CountryQ30· pop 424· linked from 437,029 articles

United States

Also known as the States, the United States of America, US of America, the US, the U.S., the US of A, U.S. of America, the US of America

The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic consisting of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's third-largest land area and third-largest population, exceeding 341 million.

OverviewAI-generated

The United States of America is a country in North America. Its capital is Washington, D.C. The nation has a population of 340,110,988 people. It covers an area of 9,525,067 square kilometers. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7. The Gini coefficient is 47.7

Synthesized by Vinony from 77 facts across 11 sources: Wikidata, Openweathermap, Open Meteo, World Bank, OpenStreetMap, Fred, Firecrawl, REST Countries, PubMed, Vinony graph, Geo. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Weather now

cached 140h ago

31°clear sky

39% 4.3 m/s OpenWeatherMap

7-day forecast

via Open-Meteo

Country

Capital: Washington, D.C.
Population: 340,110,988
Region: Americas · North America
Demonym: American
Currencies: USD ($)
Languages: English
Calling code: +1
Drives on: Right
Gini: 41.4 (2018)
FIFA code: USA
TLD: .us
Timezones: UTC-12:00 · +10 more
Borders: CAN, MEX

via REST Countries

Indicators · World Bank

GDP: $28.8T(2024)
Population: 340,110,988(2024)
Life expectancy: 78.9 yrs(2024)
Unemployment: 4.2 %(2025)
Urban population: 80.1 %(2024)
Internet users: 94.7 %(2024)
Forest area: 33.9 %(2023)
Renewable energy: 10.9 %(2021)

via World Bank Open Data · CC BY 4.0

Macro indicators · FRED

GDP: $31,856.26B(2026-01)
Unemployment: 4.3 %(2026-04)
CPI: 332.41(2026-04)
Fed funds rate: 3.64 %(2026-04)
M2: $22,804.5B(2026-04)

via FRED · St. Louis Fed

Place details

Region: Nebraska
Country: United States

via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames

Air quality

65US AQIModerate

PM2.5: 6.3 µg/m³
PM10: 13.4 µg/m³

As of 2026-08-10 19:00 · Open-Meteo

Wikipedia views (30d)

1,417,300 total

via Wikimedia Pageviews API

Research

17,727,948 papers

Chagas Disease, an Endemic Disease in the United States.ReviewEmerging infectious diseases · 2025Beatty NL, Hamer GL, Moreno-Peniche B et al.DOI: 10.3201/eid3109.241700
Global Perspective on Kidney Transplantation: United States.Kidney360 · 2021Wang JH, Hart ADOI: 10.34067/KID.0002472021
The Regulation of Dietary Supplements in the United States.The Senior care pharmacist · 2022Baldwin PDOI: 10.4140/TCP.n.2022.374
National health insurance, United States.Your Oklahoma Dental Association journal · 1975Jacobi HP
Sporotrichosis Cases in Commercial Insurance Data, United States, 2012-2018.Emerging infectious diseases · 2020Benedict K, Jackson BRDOI: 10.3201/eid2611.201693
Instant Admirals and the Plague of Politics in the United States Public Health Service: Back to the Future.Military medicine · 2017Carmona RDOI: 10.7205/MILMED-D-17-00039
There is something drastically wrong with the way we organize health care in the United States.The Birth gazette · 1993Gaskin IM
Fatal Case of Heartland Virus Disease Acquired in the Mid-Atlantic Region, United States.Emerging infectious diseases · 2023Liu S, Kannan S, Meeks M et al.DOI: 10.3201/eid2905.221488

via PubMed

Described at

United States - New World Encyclopedia

newworldencyclopedia.org →

The United States was born as a nation with the Declaration of Independence "Declaration of Independence (United States)") made by the 13 colonies on July 4, 1776. It was recognized internationally by the Treaty of Paris (1783) after the defeat of British forces in the Revolutionary War . Its roots, however, begin in the seventeenth century, when British, Dutch, and German colonists began migrating to North America seeking freedom and economic opportunity. They included Puritans, Quakers , and others who wanted to freely practice their religion; many of these devout men and women thought of America as God's "new Israel," a place to build a godly society that would become a beacon of hope to the world. This can be called America's Protestant root, one which has had a lasting impress on its identity. Equally important were the motives and hopes of people seeking economic freedom in a new land without the restrictions of European class society; they came, from the colonists of Jamestown (1609) to the later waves of immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The frontier would encourage this love of freedom and its endless possibilities; anyone, regardless of his or her background, could become wealthy by self-reliance and hard work under a system of free-market capitalism. America's identity is thus rooted in the power of these two universal ideas – the exemplary society and the land of freedom and opportunity. In this it is unique among nations, which by and large base their identity on ethnicity or tribe: Germany for Germans, Japan for Japanese, and so on. The idea of America transcending ethnicity made it a successful multi-ethnic society. 9 Challenges for the United States 9.1 Law and an Aging Society From the beginning, slavery and racism have been the nemesis of the United States. Slavery, considered essential by plantation owners in the South, was reluctantly permitted in the Constitution, even though it contradicted the universal rights that were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and violated the Protestant conscience (as expressed in the Abolitionist movement ). The struggle to establish full rights for all Americans would lead to a bloody Civil War (1861–1865) that abolished slavery, and a hundred years later the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. finally ended legal racial discrimination and set the U.S. on the course to becoming a genuinely color-blind society. In the nineteenth century, the U.S. became an industrial power . The nation became a center for invention and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving are electricity , the telephone , the automobile , television , computers , the Internet , nuclear power , air travel, space travel, and genetic engineering. With its new-found might and its native idealism, in the twentieth century America took a major role on the world stage as a defender of democracy in World War I , World War II , and the Cold War (which included the Korean and the Vietnam Wars). In the twenty-first century, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has been acting as the world's only superpower, and yet in the face of new challenges like the ambiguities of the War on Terrorism it is unsure of how to define its role in the world. The European colonization of the Americas began after Christopher Columbus (re)discovered them in 1492. There is speculation that Norwegian expeditions to North America led by Leif Eriksson c. 1000 C.E. and the Chinese to South America c. 1421 predated Columbus. Yet the saga of the United States began with Columbus's European discovery. In the seventeenth century, many British , Dutch , and German colonists began migrating to North America seeking freedom and economic opportunity. In the North, many colonists included Puritans, Quakers , and others who wanted to freely practice their religion. Some thought of it as God's new

Excerpt from a page describing this subject · 40,000 chars · not written by Vinony

Travel guide

Understand

The U.S. is large, complex, and diverse, with over 340 million people (2024) and distinct cultural and regional identities. Traveling the long distances between destinations can be time-consuming and expensive.

Get in

The United States has a strict and notoriously perplexing visa policy; nearly everyone needs a visa to visit the country, and obtaining an American visa of any kind can be a complicated and cumbersome affair.

Read up carefully before your visit, especially if you need to apply for a visa, and consult the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Travelers have been refused entry for many reasons, often trivial. During the application process, visitors to the U.S. are required to fully document mobile phone numbers, e-mail addresses and on-line identities they've used in the past five years.

Travelers under 18 years old may need a notarized letter of consent, preferably in English, from both their parents. If the border authorities aren't satisfied with this or with your travel plans and their documentation, you may get taken into the authorities' care for months until they can arrange your return.

New immigration practices were introduced in 2025 that resulted in the questionable detention of a few visitors with apparently valid travel documents at a port of entry. Detentions would last until the visitor departed on a flight back home. However, a few visitors have been detained for a few weeks before being allowed on a return flight. If you fear this problem (due to work permits, residing with an American spouse, problems on a prior visit or political opinions, for example), using an airport with pre-flight US Customs clearance airports would be safe: while you could still be denied en…

Get around

thumb|The Golden Gate Bridge in [[San Francisco|250x250px]]

The size of the U.S. and the distance separating major cities make air the dominant mode of long-distance travel for short-term travellers. If you have time, or are travelling a short distance, travel by car, bus, or rail can be far more interesting. Long-distance car travel, in particular, is a quintessentially American way to see the country. That said, do not underestimate the size of the country and the time it takes to travel between cities. For comparison, the distance between New York City and San Francisco is greater than that between Lisbon and Moscow.

See

thumb|250x250px|Portland Head Lighthouse, [[Portland (Maine)|Portland, New England ]]

The United States is extraordinarily diverse in its array of attractions. You will never run out of things to see; even if you think you've exhausted what one place has to offer, the next destination is only a road trip away.

The Great American Road Trip (see above) is the most traditional way to see a variety of sights; just hop in the car and cruise down the Interstates, stopping at the convenient roadside hotels and restaurants as necessary, and stopping at every interesting tourist trap along the way, until you reach your destination.

Indescribably beautiful scenery, history that reads like a screenplay, entertainment options that can last you for days, and some of the world's greatest architectureno matter what your pleasure, you can find it almost anywhere you look in the United States.

Eat

American cuisine is far more than the bland McDonald's-and-Coca-Cola monolith that international stereotypes make it out to be. It's as diverse as the American people themselves, sporting regional variations between different parts of the country and incorporating localized versions of ethnic dishes from around the world. Each region's cuisine developed based on their immigrant heritage and availability of ingredients at hand.

The variety of restaurants throughout the U.S. is remarkable. In a major city such as New York, it may be possible to find a restaurant from nearly every country in the world. In addition to independent restaurants, the U.S. possesses a singularly baffling array of fast food and casual chain restaurants; the sheer variety domestically is immense.

You will want to experience the foods of the region you are visiting: seafood in the Pacific Northwest and New England, steak and Tex-Mex in Texas, Cal-Mex in California, Creole and Cajun in Louisiana, barbecue (BBQ) and fried chicken throughout the South and Texas with each region having its unique sauces and preparations. New Mexico has its own cuisine typified by salsa verde (green chili sauce), and other states in the Southwest serve lots of Mexican foods and often use chilis and chili-based rubs and sauces outside of specifically Mexican contexts.

Fresh food availability is particularly evident in California, where organic food and "slow food" are prominent. In Florida, you can tour the orange groves f…

Drink

thumb|273x273px|America's native spirit, Bourbon

Drinking customs in America are as varied as the backgrounds of its many people. In the cities, you can find many places to drink.

Bars of every shape and kind exist in the United States, including British/Irish pubs and Mexican cantinas, those that specialize in a particular spirit, and bars with themes ranging from 1980s nostalgia to video gaming.

In the suburbs, alcohol is mainly served in restaurants rather than bars. In rural areas, the line between "bar" and "restaurant" is often blurred to the point of meaninglessness; with few establishments nearby, locals go to the same place for both meals and nightlife. A few states have dry counties, places where it is illegal to sell alcohol for local consumption; these are mostly in rural areas.

Sleep

It's generally wise to book ahead, directly with the provider when possible. In major cities, prices can vary wildly by season, if there are large conventions in town, etc.

Checking in almost always requires photo ID (driver's license or passport) and a credit or debit card matching the ID that will have a hold placed on it to cover any damages to the room. This applies even if you have prepaid for your stay online. It may take several days for the hold to clear after you check out.

By far the most common form of lodging in rural United States and along many Interstates is the motel. Providing inexpensive rooms to automotive travelers, most motels are clean and reasonable with a limited array of amenities: telephone, TV, bed, bathroom. Motel 6 () is a national chain with reasonable rates ($60–120, depending on the city). Super 8 Motels () provide reasonable accommodations throughout the country as well. Reservations are typically unnecessary, which is convenient since you don't have to arbitrarily interrupt a long road trip; you can simply drive until you're tired then find a room. Often they will also light up their sign outside to tell if there is vacancy, in which case you can simply walk in if they have one. However, some are used by adults looking to book a night for sex or illicit activities and many are located in undesirable areas.

thumb|249x249px|The Peninsula, [[New York City|New York]]

Business or extended-stay hotels are increasingly available across the count…

Stay safe

The United States is generally a safe country for tourists, but risks do exist.

Respect

thumb|313x313px|[[Black Rock City|Burning Man, Nevada ]]

Cultural norms vary significantly from region to region. In general, social etiquette tends to be more formal in the Northeast and the South, more casual on the West Coast, and somewhere between those two extremes in the Midwest.

Travel guide from Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA 4.0)

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Paleo-Indians first migrated from North Asia to North America at least 15,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations. European discovery of the Americas began in 1492, and British colonization followed with the 1607 settlement of Virginia, the first of the Thirteen Colonies. The American Enlightenment that spread throughout the colonies in the 18th century valued republicanism and liberalism. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation without parliamentary representation and the denial of other English rights evolved into the American Revolution, which led to the July 2, 1776, Lee Resolution formally declaring independence from Great Britain. This was followed two days later, on the Fourth of July, by the public release of the Declaration of Independence. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international recognition of the country's sovereignty. Rapid westward territorial expansion followed the purchase, settlement, and conquest of European and Indigenous-controlled territory. As more states were admitted into the Union, a North–South division over slavery led 11 Southern states to declare secession and join as the Confederate States of America in order to preserve slavery there. These states fought against the Union in the American Civil War of 1861–1865 but were defeated. With the United States' victory and reunification, slavery was abolished nationally. By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement during World War I. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II on the side of the Allies. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers, competing for ideological dominance and international influence during the Cold War. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 left it the world's sole superpower, although since the 2020s China has been widely cited as a potential rival.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “United States” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.