 |
The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.[fn 1] The 48 contiguous states and federal district are in central North America between Canada and Mexico, with the state of Alaska in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii comprising an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2)[17] and with over 324 million people, the United States is the world's third-largest country by total area (and fourth-largest by land area)[fn 2] and the third-most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries.[23] The country's capital is Washington, D.C. and its largest city is New York City; other major metropolitan areas include Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami. The geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse.[24]
Paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago,[25] with European colonization beginning in the 16th century. The United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies in the aftermath of the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775. On July 4, 1776, as the colonies were fighting Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. The war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, and was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire.[26] The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781, were felt to have provided inadequate federal powers. The first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties.
|
0 comments:
Post a Comment