United States

The United States is a country in North America. It is made up of 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and several territories like Puerto Rico and Guam. It covers about 3.8 million square miles, making it the third largest country in the world by land area. About 335 million people live there. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city is New York City.

Land and geography

The United States stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. Forty-eight of the fifty states sit side by side in the middle of the continent. These are called the lower 48. Alaska sits far to the northwest, and Hawaii is a chain of islands in the Pacific, about 2,400 miles from the mainland.

The land changes a lot from coast to coast. The east has rolling hills and the old Appalachian Mountains. The middle of the country is mostly flat plains, where farmers grow huge amounts of corn, wheat, and soybeans. The Rocky Mountains rise in the west, followed by deserts, then the tall Sierra Nevada, and finally the Pacific coast. Alaska has the tallest mountain in North America, Denali, which reaches 20,310 feet.

The country has some of the most famous natural places on Earth. These include the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Everglades, and the Great Lakes. The Mississippi River runs more than 2,300 miles through the middle of the country, from Minnesota down to the Gulf of Mexico.

History

People have lived in what is now the United States for at least 15,000 years. Hundreds of Native American nations built cities, traded, farmed, and hunted across the continent long before Europeans arrived. The Haudenosaunee, Cherokee, Lakota, Pueblo, and many others all had their own languages and governments.

European settlers began arriving in the 1500s and 1600s. The British set up 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast. In 1776, those colonies declared independence from Britain. After winning the American Revolution, they formed a new country. The US Constitution, written in 1787, is still the country's basic law today. It is the oldest written national constitution in the world still in use.

Over the next hundred years, the United States grew westward. It bought huge pieces of land, like the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. It also took land by force from Native nations and from Mexico. This growth came at a terrible cost to Native Americans, who were pushed off their lands. Slavery, which had been legal since colonial times, tore the country apart in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. The North won, and slavery was ended.

The 1900s brought huge changes. The United States fought in two world wars and became one of the most powerful countries on Earth. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s worked to end unfair laws against Black Americans. In 1969, American astronauts became the first humans to walk on the Moon.

Government

The United States is a democracy and a republic. That means the people choose their leaders by voting. The government has three branches that share power. Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, writes the laws. The President leads the country and signs laws. The Supreme Court decides what the laws mean. This system is called checks and balances. The idea is that no single branch can become too strong.

Each of the 50 states also has its own government. States make their own laws about schools, roads, and many other things. That is why rules can change when you cross a state line.

People and culture

The United States has always been a country of many peoples. Native Americans lived there first. Later came settlers and enslaved Africans, followed by waves of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, China, Mexico, Vietnam, India, and many other places. Today, about one in seven Americans was born in another country.

This mix shapes the country's food, music, and holidays. Jazz, blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop were all invented in the United States. So were basketball, baseball, and the modern movie industry. American inventors helped create the airplane, the light bulb, and the internet.

English is the most common language, but no language is official at the national level. Spanish is spoken by tens of millions of people. People practice many different religions, and the Constitution protects that freedom.

The country is still young compared to places like China or Egypt. It is less than 250 years old. Historians often point out that the United States is still figuring out what kind of country it wants to be, and that the debate itself is a big part of what makes it American.