Unidos" (without "los") is used, the verb goes in the singular form. Both forms are correct.^[10]
↑ "Estados Unidos", "EUA" and "EE. UU." in Spanish,^[10] and United States, USA, U.S.A., US or U.S. in English, are commonly used abbreviated forms of the official name. The Real Academia Española advises against the use in Spanish of these English-language forms.^[10] The government of the United States itself, on its official Spanish-language portal, uses the form EE. UU., this also being the most widely used in Spanish.

References

↑ "estadounidense". Diccionario de la lengua española (in español). Real Academia Española.
↑ "Diccionario de la lengua española - Americano" (in español). Real Academia Española. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
↑ "norteamericano". Diccionario de la lengua española (in español). Real Academia Española.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 ^4.4 ^4.5 CIA. "Estados Unidos - Geografía - Libro Mundial de Hechos" (in español). Retrieved February 6, 2017.
↑ "U.S. and World Population Clock". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
↑ PDF Archived June 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Data from the 2010 United States census.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2010). "Resident Population Fecha: Population density". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 18, 2010. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
↑ ^8.0 ^8.1 ^8.2 ^8.3 ^8.4 ^8.5 ^8.6 International Monetary Fund (2018). "United States". IMF.org. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
↑ UNDP (September 14, 2018). UNDP (ed.). "Human Development Indices and Indicators 2018 Statistical Update" (PDF). Retrieved September 15, 2018.
↑ ^10.0 ^10.1 ^10.2 ^10.3 ^10.4 ^10.5 ^10.6 "Estados Unidos". Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (in español). Real Academia Española.
↑ ^11.0 ^11.1 ^11.2 ^11.3 Adams, J.Q.; Pearlie Strother-Adams (2001). Dealing with Diversity. Chicago: Kendall/Hunt. ISBN 0-7872-8145-X.
↑ "Data and Statistics". International Monetary Fund (IMF). October 8, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2014.
↑ Dull 2003, p. 352.
↑ Maddison, Angus (2006). "Historical Statistics for the World Economy". GGDC.net. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
↑ Cohen, Eliot A. (2004). "History and the Hyperpower". Foreign Affairs.com. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
↑ BBC News (2008). "Country Profile: United States of America". BBC.co.uk. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
↑ "Cartographer Put 'America' on the Map 500 years Ago". USA Today.com. 2007. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
↑ "The Charters of Freedom". Archives.gov. 2010. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
↑ Real Academia Española (2005). "Yanqui". Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (in español). Retrieved June 26, 2010.
↑ "§ 3.2.5.2 Uso de la tilde y las mayúsculas en las abreviaturas". Ortografía de la lengua española (in español). Real Academia Española. p. 576. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
↑ National Museum of Natural History (2004). "Peopling of Americas". Anthropology.si.edu. Archived from the original on November 28, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Meltzer, D.J. (1992). "How Columbus Sickened the New World: Why Were Native Americans So Vulnerable to the Diseases European Settlers Brought With Them?". New Scientist (1842): 38. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Butler, James Davie (1896). "British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies". American Historical Review 2. National Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on September 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Rusell 2005, p. 12.
↑ Blackburn 1998, p. 460.
↑ "Ficha de la Declaración de Independencia". ArteHistoria (in español). 2010. Archived from the original on February 27, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ ^27.0 ^27.1 ^27.2 ^27.3 ^27.4 ^27.5 Department of State (2008). "Enmiendas a la Constitución comentadas". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Iglesia Evangélica del Pueblo Nuevo. "Dirigentes del Segundo Gran Despertar". Iglesia Pueblo Nuevo.es (in español). Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ ^29.0 ^29.1 ^29.2 ^29.3 ^29.4 ^29.5 Department of State (2009). "Los estados de Estados Unidos". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Morrison 1999, pp. 13–21.
↑ "Bisonte Americano". Zoo Web Plus.com (in español). 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Department of State (2009). "Galería de fotos - Momentos claves de la Guerra Civil en EE. UU". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ National Census Bureau. "1860 Census" (PDF). Census.gov. p. 7. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ De Rosa 1997, p. 266.
↑ John Simkin. "Jim Crow Laws". Spartacus Schoolnet.co.uk. Archived from the original on May 10, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Gates, John M. (2002). "War-Related Deaths in the Philippines". Pacific Historical Review. Archived from the original on June 29, 2014. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Foner 1991, p. 576.
↑ McDuffie 2005, p. 418.
↑ Department of State (2010). "De Hoover a Rossevelt: transición en un momento de crisis". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on February 28, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Wayne Curtis, "Bootleg Paradise," American Heritage (2007). Retrieved June 26, 2011 (in English)
↑ Bill Ganzel (2003). "The Dust Bowl of the 1930s". Living History Farm.org. Archived from the original on June 29, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Kennedy 1989, p. 358.
↑ Department of State (2005). "The United States and the Founding of the United Nations, August 1941–October 1945". State.gov. Archived from the original on October 23, 2005. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Pacific War Research Society (2006). Japan's Longest Day. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 4-7700-2887-3.
↑ ^45.0 ^45.1 Department of State (2008). "La Guerra Fría, el conflicto de Corea y Vietnam". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Schrecker (1998), p. 13.
↑ Fried (1990), p. 187.
↑ Unidad Editorial Internet (2009). "1969: El hombre llega a la Luna". El Mundo.es (in español). Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Nobel Foundation (1964). "Martin Luther King - Biography". Nobel Prize.org. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ "El escándalo que acabó con la carrera de Richard Nixon". El Mundo.es (in español). 2006. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Voyce, Bill (2006). "Why the Expansion of the 1990s Lasted So Long". State.ia.us. Archived from the original on October 6, 2006. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Brinkley, Douglas (2001). 36 Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis. Times Books. ISBN 0-8050-6850-3.
↑ "Many Europeans Oppose War in Iraq". USA Today.com. 2003. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Springford, John (2003). "Old and 'New' Europeans United: Public Attitudes Towards the Iraq War and US Foreign Policy" (PDF). CER.org.uk. Centre for European Reform. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 28, 2004. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ La Nación (2010). "Más de US$ 125 mil millones se pagaron por daños naturales". Sector Productivo.com.py (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2011. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Gallego Espina, José; Jorrín, Javier G. "Trump gana las elecciones de Estados Unidos y promete gobernar para todos" (in español). El Español. Retrieved November 10, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ "50 muertos en la peor matanza en EE UU desde el 11-S" (in español). El País. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
↑ Peñaloza, Marisa (January 6, 2021). "Trump Supporters Storm U.S. Capitol, Clash with Police". npr.org. NPR. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
↑ Scheb 2002, p. 6.
↑ ^60.0 ^60.1 ^60.2 ^60.3 ^60.4 ^60.5 ^60.6 Department of State (2008). "La Constitución de Estados Unidos con notas explicativas". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Oscar Rodríguez Díaz (2004). "El proceso electoral en Estados Unidos". El Habanero.com (in español). Archived from the original on September 24, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2010.
↑ Government of Nebraska (2010). "History of Nebraska Unicameral". Nebraska Legislature.gov. Archived from the original on July 28, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
↑ Department of State (2010). "Websites of U.S. embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions". US Embassy.gov. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
↑ OECD. "Aid to poor countries slips further as governments tighten budgets".
↑ "Ayuda al desarrollo en 2011". Archived from the original on September 24, 2014. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
↑ "The Air Force in Facts and Figures (Armed Forces Manpower Trends, End Strength in Thousands)" (PDF). Air Force Magazine.com. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 13, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "What does selective service provide for America?". Selective Service System. Archived from the original on September 15, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
↑ Department of Defense (2008). "Base Structure Report, Fiscal Year 2008 Baseline" (PDF). Defense.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 28, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Global Policy Forum (March 31, 2008). "Department of Defense Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309A)" (PDF). Global Security.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
↑ Ikenberry, G. John (2004). "Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order". CAS.sc.org. Archived from the original on June 13, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Kreisler, Harry and Chalmers Johnson (2004). "Conversations with History". Berkeley.edu. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Perlo-Freeman, Solmirano, Sam, Carina (2013). "Trends in world military expenditure, 2013". SIPRI. Archived from the original on January 4, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ "The 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2012" (PDF). SIPRI.org. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 10, 2014. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
↑ "Monthly Budget Review—Summary for Fiscal Year 2013" (PDF). United States Congress. November 7, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
↑ "FY 2010 Budget Request Summary Justification" (PDF). Defense.gov. Department of Defense. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 30, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Bumiller, Elisabeth (2010). "Troops in Afghanistan Now Outnumber Those in Iraq". New York Times.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (2010). "Operation Iraqi Freedom". iCasualities.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (2010). "Operation Enduring Freedom". iCasualities.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^79.0 ^79.1 Gellman, Miller, Greg, Barton (August 29, 2013). "The Black Budget: Funding the intelligence program". Washington Post. Retrieved March 10, 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ "Federal Agencies & Commissions". The White House. Archived from the original on March 9, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
↑ Priest, Arkin, Dana, William M. (2010). "A hidden world, growing beyond control". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 10, 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Raskin 2003, pp. 36–38.
↑ Lubowski, Ruben, Marlow Vesterby, and Shawn Bucholtz (2006). "AREI Chapter 1.1: Land Use". USDA.gov. Archived from the original on February 17, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ United Nations Statistics Division (2007). "Population by Sex, Rate of Population Increase, Surface Area and Density" (PDF). Demographic Yearbook 2007 (in English and français). Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "United States". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Yahoo Education (2005). "World Factbook: Area Country Comparison Table". Yahoo.com. Archived from the original on November 16, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ O'Hanlon, Larry (2007). "Supervolcano: What's Under Yellowstone?". Discovery.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Perkins, Sid (2002). "Tornado Alley, USA". Science News.org. Archived from the original on July 1, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Morin, Nancy (2008). "Vascular Plants of the United States" (PDF). Fungal Jungal.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 6, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Global Significance of Selected U.S. Native Plant and Animal Species". SDI.gov. 2001. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Smithsonian Institution. "Numbers of Insects (Species and Individuals)". SI.edu. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^92.0 ^92.1 Republican Study Committee (2005). "Federal Land and Buildings Ownership" (PDF). House.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "National Park Service Announces Addition of Two New Units". NPS.gov. David Barna, Elaine Sevy. 2006. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ World Economic Forum (2010). "Table 4: The Global Competitiveness Index 2009-2010 Rankings and 2008-2009 Comparisons" (PDF). WE Forum.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 30, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Martin Crutsinger (2009). "May trade deficit falls to lowest in almost 10 years". USA Today.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 1267—U.S. Exports and General Imports by Selected SITC Commodity Groups". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Top Ten Countries with which the U.S. Trades". Census.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Japan surpasses China as largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities". Xinhuanet.com. 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ The world Factbook: United States
↑ The world Factbook: United States
↑ Christopher Chantrill (2010). "Government Spending Overview". US Government Spending.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^102.0 ^102.1 Department of State. "USA Economy in Brief". State.gov. Archived from the original on March 12, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 724—Number of Tax Returns, Receipts, and Net Income by Type of Business and Industry: 2005". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2008). "Table 964—Gross Domestic Product in Current and Real (2000) Dollars by Industry: 2006". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Oil (Production)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Oil (Consumption)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Energy Information Administration (2009). "Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries". DOE.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ U.S. Grains Council. "Corn". Grains.org. Archived from the original on January 12, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Sean Charles (2007). "Soybean Demand Continues to Drive Production". World watch.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ NYSE Euronext (2007). "New Release/Ultra Petroleum Corp.,". NYSE.com. Archived from the original on April 9, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Sony, LG, Wal-Mart among Most Extendible Brands". Cheskin.com. 2005. Archived from the original on March 12, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010). "Employment Situation Summary". BLS.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Fuller, Thomas (2005). "In the East, Many EU Work Rules Don't Apply". International Herald Tribune.com. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
↑ World Bank. "Doing Business in the United States (2006)". Doing Business.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Dobbs, Lou (2003). "The Perils of Productivity". U.S. News.comt. Archived from the original on April 11, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ University of Groningen (2009). "Groningen Growth and Development Centre". Conference Board.com. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
↑ Gumbel, Peter (2004). "Escape from Tax Hell". Time.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.^{[dead link]}
↑ Federal Highway Administration (2006). "Interstate FAQ (Question #3)". FHWTA.dot.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^119.0 ^119.1 ^119.2 ^119.3 CIA (2010). "United States". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Eurostat Press Office (2006). "Car Free Day 2006: Nearly One Car per Two Inhabitants in the EU25 in 2004". Europa.eu. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Household, Individual, and Vehicle Characteristics". BTS.gov. Department of Transportation. 2001. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Daily Passenger Travel". BTS.gov. Department of Transportation. 2001. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ International Air Transport Association (2010). "Scheduled Passengers Carried". IATA.org. Archived from the original on January 18, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Airports Council International (2008). "Passenger Traffic 2008 Final". Airports.org. Archived from the original on April 29, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Government Accountability Office (2006). "Intercity Passenger Rail: National Policy and Strategies Needed to Maximize Public Benefits from Federal Expenditures". GAO.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Renne, John L. and Jan S. Wells (2003). "Emerging European-Style Planning in the United States: Transit-Oriented Development" (PDF). Rutgers.edu. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 12, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Pucher, John, and Lewis Dijkstra (2000). "Making Walking and Cycling Safer: Lessons from Europe" (PDF). Transalt.org. Archived from the original (pdf) on February 16, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Department of Energy (2007). "Diagram 1: Energy Flow, 2007" (PDF). EIA Annual Energy Review 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Oil (Consumption)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ CIA (2007). "Rank Order—Natural Gas (Consumption)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on January 20, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ British Petroleum (2007). "BP Statistical Review of World Energy". British Petroleum.com. Archived from the original (XLS) on February 6, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Atomic Renaissance". Economist.com. 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010. Subscription required.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2016). "U.S. POPClock Projection". Census.gov. Retrieved July 9, 2016. Figure updated automatically.
↑ Camarota, Steven A. and Karen Jensenius (2008). "Homeward Bound: Recent Immigration Enforcement and the Decline in the Illegal Alien Population" (PDF). CIS.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^135.0 ^135.1 Population Resource Center (2000). "Executive Summary: A Population Perspective of the United States". PRCDC.org. Archived from the original on June 4, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Birth Rate". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Randall Monger (2009). "U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2009" (PDF). DHS.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Department of Homeland Security (2009). "Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status by Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Years 1998 to 2009" (XLS). DHS.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^139.0 ^139.1 ^139.2 ^139.3 United States Census Bureau (2004). "Ancestry 2000" (PDF). Census.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^140.0 ^140.1 ^140.2 ^140.3 United States Census Bureau (2009). "Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009 (NC-EST2009-03)". Census.gov. Archived from the original on April 19, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2008). "B03001. Hispanic or Latino Origin by Specific Origin". 2008 American Community Survey. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Tables 41 and 42—Native and Foreign-Born Populations" (PDF). Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2008). "An Older and More Diverse Nation by Midcentury". Census.gov. Archived from the original on July 24, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2000). "United States—Urban/Rural and Inside/Outside Metropolitan Area (GCT-P1. Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density: 2000)". Census.gov. Archived from the original on January 17, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 1: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places Over 100,000, Ranked by July 1, 2009 Population: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009" (PDF). 2009 Population Estimates. Hawaii.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ ^146.0 ^146.1 United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 5. Estimates of Population Change for Metropolitan Statistical Areas and Rankings: July 1, 2008 to July 1, 2009" (PDF). Hawaii.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Raleigh and Austin are Fastest-Growing Metro Areas". Census.gov. Archived from the original on December 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Rosenstone, Steven J. (2009). "Public Education for the Common Good". UMN.edu. Archived from the original on August 1, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Department of Education. "Ages for Compulsory School Attendance...". Ed.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Department of Education (2009). "Statistics About Non-Public Education in the United States". Ed.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau. "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2003" (PDF). Census.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ United Nations Development Programme (2005). "Human Development Indicators" (PDF). UNDP.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 20, 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ "Countries with Most Universities". Aneki.com. 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
↑ "Countries with the Most University Students". Aneki.com. 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
↑ "Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2010". ARWU.org. 2010. Archived from the original on September 10, 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
↑ "Ninguna universidad española entre las cien mejores del mundo". El Comercio.com (in español). 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
↑ CSIC (2010). "Ranking Mundial de Universidades en la Web: Top 8000 Ranking Mundial". Web o Metrics.info (in español). Archived from the original on August 6, 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 52—Languages Spoken at Home by Language: 2009" (PDF). Census.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Elizabeth B. Welles (2002). "Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Learning" (PDF). ADFL.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 3, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Feder, Jody (2007). "English as the Official Language of the United States—Legal Background and Analysis of Legislation in the 110th Congress" (PDF). Ilw.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ Government of the State of Hawaii (1978). "The Constitution of the State of Hawaii, Article XV, Section 4". Hawaii.gov. Archived from the original on July 5, 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Legislative Counsel of the State of California. "California Code of Civil Procedure, Section 412.20(6)". Leg Info.ca.gov. Archived from the original on July 22, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Judicial Council of the State of California (2010). "California Judicial Council Forms". Court Info.ca.gov. Archived from the original on June 4, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Pew Research Center (2002). "Among Wealthy Nations…U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion". Pew Global.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ ^165.0 ^165.1 ^165.2 ^165.3 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (October 23, 2008). "Religious Composition of the U.S." (pdf). U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Retrieved June 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
↑ ^166.0 ^166.1 ^166.2 CUNY Graduate Center (2001). "American Religious Identification Survey". CUNY.edu. Archived from the original on June 6, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Green, John C. "The American Religious Landscape and Political Attitudes: A Baseline for 2004" (PDF). UA Kron.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 29, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ National Center for Health Statistics (2006). "Health, United States, 2006" (PDF). CDC.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Eberstadt, Nicholas and Hans Groth (2007). "Healthy Old Europe". New York Times.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ MacAskill, Ewen (2007). "US Tumbles Down the World Ratings List for Life Expectancy". Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Infant Mortality Rate". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ "Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Adults: United States, 2003-2004". CDC.gov. National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Elvira Isganaitis and Robert H. Lustig (2005). "Fast Food, Central Nervous System Insulin Resistance, and Obesity". AHA Journals.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Sue Aldford and Deb Hauser (2009). "Adolescent Sexual Health in Europe and the U.S.—Why the Difference?". Advocates for Youth.org. Archived from the original on March 26, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Strauss, Lilo T.; et al. (2006). "Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2003". CDC.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
↑ "The U.S. Healthcare System: The Best in the World or Just the Most Expensive?" (PDF). U Maine.edu. University of Maine. 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Groves, Trish (February 2008). "Stronger European Medical Research". British Medical Journal. 336 (7640): 341–342. doi:10.1136/bmj.39489.505208.80. ISSN 0959-8138.
↑ Guy David (2005). "The Convergence between For-Profit and Nonprofit Hospitals in the United States" (PDF). AEA Web.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2010.
↑ Avery Comarow (2010). "Best Hospitals 2010-11: The Honor Roll". US News.com. Retrieved November 16, 2010.
↑ National Center for Health Statistics (2009). "Health, United States, 2009" (PDF). CDC.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (2006). "Poverty Remains Higher, and Median Income for Non-Elderly Is Lower, Than When Recession Hit Bottom: Poor Performance Unprecedented for Four-Year Recovery Period". CBPP.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
↑ Abelson, Reed (2008). "Ranks of Underinsured Are Rising, Study Finds". New York Times.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Blewett, Lynn A.; et al. (2006). "How Much Health Insurance Is Enough? Revisiting the Concept of Underinsurance". Medical Care Research and Review. 63 (6): 663–700. doi:10.1177/1077558706293634. ISSN 1077-5587. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
↑ Park, Madison (2009). "45,000 American Deaths Associated with Lack of Insurance". CNN.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Fahrenthold, David A. (2006). "Mass. Bill Requires Health Coverage". Washington Post.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ "Estados Unidos - las ciudades más importantes". World Gazetteer.com (in español). 2010. Retrieved June 29, 2010.
↑ "U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, Who Governs & What They Do". chiff.com. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ Plea Bargains Findlaw.com
↑ Interview with Judge Michael McSpadden Interview on PBS, April 3, 2014
↑ "Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics". U.S Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved April 3, 2014.^{[dead link]}
↑ "Crime in the United States, 2011". FBI '(Uniform Crime Statistics—Murder)'. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ "UNODC Homicide Statistics". United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ Lois Beckett; Kenan Davis; Aliza Aufrichtig (September 26, 2016). "Murders up 10.8% in biggest percentage increase since 1971, FBI data shows". The Guardian. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
↑ Alexia Cooper; Erica L. Smith (November 2011). "Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. pp. 3, 12. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
↑ "Eighth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2001-2002)" (PDF). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). March 31, 2005. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ "Homicide, Suicide, and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Compa ... : Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery". Journals.lww.com. doi:10.1097/TA.0b013e3181dbaddf. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ Simpson, Ian (May 2, 2013). "Maryland becomes latest U.S. state to abolish death penalty". Yahoo! News. Reuters. Retrieved April 3, 2014.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
↑ "Searchable Execution Database". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ "Executions Around the World". Death Penalty Information Center. 2010. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
↑ Schmidt, Steffen W.; Shelley, Mack C.; Bardes, Barbara A. (2008). American Government & Politics Today. Cengage Learning. p. 591. ISBN 978-0-495-50228-9.
↑ Walmsley, Roy (2005). "World Prison Population List" (PDF). King's College London, International Centre for Prison Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 3, 2014. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; June 28, 2007 suggested (help)
↑ Barkan, Steven E.; Bryjak, George J. (2011). Fundamentals of Criminal Justice: A Sociological View. Jones & Bartlett. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-4496-5439-9.
↑ ^203.0 ^203.1 Peereda, Cristina F. (March 31, 2010). "Estados Unidos busca reinventar su sistema penitenciario" (in español). Periodismo humano. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
↑ Lauren E. Glaze; Erinn J. Herberman (December 2013). "Correctional Populations in the United States, 2012" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Retrieved February 25, 2017.
↑ Iadicola, Peter; Shupe, Anson (October 26, 2012). Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 456. ISBN 978-1-4422-0949-7.
↑ DeLisi, Matt; Conis, Peter John (2011). American Corrections: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice. Jones & Bartlett. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-4496-4540-3.
↑ Clear, Todd R.; Cole, George F.; Reisig, Michael Dean (2008). American Corrections. Cengage Learning. p. 485. ISBN 978-0-495-55323-6.
↑ Mears, Daniel P. (2010). American Criminal Justice Policy: An Evaluation Approach to Increasing Accountability and Effectiveness. Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-521-76246-5.
↑ "Más de 80.000 presos incomunicados durante años en EEUU" (in español). Cuatro. October 11, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
↑ Urbina, Ian (May 24, 2014). "Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor". New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
↑ ^211.0 ^211.1 "Presos del capitalismo: Las cárceles en EE. UU. son una fuente de mano de obra barata" (in español). RT actualidad. December 22, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
↑ Thompson, William; Hickey, Joseph (2005). Society in Focus. Boston: Pearson. ISBN 0-205-41365-X.
↑ Fiorina 2000, p. 97.
↑ Holloway 2005, pp. 18–38.
↑ Johnson 1999, p. 116.
↑ Geert Hofstede. "Individualism". Clearly Cultural.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Gutfield 2002, p. 65.
↑ Zweig, Michael (2004). What's Class Got To Do With It, American Society in the Twenty-First Century. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801488990.
↑ Education Resources Information Center. "Effects of Social Class and Interactive Setting on Maternal Speech". Ed.gov. Archived from the original on April 20, 2008. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Ehrenreich, Barbara (1989). Fear of Falling, The Inner Life of the Middle Class. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060973331.
↑ Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann (2006). "Women's Advances in Education". Columbia.edu. Archived from the original on April 4, 2008. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau. "Table 55—Marital Status of the Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1990 to 2007" (pdf). Census.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Eichar, Douglas (1989). Occupation and Class Consciousness in America. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313261113.
↑ O'Keefe, Kevin (2005). The Average American. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 158648270X.
↑ "Ever Higher Society, Ever Harder to Ascend: Whatever Happened to the Belief That Any American Could Get to the Top". Economist.com. 2004. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Blanden, Jo, Paul Gregg and Stephen Malchin (2005). "Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America" (PDF). Sutton Trust.com. Archived from the original (pdf) on March 29, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ Brown, Milton W (1988). The Story of the Armory Show. New York: Abbeville. ISBN 0-89659-795-4.
↑ Village Voice Media (2001). "100 Best Films". Film Site.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ British Film institute (2002). "Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll 2002". BFI.org.uk. Archived from the original on April 8, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Unesco (2000). "World Culture Report 2000 Calls for Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage". Unesco.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Daniels 1998, p. 11.
↑ "Media Statistics > Television Viewing by Country". Nation Master.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ "Broadband and Media Consumption". eMarketer.com. 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ "TV Fans Spill into Web Sites". eMarketer.com. 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Alexa (2010). "Top 500 Global Sites". Alexa.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Biddle 2001, p. IX.
↑ Bloom 1999, p. 9.
↑ Meyers 1999, p. 139.
↑ Klapthor, James N. (2003). "What, When, and Where Americans Eat in 2003". IFT.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010. Subscription required
↑ Smith 2004, pp. 131–132.
↑ Harvey 2003, pp. 154–155.
↑ Elvira Isganaitis and Robert H Lustig (2005). "Fast Food, Central Nervous System Insulin Resistance, and Obesity". AHA Journals.org. American Heart Association. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Department of Agriculture. "Let's Eat Out: Americans Weigh Taste, Convenience, and Nutrition" (PDF). USDA.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 20, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ "Cuaderno del laboratorio de Alexander Graham Bell, 1875-1876". World Digital Library (in español). 1875–1876. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
↑ Benedetti, François (2003). "100 Years Ago, the Dream of Icarus Became Reality". FAI.org. Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). Archived from the original on January 13, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ United States Census Bureau (2008). "Research and Development (R&D) Expenditures by Source and Objective: 1970 to 2004". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ MacLeod, Donald (2006). "Britain Second in World Research Rankings". Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Media Statistics > Televisions (per capita) by Country". Nation Master.com. 2003. Archived from the original on February 1, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ CIA (December 2003). "Media Statistics > Personal Computers (per capita) by Country". NationMaster.
↑ CIA (2003). "Media Statistics > Radios (per capita) by Country". Nation Master.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ "Download 2007 Digital Fact Pack". Advertising Age. June 10, 2007. Retrieved June 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
↑ International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (2006). "Situación global de los cultivos transgénicos/GM comercializados: 2006" (PDF). ISAAA.org (in español). Retrieved June 27, 2010.
↑ El fútbol es el quinto deporte más popular en USA según encuesta
↑ Alyssa Hall (2010). "Football Expands Lead Over Baseball as America's Favorite Sport" (PDF). Harris Interactive.com. Archived from the original (pdf) on June 1, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
↑ Maccambridge, Michael (2004). America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50454-0.
↑ International Olympic Committee. "United States of America". Retrieved June 23, 2019.

Bibliography

Biddle, Julian (2001). What Was Hot!: Five Decades of Pop Culture in America. New York: Citadel. ISBN 0-8065-2311-5.
Blackburn, Robin (1998). The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800. London: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-195-3.
Bloom, Harold (1999). Emily Dickinson. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-5106-4.
Daniels, Les (1998). Superman: The Complete History (1st ed.). Titan Books. ISBN 1-85286-988-7.
De Rosa, Marshall L (1997). The Politics of Dissolution: The Quest for a National Identity and the American Civil War. Edison, New Jersey: Transaction. ISBN 1-56000-349-9.
Dicker, Susan J. (2003). Languages in America: A Pluralist View. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ISBN 1853596515.
Dull, Jonathan R (2003). "A Companion to the American Revolution". In Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole (ed.). Diplomacy of the Revolution, to 1783. Maiden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. ISBN 1-4051-1674-9.
Fiorina, Morris P.; Peterson, Paul E. (2000). The New American Democracy. London: Longman. ISBN 0-321-07058-5.
Foner, Eric; Garraty, John A. (1991). The Reader's Companion to American History. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-51372-3.
Fried, Richard M. (1990). Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504361-8.
Gutfield, Amon (2002). American Exceptionalism: The Effects of Plenty on the American Experience. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1903900085.
Levenstein, Harvey (2003). Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23439-1.
Holloway, Joseph E (2005). Africanisms in American Culture (2nd ed.). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34479-4.
Johnson, Fern L (1999). Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. ISBN 0-8039-5912-5.
Kennedy, Paul (1989). The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage. ISBN 0679720197.
McDuffie, Jerome; Piggrem, Gary Wayne; Woodworth, Steven E. (2005). U.S. History Super Review. Piscataway, New Jersey: Research & Education Association. ISBN 0-7386-0070-9.
Meyers, Jeffrey (1999). Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Da Capo. ISBN 0-306-80890-0.
Morrison, Michael A (1999). Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4796-8.
Raskin, James B (2003). Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court Vs. the American People. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93439-7.
Russell, David Lee (2005). The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0783-2.
Scheb, John M; Scheb II, John M. (2002). An Introduction to the American Legal System. Florence, Kentucky: Delmar. ISBN 0-7668-2759-3.
Schlosser, Eric (2002). Fast Food Nation. New York: Perennial. ISBN 0060938455.
Schrecker, Ellen (1998). Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-77470-7.
Smith, Andrew F (2004). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515437-1.
Wright, Gavin; Czelusta, Jesse (2007). "Resource-Based Growth Past and Present". In Daniel Lederman and William Maloney (ed.). Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor Destiny. World Bank Press. ISBN 0821365452.

External links

Wikimedia Atlas of United States

White House
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 12, 2006. Retrieved July 10, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Senate
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 25, 2006. Retrieved October 26, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on October 26, 2006. Retrieved November 14, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Video with photos of cities of the United States

Geographic location
Pacific Ocean	Canada	Atlantic Ocean
Pacific Ocean	United States	Atlantic Ocean
Mexico	Mexico	Gulf of Mexico

[1] The traditional motto is E Pluribus Unum (Latin: "Out of many, one").

[2] English is the official language in 28 states, but no official language is recognized at the federal level. Spanish, Cajun French and Hawaiian are officially recognized by several states.

[7] According to the government agency of the United States Census Bureau, which is part of the Department of Commerce, the country has an area of 9,371,174 square kilometers, which places it as the fourth country in the world by area. By contrast, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its publication The World Factbook puts the area at 9,833,517 square kilometers,^[4] since it includes territorial waters and coastal areas, which would place the country in third position ahead of China. For its part, the Encyclopædia Britannica gives the figure of 9,522,055 km², placing it in fourth position.

[13] As well as AS, GU, MP, PR, UM and VI for its dependencies.

[14] Permanent member.

[16] The toponym "Estados Unidos" may be preceded by the article "los". If it is used preceded by the article, the verb goes in the plural and if, on the contrary, only "Estados Unidos" (without "los") is used, the verb goes in the singular form. Both forms are correct.^[10]

[17] "Estados Unidos", "EUA" and "EE. UU." in Spanish,^[10] and United States, USA, U.S.A., US or U.S. in English, are commonly used abbreviated forms of the official name. The Real Academia Española advises against the use in Spanish of these English-language forms.^[10] The government of the United States itself, on its official Spanish-language portal, uses the form EE. UU., this also being the most widely used in Spanish.

[3] "estadounidense". Diccionario de la lengua española (in español). Real Academia Española.

[4] "Diccionario de la lengua española - Americano" (in español). Real Academia Española. Retrieved August 1, 2014.

[5] "norteamericano". Diccionario de la lengua española (in español). Real Academia Española.

[superficie-6] 4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 ^4.4 ^4.5 CIA. "Estados Unidos - Geografía - Libro Mundial de Hechos" (in español). Retrieved February 6, 2017.

[8] "U.S. and World Population Clock". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 21, 2016.

[9] PDF Archived June 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Data from the 2010 United States census.

[10] United States Census Bureau (2010). "Resident Population Fecha: Population density". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 18, 2010. Retrieved December 23, 2010.

[IMF_GDP-11] 8.0 ^8.1 ^8.2 ^8.3 ^8.4 ^8.5 ^8.6 International Monetary Fund (2018). "United States". IMF.org. Retrieved September 26, 2018.

[IDH-12] UNDP (September 14, 2018). UNDP (ed.). "Human Development Indices and Indicators 2018 Statistical Update" (PDF). Retrieved September 15, 2018.

[DPD-15] 10.0 ^10.1 ^10.2 ^10.3 ^10.4 ^10.5 ^10.6 "Estados Unidos". Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (in español). Real Academia Española.

[DD-18] 11.0 ^11.1 ^11.2 ^11.3 Adams, J.Q.; Pearlie Strother-Adams (2001). Dealing with Diversity. Chicago: Kendall/Hunt. ISBN 0-7872-8145-X.

[19] "Data and Statistics". International Monetary Fund (IMF). October 8, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2014.

[FOOTNOTEDull2003352-20] Dull 2003, p. 352.

[21] Maddison, Angus (2006). "Historical Statistics for the World Economy". GGDC.net. Retrieved June 26, 2010.

[22] Cohen, Eliot A. (2004). "History and the Hyperpower". Foreign Affairs.com. Retrieved June 26, 2010.

[23] BBC News (2008). "Country Profile: United States of America". BBC.co.uk. Retrieved June 26, 2010.

[24] "Cartographer Put 'America' on the Map 500 years Ago". USA Today.com. 2007. Retrieved June 26, 2010.

[25] "The Charters of Freedom". Archives.gov. 2010. Retrieved June 26, 2010.

[26] Real Academia Española (2005). "Yanqui". Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (in español). Retrieved June 26, 2010.

[27] "§ 3.2.5.2 Uso de la tilde y las mayúsculas en las abreviaturas". Ortografía de la lengua española (in español). Real Academia Española. p. 576. Retrieved June 5, 2017.

[28] National Museum of Natural History (2004). "Peopling of Americas". Anthropology.si.edu. Archived from the original on November 28, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[29] Meltzer, D.J. (1992). "How Columbus Sickened the New World: Why Were Native Americans So Vulnerable to the Diseases European Settlers Brought With Them?". New Scientist (1842): 38. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[30] Butler, James Davie (1896). "British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies". American Historical Review 2. National Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on September 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[FOOTNOTERusell200512-31] Rusell 2005, p. 12.

[FOOTNOTEBlackburn1998460-32] Blackburn 1998, p. 460.

[33] "Ficha de la Declaración de Independencia". ArteHistoria (in español). 2010. Archived from the original on February 27, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[enmiendas-34] 27.0 ^27.1 ^27.2 ^27.3 ^27.4 ^27.5 Department of State (2008). "Enmiendas a la Constitución comentadas". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[35] Iglesia Evangélica del Pueblo Nuevo. "Dirigentes del Segundo Gran Despertar". Iglesia Pueblo Nuevo.es (in español). Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[expansion-36] 29.0 ^29.1 ^29.2 ^29.3 ^29.4 ^29.5 Department of State (2009). "Los estados de Estados Unidos". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEMorrison199913–21-37] Morrison 1999, pp. 13–21.

[38] "Bisonte Americano". Zoo Web Plus.com (in español). 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[39] Department of State (2009). "Galería de fotos - Momentos claves de la Guerra Civil en EE. UU". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[40] National Census Bureau. "1860 Census" (PDF). Census.gov. p. 7. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEDe_Rosa1997266-41] De Rosa 1997, p. 266.

[42] John Simkin. "Jim Crow Laws". Spartacus Schoolnet.co.uk. Archived from the original on May 10, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[43] Gates, John M. (2002). "War-Related Deaths in the Philippines". Pacific Historical Review. Archived from the original on June 29, 2014. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEFoner1991576-44] Foner 1991, p. 576.

[FOOTNOTEMcDuffie2005418-45] McDuffie 2005, p. 418.

[46] Department of State (2010). "De Hoover a Rossevelt: transición en un momento de crisis". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on February 28, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[47] Wayne Curtis, "Bootleg Paradise," American Heritage (2007). Retrieved June 26, 2011 (in English)

[48] Bill Ganzel (2003). "The Dust Bowl of the 1930s". Living History Farm.org. Archived from the original on June 29, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEKennedy1989358-49] Kennedy 1989, p. 358.

[50] Department of State (2005). "The United States and the Founding of the United Nations, August 1941–October 1945". State.gov. Archived from the original on October 23, 2005. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[51] Pacific War Research Society (2006). Japan's Longest Day. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 4-7700-2887-3.

[corea-52] 45.0 ^45.1 Department of State (2008). "La Guerra Fría, el conflicto de Corea y Vietnam". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[53] Schrecker (1998), p. 13.

[54] Fried (1990), p. 187.

[55] Unidad Editorial Internet (2009). "1969: El hombre llega a la Luna". El Mundo.es (in español). Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[56] Nobel Foundation (1964). "Martin Luther King - Biography". Nobel Prize.org. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[57] "El escándalo que acabó con la carrera de Richard Nixon". El Mundo.es (in español). 2006. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[58] Voyce, Bill (2006). "Why the Expansion of the 1990s Lasted So Long". State.ia.us. Archived from the original on October 6, 2006. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[59] Brinkley, Douglas (2001). 36 Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis. Times Books. ISBN 0-8050-6850-3.

[60] "Many Europeans Oppose War in Iraq". USA Today.com. 2003. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[61] Springford, John (2003). "Old and 'New' Europeans United: Public Attitudes Towards the Iraq War and US Foreign Policy" (PDF). CER.org.uk. Centre for European Reform. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 28, 2004. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[62] La Nación (2010). "Más de US$ 125 mil millones se pagaron por daños naturales". Sector Productivo.com.py (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2011. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[63] Gallego Espina, José; Jorrín, Javier G. "Trump gana las elecciones de Estados Unidos y promete gobernar para todos" (in español). El Español. Retrieved November 10, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[64] "50 muertos en la peor matanza en EE UU desde el 11-S" (in español). El País. Retrieved June 13, 2016.

[65] Peñaloza, Marisa (January 6, 2021). "Trump Supporters Storm U.S. Capitol, Clash with Police". npr.org. NPR. Retrieved January 16, 2021.

[FOOTNOTEScheb20026-66] Scheb 2002, p. 6.

[constitucion-67] 60.0 ^60.1 ^60.2 ^60.3 ^60.4 ^60.5 ^60.6 Department of State (2008). "La Constitución de Estados Unidos con notas explicativas". America.gov (in español). Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[68] Oscar Rodríguez Díaz (2004). "El proceso electoral en Estados Unidos". El Habanero.com (in español). Archived from the original on September 24, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2010.

[69] Government of Nebraska (2010). "History of Nebraska Unicameral". Nebraska Legislature.gov. Archived from the original on July 28, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010.

[70] Department of State (2010). "Websites of U.S. embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions". US Embassy.gov. Retrieved July 2, 2010.

[oecd-71] OECD. "Aid to poor countries slips further as governments tighten budgets".

[72] "Ayuda al desarrollo en 2011". Archived from the original on September 24, 2014. Retrieved October 23, 2016.

[73] "The Air Force in Facts and Figures (Armed Forces Manpower Trends, End Strength in Thousands)" (PDF). Air Force Magazine.com. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 13, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[74] "What does selective service provide for America?". Selective Service System. Archived from the original on September 15, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2015.

[75] Department of Defense (2008). "Base Structure Report, Fiscal Year 2008 Baseline" (PDF). Defense.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 28, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[DoDStrength-76] Global Policy Forum (March 31, 2008). "Department of Defense Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309A)" (PDF). Global Security.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)

[77] Ikenberry, G. John (2004). "Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order". CAS.sc.org. Archived from the original on June 13, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[78] Kreisler, Harry and Chalmers Johnson (2004). "Conversations with History". Berkeley.edu. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[79] Perlo-Freeman, Solmirano, Sam, Carina (2013). "Trends in world military expenditure, 2013". SIPRI. Archived from the original on January 4, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[80] "The 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2012" (PDF). SIPRI.org. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 10, 2014. Retrieved October 5, 2013.

[81] "Monthly Budget Review—Summary for Fiscal Year 2013" (PDF). United States Congress. November 7, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2015.

[82] "FY 2010 Budget Request Summary Justification" (PDF). Defense.gov. Department of Defense. 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 30, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[83] Bumiller, Elisabeth (2010). "Troops in Afghanistan Now Outnumber Those in Iraq". New York Times.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[84] Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (2010). "Operation Iraqi Freedom". iCasualities.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[85] Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (2010). "Operation Enduring Freedom". iCasualities.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[NDEU-86] 79.0 ^79.1 Gellman, Miller, Greg, Barton (August 29, 2013). "The Black Budget: Funding the intelligence program". Washington Post. Retrieved March 10, 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[87] "Federal Agencies & Commissions". The White House. Archived from the original on March 9, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.

[88] Priest, Arkin, Dana, William M. (2010). "A hidden world, growing beyond control". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 10, 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[FOOTNOTERaskin200336–38-89] Raskin 2003, pp. 36–38.

[90] Lubowski, Ruben, Marlow Vesterby, and Shawn Bucholtz (2006). "AREI Chapter 1.1: Land Use". USDA.gov. Archived from the original on February 17, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[91] United Nations Statistics Division (2007). "Population by Sex, Rate of Population Increase, Surface Area and Density" (PDF). Demographic Yearbook 2007 (in English and français). Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[92] "United States". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[93] Yahoo Education (2005). "World Factbook: Area Country Comparison Table". Yahoo.com. Archived from the original on November 16, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[94] O'Hanlon, Larry (2007). "Supervolcano: What's Under Yellowstone?". Discovery.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[95] Perkins, Sid (2002). "Tornado Alley, USA". Science News.org. Archived from the original on July 1, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[96] Morin, Nancy (2008). "Vascular Plants of the United States" (PDF). Fungal Jungal.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 6, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[97] "Global Significance of Selected U.S. Native Plant and Animal Species". SDI.gov. 2001. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[98] Smithsonian Institution. "Numbers of Insects (Species and Individuals)". SI.edu. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[FL-99] 92.0 ^92.1 Republican Study Committee (2005). "Federal Land and Buildings Ownership" (PDF). House.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[100] "National Park Service Announces Addition of Two New Units". NPS.gov. David Barna, Elaine Sevy. 2006. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[101] World Economic Forum (2010). "Table 4: The Global Competitiveness Index 2009-2010 Rankings and 2008-2009 Comparisons" (PDF). WE Forum.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 30, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[102] Martin Crutsinger (2009). "May trade deficit falls to lowest in almost 10 years". USA Today.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[103] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 1267—U.S. Exports and General Imports by Selected SITC Commodity Groups". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[104] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Top Ten Countries with which the U.S. Trades". Census.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[105] "Japan surpasses China as largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities". Xinhuanet.com. 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[106] The world Factbook: United States

[107] The world Factbook: United States

[108] Christopher Chantrill (2010). "Government Spending Overview". US Government Spending.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[Econ-109] 102.0 ^102.1 Department of State. "USA Economy in Brief". State.gov. Archived from the original on March 12, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[110] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 724—Number of Tax Returns, Receipts, and Net Income by Type of Business and Industry: 2005". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[111] United States Census Bureau (2008). "Table 964—Gross Domestic Product in Current and Real (2000) Dollars by Industry: 2006". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[112] CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Oil (Production)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[113] CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Oil (Consumption)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[114] Energy Information Administration (2009). "Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries". DOE.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[115] U.S. Grains Council. "Corn". Grains.org. Archived from the original on January 12, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[116] Sean Charles (2007). "Soybean Demand Continues to Drive Production". World watch.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[117] NYSE Euronext (2007). "New Release/Ultra Petroleum Corp.,". NYSE.com. Archived from the original on April 9, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[118] "Sony, LG, Wal-Mart among Most Extendible Brands". Cheskin.com. 2005. Archived from the original on March 12, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[119] Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010). "Employment Situation Summary". BLS.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[120] Fuller, Thomas (2005). "In the East, Many EU Work Rules Don't Apply". International Herald Tribune.com. Retrieved October 4, 2013.

[EDBI-121] World Bank. "Doing Business in the United States (2006)". Doing Business.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[122] Dobbs, Lou (2003). "The Perils of Productivity". U.S. News.comt. Archived from the original on April 11, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[123] University of Groningen (2009). "Groningen Growth and Development Centre". Conference Board.com. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

[124] Gumbel, Peter (2004). "Escape from Tax Hell". Time.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.^{[dead link]}

[125] Federal Highway Administration (2006). "Interstate FAQ (Question #3)". FHWTA.dot.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[cia-126] 119.0 ^119.1 ^119.2 ^119.3 CIA (2010). "United States". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[127] Eurostat Press Office (2006). "Car Free Day 2006: Nearly One Car per Two Inhabitants in the EU25 in 2004". Europa.eu. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[128] "Household, Individual, and Vehicle Characteristics". BTS.gov. Department of Transportation. 2001. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[129] "Daily Passenger Travel". BTS.gov. Department of Transportation. 2001. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[130] International Air Transport Association (2010). "Scheduled Passengers Carried". IATA.org. Archived from the original on January 18, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[131] Airports Council International (2008). "Passenger Traffic 2008 Final". Airports.org. Archived from the original on April 29, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[132] Government Accountability Office (2006). "Intercity Passenger Rail: National Policy and Strategies Needed to Maximize Public Benefits from Federal Expenditures". GAO.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[133] Renne, John L. and Jan S. Wells (2003). "Emerging European-Style Planning in the United States: Transit-Oriented Development" (PDF). Rutgers.edu. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 12, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[134] Pucher, John, and Lewis Dijkstra (2000). "Making Walking and Cycling Safer: Lessons from Europe" (PDF). Transalt.org. Archived from the original (pdf) on February 16, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[135] Department of Energy (2007). "Diagram 1: Energy Flow, 2007" (PDF). EIA Annual Energy Review 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[136] CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Oil (Consumption)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[137] CIA (2007). "Rank Order—Natural Gas (Consumption)". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on January 20, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[BPReview-138] British Petroleum (2007). "BP Statistical Review of World Energy". British Petroleum.com. Archived from the original (XLS) on February 6, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[139] "Atomic Renaissance". Economist.com. 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010. Subscription required.

[POP-140] United States Census Bureau (2016). "U.S. POPClock Projection". Census.gov. Retrieved July 9, 2016. Figure updated automatically.

[141] Camarota, Steven A. and Karen Jensenius (2008). "Homeward Bound: Recent Immigration Enforcement and the Decline in the Illegal Alien Population" (PDF). CIS.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[PRC-142] 135.0 ^135.1 Population Resource Center (2000). "Executive Summary: A Population Perspective of the United States". PRCDC.org. Archived from the original on June 4, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[143] CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Birth Rate". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[144] Randall Monger (2009). "U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2009" (PDF). DHS.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[145] Department of Homeland Security (2009). "Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status by Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Years 1998 to 2009" (XLS). DHS.org. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[An2000-146] 139.0 ^139.1 ^139.2 ^139.3 United States Census Bureau (2004). "Ancestry 2000" (PDF). Census.gov. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[Cen2008-147] 140.0 ^140.1 ^140.2 ^140.3 United States Census Bureau (2009). "Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009 (NC-EST2009-03)". Census.gov. Archived from the original on April 19, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[CB2007-148] United States Census Bureau (2008). "B03001. Hispanic or Latino Origin by Specific Origin". 2008 American Community Survey. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[149] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Tables 41 and 42—Native and Foreign-Born Populations" (PDF). Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[150] United States Census Bureau (2008). "An Older and More Diverse Nation by Midcentury". Census.gov. Archived from the original on July 24, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[151] United States Census Bureau (2000). "United States—Urban/Rural and Inside/Outside Metropolitan Area (GCT-P1. Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density: 2000)". Census.gov. Archived from the original on January 17, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[PopEstBigCities-152] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 1: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places Over 100,000, Ranked by July 1, 2009 Population: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009" (PDF). 2009 Population Estimates. Hawaii.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[PopEstMSA-153] 146.0 ^146.1 United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 5. Estimates of Population Change for Metropolitan Statistical Areas and Rankings: July 1, 2008 to July 1, 2009" (PDF). Hawaii.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 9, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[154] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Raleigh and Austin are Fastest-Growing Metro Areas". Census.gov. Archived from the original on December 25, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[155] Rosenstone, Steven J. (2009). "Public Education for the Common Good". UMN.edu. Archived from the original on August 1, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[156] Department of Education. "Ages for Compulsory School Attendance...". Ed.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[157] Department of Education (2009). "Statistics About Non-Public Education in the United States". Ed.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[158] United States Census Bureau. "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2003" (PDF). Census.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[159] United Nations Development Programme (2005). "Human Development Indicators" (PDF). UNDP.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 20, 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[160] "Countries with Most Universities". Aneki.com. 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.

[161] "Countries with the Most University Students". Aneki.com. 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.

[162] "Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2010". ARWU.org. 2010. Archived from the original on September 10, 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.

[163] "Ninguna universidad española entre las cien mejores del mundo". El Comercio.com (in español). 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.

[164] CSIC (2010). "Ranking Mundial de Universidades en la Web: Top 8000 Ranking Mundial". Web o Metrics.info (in español). Archived from the original on August 6, 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2010.

[165] United States Census Bureau (2009). "Table 52—Languages Spoken at Home by Language: 2009" (PDF). Census.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[166] Elizabeth B. Welles (2002). "Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Learning" (PDF). ADFL.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 3, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[ILW-167] Feder, Jody (2007). "English as the Official Language of the United States—Legal Background and Analysis of Legislation in the 110th Congress" (PDF). Ilw.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[168] Government of the State of Hawaii (1978). "The Constitution of the State of Hawaii, Article XV, Section 4". Hawaii.gov. Archived from the original on July 5, 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[169] Legislative Counsel of the State of California. "California Code of Civil Procedure, Section 412.20(6)". Leg Info.ca.gov. Archived from the original on July 22, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[170] Judicial Council of the State of California (2010). "California Judicial Council Forms". Court Info.ca.gov. Archived from the original on June 4, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[171] Pew Research Center (2002). "Among Wealthy Nations…U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion". Pew Global.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[Pew-172] 165.0 ^165.1 ^165.2 ^165.3 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (October 23, 2008). "Religious Composition of the U.S." (pdf). U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Retrieved June 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

[ARIS-173] 166.0 ^166.1 ^166.2 CUNY Graduate Center (2001). "American Religious Identification Survey". CUNY.edu. Archived from the original on June 6, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[174] Green, John C. "The American Religious Landscape and Political Attitudes: A Baseline for 2004" (PDF). UA Kron.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 29, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[175] National Center for Health Statistics (2006). "Health, United States, 2006" (PDF). CDC.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[176] Eberstadt, Nicholas and Hans Groth (2007). "Healthy Old Europe". New York Times.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[177] MacAskill, Ewen (2007). "US Tumbles Down the World Ratings List for Life Expectancy". Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[178] CIA (2010). "Rank Order—Infant Mortality Rate". The World Factbook. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[179] "Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Adults: United States, 2003-2004". CDC.gov. National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[180] Elvira Isganaitis and Robert H. Lustig (2005). "Fast Food, Central Nervous System Insulin Resistance, and Obesity". AHA Journals.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[181] Sue Aldford and Deb Hauser (2009). "Adolescent Sexual Health in Europe and the U.S.—Why the Difference?". Advocates for Youth.org. Archived from the original on March 26, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[182] Strauss, Lilo T.; et al. (2006). "Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2003". CDC.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

[183] "The U.S. Healthcare System: The Best in the World or Just the Most Expensive?" (PDF). U Maine.edu. University of Maine. 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[184] Groves, Trish (February 2008). "Stronger European Medical Research". British Medical Journal. 336 (7640): 341–342. doi:10.1136/bmj.39489.505208.80. ISSN 0959-8138.

[185] Guy David (2005). "The Convergence between For-Profit and Nonprofit Hospitals in the United States" (PDF). AEA Web.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2010.

[186] Avery Comarow (2010). "Best Hospitals 2010-11: The Honor Roll". US News.com. Retrieved November 16, 2010.

[CDC_H-187] National Center for Health Statistics (2009). "Health, United States, 2009" (PDF). CDC.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[CBPP-188] Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (2006). "Poverty Remains Higher, and Median Income for Non-Elderly Is Lower, Than When Recession Hit Bottom: Poor Performance Unprecedented for Four-Year Recovery Period". CBPP.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)

[189] Abelson, Reed (2008). "Ranks of Underinsured Are Rising, Study Finds". New York Times.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[190] Blewett, Lynn A.; et al. (2006). "How Much Health Insurance Is Enough? Revisiting the Concept of Underinsurance". Medical Care Research and Review. 63 (6): 663–700. doi:10.1177/1077558706293634. ISSN 1077-5587. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

[191] Park, Madison (2009). "45,000 American Deaths Associated with Lack of Insurance". CNN.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[192] Fahrenthold, David A. (2006). "Mass. Bill Requires Health Coverage". Washington Post.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[193] "Estados Unidos - las ciudades más importantes". World Gazetteer.com (in español). 2010. Retrieved June 29, 2010.

[194] "U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, Who Governs & What They Do". chiff.com. Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[195] Plea Bargains Findlaw.com

[196] Interview with Judge Michael McSpadden Interview on PBS, April 3, 2014

[197] "Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics". U.S Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved April 3, 2014.^{[dead link]}

[198] "Crime in the United States, 2011". FBI '(Uniform Crime Statistics—Murder)'. Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[199] "UNODC Homicide Statistics". United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[200] Lois Beckett; Kenan Davis; Aliza Aufrichtig (September 26, 2016). "Murders up 10.8% in biggest percentage increase since 1971, FBI data shows". The Guardian. Retrieved February 25, 2017.

[201] Alexia Cooper; Erica L. Smith (November 2011). "Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. pp. 3, 12. Retrieved February 25, 2017.

[202] "Eighth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2001-2002)" (PDF). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). March 31, 2005. Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[203] "Homicide, Suicide, and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Compa ... : Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery". Journals.lww.com. doi:10.1097/TA.0b013e3181dbaddf. Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[204] Simpson, Ian (May 2, 2013). "Maryland becomes latest U.S. state to abolish death penalty". Yahoo! News. Reuters. Retrieved April 3, 2014.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)

[205] "Searchable Execution Database". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[206] "Executions Around the World". Death Penalty Information Center. 2010. Retrieved April 3, 2014.

[SchmidtShelley2008-207] Schmidt, Steffen W.; Shelley, Mack C.; Bardes, Barbara A. (2008). American Government & Politics Today. Cengage Learning. p. 591. ISBN 978-0-495-50228-9.

[208] Walmsley, Roy (2005). "World Prison Population List" (PDF). King's College London, International Centre for Prison Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 3, 2014. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; June 28, 2007 suggested (help)

[BarkanBryjak2011-209] Barkan, Steven E.; Bryjak, George J. (2011). Fundamentals of Criminal Justice: A Sociological View. Jones & Bartlett. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-4496-5439-9.

[HRVC-210] 203.0 ^203.1 Peereda, Cristina F. (March 31, 2010). "Estados Unidos busca reinventar su sistema penitenciario" (in español). Periodismo humano. Retrieved October 26, 2014.

[211] Lauren E. Glaze; Erinn J. Herberman (December 2013). "Correctional Populations in the United States, 2012" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Retrieved February 25, 2017.

[IadicolaShupe2012-212] Iadicola, Peter; Shupe, Anson (October 26, 2012). Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 456. ISBN 978-1-4422-0949-7.

[DeLisiConis2011-213] DeLisi, Matt; Conis, Peter John (2011). American Corrections: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice. Jones & Bartlett. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-4496-4540-3.

[ClearCole2008b-214] Clear, Todd R.; Cole, George F.; Reisig, Michael Dean (2008). American Corrections. Cengage Learning. p. 485. ISBN 978-0-495-55323-6.

[Mears2010-215] Mears, Daniel P. (2010). American Criminal Justice Policy: An Evaluation Approach to Increasing Accountability and Effectiveness. Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-521-76246-5.

[216] "Más de 80.000 presos incomunicados durante años en EEUU" (in español). Cuatro. October 11, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2014.

[217] Urbina, Ian (May 24, 2014). "Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor". New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2014.

[NYTMP-218] 211.0 ^211.1 "Presos del capitalismo: Las cárceles en EE. UU. son una fuente de mano de obra barata" (in español). RT actualidad. December 22, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2014.

[Society_in_Focus-219] Thompson, William; Hickey, Joseph (2005). Society in Focus. Boston: Pearson. ISBN 0-205-41365-X.

[FOOTNOTEFiorina200097-220] Fiorina 2000, p. 97.

[FOOTNOTEHolloway200518–38-221] Holloway 2005, pp. 18–38.

[FOOTNOTEJohnson1999116-222] Johnson 1999, p. 116.

[223] Geert Hofstede. "Individualism". Clearly Cultural.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEGutfield200265-224] Gutfield 2002, p. 65.

[225] Zweig, Michael (2004). What's Class Got To Do With It, American Society in the Twenty-First Century. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801488990.

[226] Education Resources Information Center. "Effects of Social Class and Interactive Setting on Maternal Speech". Ed.gov. Archived from the original on April 20, 2008. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[227] Ehrenreich, Barbara (1989). Fear of Falling, The Inner Life of the Middle Class. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060973331.

[228] Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann (2006). "Women's Advances in Education". Columbia.edu. Archived from the original on April 4, 2008. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[229] United States Census Bureau. "Table 55—Marital Status of the Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1990 to 2007" (pdf). Census.gov. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[230] Eichar, Douglas (1989). Occupation and Class Consciousness in America. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313261113.

[231] O'Keefe, Kevin (2005). The Average American. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 158648270X.

[232] "Ever Higher Society, Ever Harder to Ascend: Whatever Happened to the Belief That Any American Could Get to the Top". Economist.com. 2004. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[233] Blanden, Jo, Paul Gregg and Stephen Malchin (2005). "Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America" (PDF). Sutton Trust.com. Archived from the original (pdf) on March 29, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[234] Brown, Milton W (1988). The Story of the Armory Show. New York: Abbeville. ISBN 0-89659-795-4.

[235] Village Voice Media (2001). "100 Best Films". Film Site.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[236] British Film institute (2002). "Sight and Sound Top Ten Poll 2002". BFI.org.uk. Archived from the original on April 8, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[237] Unesco (2000). "World Culture Report 2000 Calls for Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage". Unesco.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEDaniels199811-238] Daniels 1998, p. 11.

[239] "Media Statistics > Television Viewing by Country". Nation Master.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[240] "Broadband and Media Consumption". eMarketer.com. 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[241] "TV Fans Spill into Web Sites". eMarketer.com. 2007. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[alexa-topsitesus-242] Alexa (2010). "Top 500 Global Sites". Alexa.com. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEBiddle2001IX-243] Biddle 2001, p. IX.

[FOOTNOTEBloom19999-244] Bloom 1999, p. 9.

[FOOTNOTEMeyers1999139-245] Meyers 1999, p. 139.

[IFT-246] Klapthor, James N. (2003). "What, When, and Where Americans Eat in 2003". IFT.org. Retrieved June 28, 2010. Subscription required

[FOOTNOTESmith2004131–132-247] Smith 2004, pp. 131–132.

[FOOTNOTEHarvey2003154–155-248] Harvey 2003, pp. 154–155.

[249] Elvira Isganaitis and Robert H Lustig (2005). "Fast Food, Central Nervous System Insulin Resistance, and Obesity". AHA Journals.org. American Heart Association. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[250] Department of Agriculture. "Let's Eat Out: Americans Weigh Taste, Convenience, and Nutrition" (PDF). USDA.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 20, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[WDL-251] "Cuaderno del laboratorio de Alexander Graham Bell, 1875-1876". World Digital Library (in español). 1875–1876. Retrieved July 23, 2013.

[252] Benedetti, François (2003). "100 Years Ago, the Dream of Icarus Became Reality". FAI.org. Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). Archived from the original on January 13, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[253] United States Census Bureau (2008). "Research and Development (R&D) Expenditures by Source and Objective: 1970 to 2004". Census.gov. Archived from the original (XLS) on January 2, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[254] MacLeod, Donald (2006). "Britain Second in World Research Rankings". Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[255] "Media Statistics > Televisions (per capita) by Country". Nation Master.com. 2003. Archived from the original on February 1, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[256] CIA (December 2003). "Media Statistics > Personal Computers (per capita) by Country". NationMaster.

[257] CIA (2003). "Media Statistics > Radios (per capita) by Country". Nation Master.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[258] "Download 2007 Digital Fact Pack". Advertising Age. June 10, 2007. Retrieved June 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)

[259] International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (2006). "Situación global de los cultivos transgénicos/GM comercializados: 2006" (PDF). ISAAA.org (in español). Retrieved June 27, 2010.

[260] El fútbol es el quinto deporte más popular en USA según encuesta

[261] Alyssa Hall (2010). "Football Expands Lead Over Baseball as America's Favorite Sport" (PDF). Harris Interactive.com. Archived from the original (pdf) on June 1, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.

[262] Maccambridge, Michael (2004). America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50454-0.

[263] International Olympic Committee. "United States of America". Retrieved June 23, 2019.

[nota 1]

[nota 2]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[nota 3]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[nota 4]

[nota 5]

[nota 6]

[nota 7]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43]

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

[48]

[49]

[50]

[51]

[52]

[53]

[54]

[55]

[56]

[57]

[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

[63]

[64]

[65]

[66]

[67]

[68]

[69]

[70]

[71]

[72]

[73]

[74]

[75]

[76]

[77]

[78]

[79]

[80]

[81]

[82]

[83]

[84]

[85]

[86]

[87]

[88]

[89]

[90]

[91]

[92]

[93]

United States of America
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: In God we trust^{[nota 1]}
Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner File:Star Spangled Banner instrumental.ogg

Capital	Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°02′W / 38.883°N 77.033°W / 38.883; -77.033
Largest city	New York 40°43′N 74°00′W / 40.717°N 74.000°W / 40.717; -74.000
Official languages	None at the federal level^{[nota 2]}
Demonyms	American (Spanish: estadounidense,^[1]^[2] norteamericano, -a,^[3] americano, -a)
Government	Federal constitutional republic

• President	Donald Trump
• Vice President	Mike Pence

Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain

• Declared	July 4, 1776
• Recognized	September 3, 1783

Area
• Total	9,147,593 km² (3,531,905 sq mi)^[4]^{[nota 3]} (4th)
• Water (%)	2.2
• Borders	12,048 km^[4]
• Coastline	19,924 km^[4]
Population
• 2017 estimate	325,719,178^[5]
• 2010 census	309,349,689^[6] (3rd)
• Density	32.8^[7]/km² (85.0/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2018 estimate
• Total	USD 20.413 trillion^[8] (2nd)
• Per capita	USD 62,670^[8]
GDP (nominal)	2018 estimate
• Total	USD 20.413 trillion^[8] (1st)
• Per capita	USD 62,670^[8]
HDI (2017)	0.924^[9] very high (13th)
Currency	United States dollar ($) (USD)
Time zone	UTC−5 to UTC−10
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 to UTC−10
Calling code	+1
ISO 3166 code	US
Internet TLD	.us .mil .gov
ISO code: 840 / USA / US^{[nota 4]}. Radio prefix: WAA–WZZ. Vehicle registration: USA. Aircraft registration: N. Member of: OAS, UN, NATO, APEC, OECD, OSCE, NAFTA, G-8, G-20, UN Security Council^{[nota 5]}

Largest cities of the United States
New York Los Angeles Chicago		City	State	Population		City	State	Population	Houston Phoenix Philadelphia
	1	New York	New York	8,459,026	11	Detroit	Michigan	901,160
	2	Los Angeles	California	3,878,715	12	Jacksonville	Florida	822,401
	3	Chicago	Illinois	2,878,948	13	San Francisco	California	817,411
	4	Houston	Texas	2,307,883	14	Indianapolis	Indiana	803,930
	5	Phoenix	Arizona	1,635,783	15	Austin	Texas	792,778
	6	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	1,445,993	16	Columbus	Ohio	768,662
	7	San Antonio	Texas	1,402,013	17	Fort Worth	Texas	751,149
	8	San Diego	California	1,309,749	18	Charlotte	North Carolina	723,514
	9	Dallas	Texas	1,304,930	19	Memphis	Tennessee	662,989
	10	San José	California	977,893	20	Baltimore	Maryland	632,410
	2010 estimate^[186]

Anonymous

Search