The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country whose goverment form is a federal presidential constitutional republic. It consists of 50 states and a federal district:
Most of the U.S. is located between Canada and Mexico, except the states of Alaska and Hawaii.
It also includes several overseas territories in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands) and in the Pacific (American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands).
According to The World Factbook, the United States of America covers an area of 3,794,100 square miles (9,826,675 square kilometers) and has a population of 318,892,103 inhabitants as of 2014. The capital city is Washington D.C. and the largest city is New York City.
The U.S. is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, since the country is the result of large-scale immigration from many peoples: Africans, Germans, Mexicans, Irish, British, Americans, Italians, Poles, Scandinavians, French...
The country became independent from Great Britain in 1776. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states were added to the original 13. Two of the events that have marked the nation's history were the Civil War (1861-1865) and the Great Depresion of the 1930's. Buoyed by victories in World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. remains the world's most powerful nation in the world.
This is the nation's flag, which was adopted in June 14th, 1777:
Thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white; there is a blue rectangle in the upper hoist-side corner bearing 50 small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternating with rows of five stars; the 50 stars represent the 50 states, the 13 stripes represent the 13 original colonies; the blue stands for loyalty, devotion, truth, justice, and friendship; red symbolizes courage, zeal, and fervency, while white denotes purity and rectitude of conduct.
The flag has several nicknames like the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and the Star-Spangled Banner. This latter is also the the title of the U.S. national anthem. Its lyrics come from "Defence of Fort M'Henry," a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key to celebrate America's victory over the British in one of the battles of the War of 1812. The melody was adapted from a song named "To Anacreon in Heaven." However, it was not until 1931 when the Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the national anthem by a law signed by President Herbert Hoover.
One of the most famous modern renditions of the song was performed by Whitney Houston before the XXV Super Bowl in 1991:
Even though there is no official language at the federal level, English is the de facto national language. Indeed, some laws, such as U.S naturalization requirements, standardize English.
Spanish is the second most common language in the country. In fact, throughout the Southwestern United States, long-established Spanish-speaking communities coexist with large numbers of more recent Hispanophone immigrants.
The state of Hawaii has Hawaiian and English as official languages. In addition, Louisiana has laws providing for the use of both English and French, as New Mexico does for English and Spanish. The state of Alaska recognizes many Native languages as official. Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions.
Several overseas territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with 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.
Data have been sourced from here.
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