Several terms redirect here.

For other uses, see United States

(disambiguation), America (disambiguation), US (disambiguation), USA
(disambiguation), and The United States of America (disambiguation).

United States of America

Flag

Coat of arms

Motto: "In God We Trust"[1]

show
Other traditional mottos:[2]

Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"[3]

Duration: 1 minute and 19 seconds.1:19

Show globe (states and D.C. only) Show the

 U.S. and its territories Show territories with

boundaries of U.S. exclusive economic zone

Show all

Capital Washington, D.C.

38°53′N 77°1′W

Largest city New York City

40°43′N 74°0′W

Official langua English[a]

ges

Ethnic groups By race:

(2020)[6][7][8]
61.6% White
12.4% Black
6% Asian
1.1% Native American
0.2% Pacific Islander
10.2% two or more races
8.4% other
By origin:

81.3% non-Hispanic or Latino

18.7% Hispanic or Latino

Religion
(2023)[9] o 67% Christianity
 33% Prote
stantism
 22% Catho
licism
 11%
other Christian
 1% Mormo
nism
22% unaffiliated
2% Judaism
6% other religion
3% unanswered
 Demonym(s) American[10][b]

Government Federal presidential republic

• President Donald Trump
• Vice President JD Vance
• House Speaker Mike Johnson
• Chief Justice John Roberts

Legislature Congress
• Upper house Senate
• Lower house House of Representatives

Independence
from Great Britain
• Declaration July 4, 1776
• Confederation March 1, 1781
• Recognition September 3, 1783
• Constitution June 21, 1788

Area
• Total area 3,796,742 sq mi (9,833,520 km2)[12]
[c]
(3rd)
• Water (%) 7.0[11] (2010)
• Land area 3,531,905 sq mi (9,147,590 km2)
(3rd)

Population
• 2024 estimate 340,110,988[13]
• 2020 census 331,449,281[14][d] (3rd)
• Density 96.3/sq mi (37.2/km2) (180th)

GDP (PPP) 2025 estimate

• Total $30.507 trillion[15][e] (2nd)
• Per capita $89,105[15] (9th)

GDP (nominal) 2025 estimate

• Total $30.507 trillion[15] (1st)
• Per capita $89,105[15] (7th)

Gini (2023) 41.6[16][f]

medium inequality

HDI (2023) 0.938[17]

 very high (17th)

Currency U.S. dollar ($) (USD)

Time zone UTC−4 to −12, +10, +11

• Summer (DST) UTC−4 to −10[g]

Date format mm/dd/yyyy[h]

Calling code +1

ISO 3166 code US

Internet TLD .us[18]

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 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.
[j]
It is a megadiverse country, with the world's third-largest land area[c] and third-
largest population, exceeding 340 million.[k]

Paleo-Indians migrated from North Asia to North America over 12,000 years ago,
and formed various civilizations. Spanish colonization established Spanish
Florida in 1513, the first European colony in what is now the continental United
States. British colonization followed with the 1607 settlement of Virginia, the first
of the Thirteen Colonies. Forced migration of enslaved Africans supplied the
labor force to sustain the Southern Colonies' plantation economy. Clashes with
the British Crown over taxation and lack of parliamentary representation sparked
the American Revolution, leading to the Declaration of Independence on July 4,
1776. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international
recognition of U.S. sovereignty and fueled westward expansion,
dispossessing native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–
South division over slavery led the Confederate States of America to attempt
secession and fight the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. 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 in World War I. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941,
the U.S. entered World War II. 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 ended the
Cold War, leaving the U.S. as the world's sole superpower.
The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic
and representative democracy with three separate
branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national
legislature composed of the House of Representatives (a lower house based on
population) and the Senate (an upper house based on equal representation for
each state). Federalism grants substantial autonomy to the 50 states. In addition,
574 Native American tribes have sovereignty rights, and there are 326 Native
American reservations. Since the 1850s, the Democratic and Republican parties
have dominated American politics, while American values are based on a
democratic tradition inspired by the American Enlightenment movement.

A developed country, the U.S. ranks high in economic competitiveness,

innovation, and higher education. Accounting for over a quarter of nominal global
GDP, its economy has been the world's largest since about 1890. It is
the wealthiest country, with the highest disposable household income per
capita among OECD members, though its wealth inequality is highly pronounced.
Shaped by centuries of immigration, the culture of the U.S. is diverse
and globally influential. Making up more than a third of global military spending,
the country has one of the strongest militaries and is a designated nuclear state.
A member of numerous international organizations, the U.S. plays a major role in
global political, cultural, economic, and military affairs.

Etymology
Further information: Names of the United States, Demonyms for the United
States, United Colonies, and Naming of the Americas
Documented use of the phrase "United States of America" dates back to January
2, 1776. On that day, Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to
General George Washington, wrote a letter to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-
de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of
America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort.[22][23] The first
known public usage is an anonymous essay published in
the Williamsburg newspaper The Virginia Gazette on April 6, 1776.[22] Sometime
on or after June 11, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote "United States of America" in
a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence,[22] which was adopted by
the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.[24]

The term "United States" and its initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives
in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a
noun, is also common.[25] "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms
throughout the U.S. federal government, with prescribed rules.[l] "The States" is
an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad;
[27]
"stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb.[28]

"America" is the feminine form of the first word of Americus Vesputius, the
Latinized name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512);[m] it was first
used as a place name by the German cartographers Martin
Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann in 1507.[29][n] Vespucci first proposed that
the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a
previously unknown landmass and not among the Indies at the eastern limit of
Asia.[30][31][32] In English, the term "America" usually does not refer to topics
unrelated to the United States, despite the usage of "the Americas" to describe
the totality of the continents of North and South America.[33]

History
Main article: History of the United States
For a topical guide, see Outline of the history of the United States.
Indigenous peoples
Main articles: History of Native Americans in the United States and Pre-
Columbian era

Cliff Palace, a settlement of ancestors

of the Native American Pueblo peoples in present-day Montezuma County, Colorado,
built between c. 1200 and 1275[34]
The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia over 12,000 years
ago, either across the Bering land bridge or along the now-submerged Ice Age
coastline.[35][36] The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed
to be the first widespread culture in the Americas.[37][38] Over time, Indigenous
North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as
the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex
societies.[39] In the post-archaic period, the Mississippian cultures were located in
the midwestern, eastern, and southern regions, and the Algonquian in the Great
Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard, while the Hohokam
culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the Southwest.[40] Native population
estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European
immigrants range from around 500,000[41][42] to nearly 10 million.[42][43]

European exploration, colonization and conflict (1513–

1765)
Main articles: Colonial history of the United States and Colonial American
military history
 The colonial
possessions of Britain (the Thirteen Colonies in pink and others in purple), France (in
blue), and Spain (in orange) in North America, 1750
Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading
to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from what are now Puerto
Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California. The first Spanish colony in the
present-day continental United States was Spanish Florida, chartered in 1513.[44]
[45][46][47]
After several settlements failed there due to hunger and disease, Spain's
first permanent town, Saint Augustine, was founded in 1565.[48]

France established its own settlements in French Florida in 1562, but they were
either abandoned (Charlesfort, 1578) or destroyed by Spanish raids (Fort
Caroline, 1565). Permanent French settlements were founded much later along
the Great Lakes (Fort Detroit, 1701), the Mississippi River (Saint Louis, 1764)
and especially the Gulf of Mexico (New Orleans, 1718).[49] Early European
colonies also included the thriving Dutch colony of New Nederland (settled 1626,
present-day New York) and the small Swedish colony of New Sweden (settled
1638 in what is now Delaware). British colonization of the East Coast began with
the Virginia Colony (1607) and the Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts, 1620).[50][51]

The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts and the Fundamental Orders of

Connecticut established precedents for representative self-
governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American
colonies.[52][53] While European settlers in what is now the United States
experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade,
exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts.[54][o] Relations ranged from
close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often
pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles,
including conversion to Christianity.[58][59] Along the eastern seaboard,
settlers trafficked African slaves through the Atlantic slave trade.[60]

The original Thirteen Colonies[p] that would later found the United States were
administered as possessions of the British Empire by Crown-appointed
governors,[61] though local governments held elections open to most white male
property owners.[62][63] The colonial population grew rapidly from Maine to Georgia,
eclipsing Native American populations;[64] by the 1770s, the natural increase of
the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born
overseas.[65] The colonies' distance from Britain facilitated the entrenchment of
self-governance,[66] and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals,
fueled colonial interest in guaranteed religious liberty.[67]

American Revolution and the early republic (1765–1800)

Main articles: History of the United States (1776–1789), History of the United
States (1789–1815), and American Revolution

The Declaration of Independence portrait depicts

the Committee of Five presenting the Declaration to the Continental Congress on June
28, 1776, in Philadelphia.
Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert
greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance;
one of the primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen,
particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them.
To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental
Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association, a colonial boycott
of British goods enforced by local "committees of safety" that proved effective.
The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of
Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second
Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-
in-chief of the Continental Army, and created a committee that named Thomas
Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. Two days after passing
the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration was adopted
on July 4, 1776.[68] The political values of the American
Revolution included liberty, inalienable individual rights; and the sovereignty of
the people;[69] supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and
all hereditary political power; civic virtue; and vilification of political corruption.
[70]
The Founding Fathers of the United States, who included Washington,
Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John
Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and many others, were inspired
by Classical, Renaissance, and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas.[71][72]

Though in practical effect since its drafting in 1777, the Articles of

Confederation was ratified in 1781 and formally established a decentralized
government that operated until 1789.[68] After the British surrender at the siege of
Yorktown in 1781, American sovereignty was internationally recognized by
the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west
to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish
Florida.[73] The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which
the country's territory would expand with the admission of new states, rather than
the expansion of existing states.[74]

The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to

overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating
a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together formed a
system of checks and balances.[75] George Washington was elected the country's
first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791
to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government.
[76]
His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his
later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a
precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in the United States and
the peaceful transfer of power.[77]

Westward expansion and Civil War (1800–1865)

Main articles: History of the United States (1815–1849) and History of the United
States (1849–1865)

Territorial expansion of the United

States
In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward in larger
numbers, many with a sense of manifest destiny.[78][79] The Louisiana Purchase of
1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States.[80][81] Lingering
issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a
draw.[82] Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819.[83]

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave

state and Maine as a free state, attempted to balance the desire of northern
states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of
southern states to extend it there. Primarily, the compromise prohibited slavery in
all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel.[84]
As Americans expanded further into territory inhabited by Native Americans,
the federal government implemented policies of Indian removal or assimilation.[85]
[86]
The most significant such legislation was the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a
key policy of President Andrew Jackson. It resulted in the Trail of Tears (1830–
1850), in which an estimated 60,000 Native Americans living east of
the Mississippi River were forcibly removed and displaced to lands far to the
west, causing 13,200 to 16,700 deaths along the forced march.[87] Settler
expansion as well as this influx of Indigenous peoples from the East resulted in
the American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi.[88][89]

The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845,[90] and the
1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.
[91]
Dispute with Mexico over Texas led to the Mexican–American War (1846–
1848). After the victory of the U.S., Mexico recognized U.S sovereignty over
Texas, New Mexico, and California in the 1848 Mexican Cession; the cession's
lands also included the future states of Nevada, Colorado and Utah.[78]
[92]
The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white
settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native
populations. One of the most violent, the California genocide of thousands of
Native inhabitants, lasted into the mid-1870s.[93] Additional western territories and
states were created.[94]

Slave states and free states in 1858

During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies,
becoming the main labor force in the large-scale, agriculture-dependent
economies of the Southern Colonies from Maryland to Georgia. The practice
began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution, [95] and
spurred by an active abolitionist movement that had reemerged in the 1830s,
states in the North enacted laws to prohibit slavery within their boundaries.[96] At
the same time, support for slavery had strengthened in Southern states, with
widespread use of inventions such as the cotton gin (1793) having made slavery
immensely profitable for Southern elites.[97][98][99]

Throughout the 1850s, this sectional conflict regarding slavery was further
inflamed by national legislation in the U.S. Congress and decisions of the
Supreme Court. In Congress, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated the
forcible return to their owners in the South of slaves taking refuge in non-slave
states, while the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 effectively gutted the anti-slavery
requirements of the Missouri Compromise.[100] In its Dred Scott decision of 1857,
the Supreme Court ruled against a slave brought into non-slave territory,
simultaneously declaring the entire Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional.
These and other events exacerbated tensions between North and South that
would culminate in the American Civil War (1861–1865).[101][102]

Beginning with South Carolina, 11 slave-state governments voted to secede from

the United States in 1861, joining to create the Confederate States of America.
All other state governments remained loyal to the Union.[q][103][104] War broke out in
April 1861 after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter.[105][106] Following
the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, many freed slaves joined
the Union army.[107] The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the
1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederates
surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court
House.[108]

Reconstruction, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era (1863–

1917)
Main article: History of the United States (1865–1917)
Duration: 2 minutes and 27 seconds.2:27An Edison Studios film showing immigrants
arriving at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, a major point of entry for
European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries[109][110]
Efforts toward reconstruction in the secessionist South had begun as early as
1862,[111] but it was only after President Lincoln's assassination that the
three Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution were ratified to protect civil
rights. The amendments codified nationally the abolition of slavery and
involuntary servitude except as punishment for crimes, promised equal protection
under the law for all persons, and prohibited discrimination on the basis of race
or previous enslavement.[112][113][114] As a result, African Americans took an active
political role in ex-Confederate states in the decade following the Civil War. [115]
[116]
The former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, beginning with
Tennessee in 1866 and ending with Georgia in 1870.[117][118]

National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads,

spurred growth in the American frontier. This was accelerated by the Homestead
Acts, through which nearly 10 percent of the total land area of the United States
was given away free to some 1.6 million homesteaders.[119][120] From 1865 through
1917, an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States,
including 24.4 million from Europe.[121] Most came through the Port of New York,
and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to
large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations. Many Northern Europeans as well as
significant numbers of Germans and other Central Europeans moved to
the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated
from Quebec to New England.[122] During the Great Migration, millions of African
Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North.[123] Alaska was
purchased from Russia in 1867.[124]
The Compromise of 1877 is generally considered the end of the Reconstruction
era, as it resolved the electoral crisis following the 1876 presidential election and
led President Rutherford B. Hayes to reduce the role of federal troops in the
South.[125] Immediately, the Redeemers began evicting the Carpetbaggers and
quickly regained local control of Southern politics in the name of white
supremacy.[126][127] African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism
following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations.
[128][129]
A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson, emptied
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow
laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest,
and segregation in communities across the country, which would be reinforced
by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan
Corporation.[130]

An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of

cheap immigrant labor[131] led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, allowing the United States to outpace the economies of
England, France, and Germany combined.[132][133] This fostered the amassing of
power by a few prominent industrialists, largely by their formation
of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition.[134] Tycoons led the nation's
expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. The United States
emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry.[135] These changes resulted in
significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest,
creating the environment for labor unions and socialist movements to begin to
flourish.[136][137][138] This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive
Era, which was characterized by significant reforms.[139][140]

Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the

islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico, the Philippines,
and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in
the Spanish–American War. (The Philippines was granted full independence
from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam
have remained U.S. territories.)[141] American Samoa was acquired by the United
States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War.[142] The U.S. Virgin
Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.[143]

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II (1917–

1945)
Main article: History of the United States (1917–1945)
 The 1945 American Trinity test, the first-ever
detonation of a nuclear weapon
The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies in 1917 helping to
turn the tide against the Central Powers.[144] In 1920, a constitutional
amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage.[145] During the 1920s and
1930s, radio for mass communication and early television transformed
communications nationwide.[146] The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great
Depression, to which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New
Deal plan of "reform, recovery and relief", a series of unprecedented and
sweeping recovery programs and employment relief projects combined
with financial reforms and regulations.[147][148]

Initially neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to
the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after
the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.[149] The U.S. developed the first
nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war.[150][151] The United States was one of the
"Four Policemen" who met to plan the post-war world, alongside the United
Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China.[152][153] The U.S. emerged relatively
unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international
political influence.[154]

Cold War and social revolution (1945–1991)

Main articles: History of the United States (1945–1964), History of the United
States (1964–1980), and History of the United States (1980–1991)
Civil rights activists during the March on Washington for Jobs and

Freedom in Washington, D.C. in August 1963

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan sign the Intermediate-
Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at the White House in 1987.
The end of World War II in 1945 left the U.S. and the Soviet Union
as superpowers, each with its own political, military, and economic sphere of
influence. Geopolitical tensions between the two superpowers soon led to
the Cold War.[155][156][157] The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the
USSR's sphere of influence, engaged in regime change against governments
perceived to be aligned with Moscow, and prevailed in the Space Race, which
culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969.[158][159]

Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization,

and population growth following World War II.[160] The civil rights
movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in
the early 1960s.[161] The Great Society plan of President Lyndon B. Johnson's
administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies
and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of
lingering institutional racism.[162]

The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes,

including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality.
[163][164]
It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of
conscription in 1973)[165] and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam, with
the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975.[166] A societal shift in the roles of women was
significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation
during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and
older were employed.[167]

The Fall of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union from 1989 to
1991 marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's
sole superpower.[168][169][170][171] This cemented the United States' global influence,
reinforcing the concept of the "American Century" as the U.S. dominated
international political, cultural, economic, and military affairs.[172][173]

Contemporary (1991–present)
Main articles: History of the United States (1991–2016) and History of the United
States (2016–present)
 The Twin Towers in New York City during

the September 11 attacks in 2001 Supporters of

then-President Trump attempting to stop the counting of electoral votes on January 6,
2021
The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history, a
dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates, and advances in technology. Throughout
this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web, the
evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law,
rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either
emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome
Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock
market in the United States to trade online in 1998.[174]

In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled

an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait.[175] The September
11 attacks on the United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant
organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror and subsequent military
interventions in Afghanistan and in Iraq.[176][177]

The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the
largest economic contraction since the Great Depression.[178] In the 2010s and
early 2020s, the United States has experienced increased political
polarization and democratic backsliding.[179][180][181][182] The country's polarization was
violently reflected in the January 2021 Capitol attack,[183] when a mob of
insurrectionists[184] entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful
transfer of power[185] in an attempted self-coup d'état.[186]

Geography
Main article: Geography of the United States
 A topographic map of the United States
The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia
and Canada.[c] The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia have a
combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km2).[12][187] In 2021, the
United States had 8% of the Earth's permanent meadows and pastures and 10%
of its cropland.[188]

Starting in the east, the coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland
forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region.[189] The Appalachian
Mountains and the Adirondack Massif separate the East Coast from the Great
Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest.[190] The Mississippi River System, the
world's fourth-longest river system, runs predominantly north–south through the
center of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to
the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.[190]

The Grand Canyon in Arizona

The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the
country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado.
[191]
The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky
Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera, is the continent's largest volcanic feature.
[192]
Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and the Chihuahuan, Sonoran,
and Mojave deserts.[193] In the northwest corner of Arizona, carved by
the Colorado River, is the Grand Canyon, a steep-sided canyon and popular
tourist destination[194] known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful
landscape. The Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges run close to
the Pacific coast. The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United
States are in the State of California,[195] about 84 miles (135 km) apart.[196]
At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali (also called Mount
McKinley) is the highest peak in the country and on the continent.
[197]
Active volcanoes in the U.S. are common throughout
Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands. Located entirely outside North America,
the archipelago of Hawaii consists of volcanic
islands, physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion
of Oceania.[198]

In addition to its total land area, the United States has one of the world's largest
marine exclusive economic zones spanning approximately 4.5 million square
miles (11.7 million km2) of ocean.[199][200]