What are United States?

  • (noun): North American republic containing 50 states - 48 conterminous states in North America plus Alaska in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean; achieved independence in 1776.
    Synonyms: United States of America, America, US, U.S., USA, U.S.A.
    See also — Additional definitions below

United States

The United States of America (commonly called the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic consisting of fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean. At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 314 million people, the United States is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area, and the third-largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.

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Some articles on United States:

American Civil War
... The American Civil War (1861–65), in the United States often referred to as simply the Civil War and sometimes called the "War Between the States", was a civil war fought ... Eleven southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ("the Confederacy") the other 25 states supported the ... After four years of warfare, mostly within the Southern states, the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was abolished everywhere in the nation ...
70th United States Congress
... The Seventieth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of ... of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the Thirteenth Decennial Census of the United States in 1910 ...
History - The Church of Scientology
... Ron Hubbard." The movement spread quickly through the United States and to other English-speaking countries such as Britain, Ireland, South Africa and Australia ... In 1957, the Church of Scientology of California was granted tax-exempt status by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and so, for a time, were other local churches ... The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation concerning the claims the Church of Scientology made in connection with ...
February 25 - Events
1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for the Colt revolver. 1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S ... Morgan incorporates the United States Steel Corporation ...
Kent State University - Notable Programs
... See also Kent State University Airport ... It was named a top-ten fashion school in the United States by Runway Magazine ... World Musics is one of the primary centers for ethnomusicology in the United States ...

More definitions of "United States":

Famous quotes containing the words united states, states and/or united:

    When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
    His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
    I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
    And of Priapus in the shrubbery
    Gaping at the lady in the swing.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.
    Gore Vidal (b. 1925)

    The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)