officially United States of America
Federal republic, North America.
It comprises 48 contiguous states occupying the mid-continent, Alaska at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Area, including the U.S. share of the Great Lakes : 3,675,031 sq mi (9,518,287 sq km). Population (2002 est.): 287,602,000. Capital: Washington, D.C. The population includes people of European and Middle Eastern ancestry, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians (Native Americans), and Alaska Natives. Languages: English (predominant), Spanish. Religions: Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam. Currency: U.S. dollar. The country's regions encompass mountains, plains, lowlands, and deserts. Mountain ranges include the Appalachian s, Rockies , Cascade s, and Sierra Nevada . The lowest point is Death Valley , Calif. The highest point is Alaska's Mount McKinley ; within the coterminous U.S. it is Mount Whitney , Calif. Chief rivers are the Mississippi system, the Colorado , the Columbia , and the Rio Grande . The Great Lakes , the Great Salt Lake , and Lake Okeechobee are the largest lakes. The U.S. is among the world's leading producers of several minerals, including copper, silver, zinc, gold, coal, petroleum, and natural gas; it is the chief exporter of food. Its manufactures include iron and steel, chemicals, electronic equipment, and textiles. Other important industries are tourism, dairying, livestock raising, fishing, and lumbering. The U.S. is a republic with two legislative houses; its head of state and government is the president. The territory was originally inhabited for several thousand years by numerous American Indian peoples who had probably emigrated from Asia. European exploration and settlement from the 16th century began displacement of the Indians. The first permanent European settlement, by the Spanish, was at Saint Augustine , Fla., in 1565; the British settled Jamestown , Va. (1607); Plymouth , Mass. (1620); Maryland (1634); and Pennsylvania (1681). The British took New York, New Jersey, and Delaware from the Dutch in 1664, a year after the Carolinas had been granted to British noblemen. The British defeat of the French in 1763 (see French and Indian War ) assured British political control over its 13 colonies. Political unrest caused by British colonial policy culminated in the American Revolution (1775–83) and the Declaration of Independence (1776). The U.S. was first organized under the Articles of Confederation (1781), then finally under the Constitution (1787) as a federal republic. Boundaries extended west to the Mississippi River, excluding Spanish Florida. Land acquired from France by the Louisiana Purchase (1803) nearly doubled the country's territory. The U.S. fought the War of 1812 against the British and acquired Florida from Spain in 1819. In 1830 it legalized removal of American Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. Settlement expanded into the Far West in the mid-19th century, especially after the discovery of gold in California in 1848 (see gold rush ). Victory in the Mexican War (1846–48) brought the territory of seven more future states (including California and Texas) into U.S. hands. The northwestern boundary was established by treaty with Great Britain in 1846. The U.S. acquired southern Arizona by the Gadsden Purchase (1853). It suffered disunity during the conflict between the slavery-based plantation economy in the South and the free industrial and agricultural economy in the North, culminating in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery under the 13th Amendment. After Reconstruction (1865–77) the U.S. experienced rapid growth, urbanization, industrial development, and European immigration. In 1877 it authorized allotment of American Indian reservation land to individual tribesmen, resulting in widespread loss of land to whites. By the end of the 19th century, it had developed foreign trade and acquired outlying territories, including Alaska, Midway Island, the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Wake Island, American Samoa, the Panama Canal Zone, and the Virgin Islands. The U.S. participated in World War I in 1917–18. It granted suffrage to women in 1920 and citizenship to American Indians in 1924. The stock market crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression . The U.S. entered World War II after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941). The explosion by the U.S. of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and another on Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945), Japan, brought about Japan's surrender. Thereafter the U.S. was the military and economic leader of the Western world. In the first decade after the war, it aided the reconstruction of Europe and Japan and became embroiled in a rivalry with the Soviet Union known as the Cold War . It participated in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. In 1952 it granted autonomous commonwealth status to Puerto Rico. Racial segregation in schools was declared unconstitutional in 1954. Alaska and Hawaii were made states in 1959. In 1964 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and authorized U.S. entry into the Vietnam War . The mid-to late 1960s were marked by widespread civil disorder, including race riots and antiwar demonstrations. The U.S. accomplished the first manned lunar landing in 1969. All U.S. troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973. The U.S. led a coalition of forces against Iraq in the First Persian Gulf War (1991), sent troops to Somalia (1992) to aid starving populations, and participated in NATO air strikes against Serbian forces in the former Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999. In 1998 Pres. Bill Clinton became only the second president to be impeached by the House of Representatives; he was acquitted by the Senate in 1999. Administration of the Panama Canal was turned over to Panama in 1999. In 2000 George W. Bush became the first person since 1888 to be elected president by the electoral college despite having won fewer popular votes than his opponent, Al Gore . After the September 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001 destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon , the U.S. attacked Afghanistan's Taliban government for harbouring and refusing to extradite the mastermind of the terrorism , Osama {{link=bin Laden, Osama">bin Laden . In 2003 the U.S. and the United Kingdom attacked Iraq and overthrew the government of Saddām Ḥussein, which they had accused of aiding terrorists and possessing and developing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. As the U.S. attempted to help reconstruct and bring democracy to Iraq, it faced an escalating Iraqi insurgency. In 2004 Bush narrowly defeated Democratic challenger John Kerry to win a second presidential term.