In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations face constant pressure to protect their systems, data, and users from increasingly complex cyber threats. Growing organizations advance their cybersecurity posture by using endpoint security services , with Endpoint Security USA helping organizations protect devices, lower risk, and maintain secure, reliable operations across changing digital environments.. This has led many businesses to rely on a managed security services provider to strengthen their overall security posture.
A managed security services provider offers specialized expertise, advanced tools, and continuous monitoring that many internal teams may lack. By outsourcing security operations, organizations can focus on core business functions while ensuring their digital infrastructure remains protected against emerging threats.
Cybersecurity is no longer a one-time investment but an ongoing process that requires constant vigilance.
As threat actors become more sophisticated, traditional security approaches are no longer sufficient. Organizations need proactive solutions that can detect anomalies, identify vulnerabilities, and respond swiftly to potential threats before they escalate into major incidents.
One of the key advantages of working with a managed security services provider is access to round-the-clock monitoring.
In addition to monitoring, these providers deliver threat intelligence that helps organizations stay ahead of evolving attack methods. By analyzing global threat data, businesses can better understand potential risks and implement strategies to mitigate them effectively.
newsroom.submitmypressrelease.com
Bizwireexpress.com
http://www.bizwireexpress.com/showstoryGNW.php?storyid=1154246
Weekender.Com.sg
https://weekender.com.sg/globenewswire/?gnw_id=3260739/language/en
Manilatimes.net
Digitaljournal.com
https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/news/index.html
Smb.Bogalusadailynews.com
Smb.Cordeledispatch.com
Growingbusinessesinthenews.com
Oklahomabusinessjournal.com
Economypressreleases.com
Pr.Enewspf.com
Smb.Theinteriorjournal.com
Pr.Westlinntidings.com
Pr.Portlandtribune.com
Pr.Taosnews.com
Maltadailymonitor.com
Themarcomjournal.com
Pr.Murrayjournal.com
Pr.Lagrandeobserver.com
Internationalworldtimes.com
Lebanonbusinessreporter.com
Nevadabusinessherald.com
Tajikistanbusinessdaily.com
Mauritiusbusinessreview.com
Pr.Wallowa.com
Smb.Bluegrasslive.com
Pr.Heraldpioneer.com
Pr.Taylorsvillecityjournal.com
Uzbekistanbusinessjournal.com
Somaliabusinesspress.com
Pr.Forestgrovenewstimes.com
Vanuatueconomictimes.com
Economicdigestofeurope.com
Pr.Hattiesburg.com
Smb.State-journal.com
Arkansasbusinesstimes.com
Smb.Ourdavie.com
Businessjournalflorida.com
Cookislandsbusinessupdate.com
Marketforecastanalysis.com
Alofibusinesschannel.com
Businessdailyvatican.com
Africabusinesswatch.com
Pennsylvaniabusinessbulletin.com
Smb.Americustimesrecorder.com
Smb.Panews.com
Smb.Thepostsearchlight.com
Smallbusinessnewswatch.com
Syriabusinessjournal.com
Newhampshirebusinessobserver.com
Pr.Milwaukiereview.com
Pr.Faceacadiana.com
Floridasmallbusinesstoday.com
Liechtensteinbusinessfocus.com
Idahobusinesstimes.com
Northdakotabusinessgazette.com
Businesstimesmissouri.com
Hawaiianbusinesspost.com
Economicreporthaiti.com
Businessupdatesanmarino.com
Americansamoabusinessreport.com
Newjerseybusinessjournal.com
Pr.Ashlandtownnews.com
Marshallislandbusinessdigest.com
Louisianabusinesstribune.com
Pr.Chillicothevoice.com
Andorrabusinessledger.com
Themarketingcommunicator.com
Myanmarbusinessdaily.com
Easttimorbusinessdaily.com
Pr.Franklintownnews.com
Virginislandscommercereport.com
Dailycommercemartinique.com
Michiganbusinesstribune.com
Palaubusinessreport.com
Advertisingtoday.com
Tongaeconomictimes.com
Marylandbusinessweekly.com
Arubabusinessreview.com
Guambusinesstimes.com
Taiwanbusinessjournal.com
Africasmbjournal.com
Honiarabusinessjournal.com
Businessdailypapuanewguinea.com
Innovationandentrepreneursnews.com
Theworldnewswire.com
Middleeastsmallbusinessobserver.com
Smbworldreport.com
Monacocommercepress.com
Smbinaction.com
Businessheraldonline.com
Smallbusinessworldmagazine.com
Todayinbusiness.com
Micronesiabusinessdaily.com
Laosbusinesstimes.com
Newmexicobusinesstoday.com
Iowabusinessgazette.com
Cambodiabusinesspress.com
Marianaislandsbusinessdaily.com
Macaobusinessjournal.com
Surinamebusinessdaily.com
247businessreporter.com
Seychellesbusinessherald.com
Bruneibusinessnetwork.com
Smartsbusinesswire.com
Globalnewsscanner.com
Journalofbusinessnews.com
Worldreportmonitor.com
Grenadaeconomicdigest.com
Commercereviewstlucia.com
Internationalnewsledger.com
Arizonabusinesswatch.com
Businesstimesdc.com
Samoabusinesscurrents.com
Puertoricobusinesstribune.com
Latinamericasmallbusinessnews.com
Cyprusbusinessjournal.com
Anguillabusinessdaily.com
Turkmenistanbusinessjournal.com
Economicnewsobserver.com
Naurubusinessjournal.com
Virginislandsbusinessjournal.com
Mainebusinessgazette.com
Advertisingindustryreview.com
Caboverdebusinessjournal.com
Businesspostexaminer.com
Latinamericabusinesstoday.com
Smallbusinessworldjournal.com
Rhodeislandbusinessdaily.com
Europeansmallbusinessnetwork.com
Equatorialguineabusinesstoday.com
Montserratdailynews.com
Smallbusinessnewstoday.com
Smallbusinessesinthenews.com
Southcarolinabusinesschronicle.com
Jordanianbusinesstoday.com
Maldivesbusinessbulletin.com
Economicpolicytimes.com
Fijibusinessreview.com
Iraqbusinessreport.com
Montanabusinesspress.com
Hongkongbusinessreporter.com
Tuvalubusinessday.com
Delawarebusinesstribune.com
Worldadvertisingreport.com
Vermontbusinesstimes.com
Bhutanbusinessnews.com
Madagascarnewsobserver.com
Kentuckybusinessreview.com
Asiabusinessgazette.com
Togobusinesspost.com
Dominicanrepublicbusinessinsider.com
Yemenbusinesstoday.com
Alabamabusinessreporter.com
Texasbusinesstimes.com
Omanbusinessjournal.com
Stvincentgenadinesbusinesshub.com
Trinidadtobagobusinessnews.com
Theconsumernewsnetwork.com
Globaladvertisingnews.com
Westvirginiabusinessdispatch.com
Stkittsnevisbusinesswatch.com
Utahbusinesspress.com
Comorosbusinesspress.com
Wisconsinbusinesspress.com
Saotomeandprincipebusinessnews.com
Economictimescaymanislands.com
Mediaindustryobserver.com
Illinoisbusinessreview.com
Kansasbusinesstoday.com
Economydailyjamaica.com
Marketforecastreports.com
Businessinsidernorthcarolina.com
Rockymountainbusinessbrief.com
Washingtonbusinessobserver.com
Advertisingpressreleases.com
Todayinthenews.com
Connecticutbusinessherald.com
Consumerproductsworld.com
Kuwaitbusinessjournal.com
Thebusinessgazetteonline.com
Minnesotabusinessreporter.com
Marcomworld.com
Globalbusinesswatch.com
Montserratbusinessnetwork.com
Globalreporterjournal.com
Burundibusinessdaily.com
Eyeballsandclicks.com
Nebraskabusinesspress.com
Falklandsbusinessjournal.com
Economicnewsdominica.com
Nepalbusinesschannel.com
Globe
The Associated Press
Digital Journal
Globe
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/search/organization/Endpoint%2520Security%2520USA?page=1
Benzinga.com
YAHOO Finance
YAHOO Finance SG
https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/endpoint-security-usa-launches-expands-180600561.html
Albuquerque Express
Atlanta Leader
Austin News.net
Baltimore Star
Big News Network.com
Birmingham News.net
Boston Star
Buffalo News.net
Charlotte News.net
Chicago Chronicle
Cincinnati News.net
Cleveland Star
Connecticut State News.net
Dallas Sun
Denver News.net
Detroit Star
Florida State News.net
Houston News.net
Indianapolis News.net
Kansas City Post
Los Angeles Herald
Louisville News.net
Memphis Sun
Miami Mirror
Milwaukee News.net
Minneapolis News.net
Nashville Herald
New York State News.net
Oklahoma City News.net
Orange County Sun
Philadelphia News.net
Phoenix Herald
Pittsburgh Star
Portland News.net
Raleigh Times
Salt Lake City Sun
San Diego News.net
San Francisco Star
San Jose News.net
Seattle Bulletin
Silicon Valley News.net
South Carolina State News.net
St Louis Star
The Las Vegas News.net
The Orlando News.net
The Tampa News.net
Washington DC News.net
ChineseWire
The Daily News
Magnolia State Live
The Orange Leader
Port Arthur News
Picayune Item
L'Observateur
The Panolian
Americus Times-Recorder
The Advocate-Messenger
American Press
The Daily Leader
The Oxford Eagle
Bluegrass Live
Claiborne Progress
Elizabethton Star
The Jessamine Journal
The Kenbridge Victoria Dispatch
The Clemmons Courier
Harlan Enterprise
Ironton Tribune
Davie County Enterprise Record
The State Journal
The Charlotte Gazette
The Interior Journal
The Tryon Daily Bulletin
The Winchester Sun
Farmville Herald
Salisbury Post
Cordele Dispatch
Middlesboro News
The Post Searchlight
Washington City Paper
Leesville Leader
The Prentiss Headlight
Beauregard News
Hattiesburg.Com
Boreal Community Media
MB News
Times of San Diego
Chester County Press
WNC Business
Ashland Town News
Franklin Town News
Holliston Town News
Hopedale Town News
Natick Town News
Medway & Millis Town News
Norfolk & Wrentham Town News
Norwood Town News
Riverton Journal
Columbia Business Monthly
Sugar House Journal
Herriman Journal
Holladay Journal
Murray Journal
Millcreek Journal
South Salt Lake Journal
Midvale Journal
Draper Journal
Taylorsville Journal
West Jordan Journal
Sandy Utah News
South Jordan Journal
The City Journals
West Valley City Journal
Cottonwood Heights Journal
The Auburn Sentinel
Chillicothe Voice
Connect Iredell
FACE Magazine
Fayetteville Connect
The Gridley Herald
Jewish Link
My Parish News
RSW Living
The Sacramento Oracle
Taos News
The Territorial Dispatch
TOTI
The Wheatland Sun
Bonita & Estero Magazine
Cape Coral Living
Gulf & Main
Times of the Islands
Milford Free Press
CBS Lake Charles
Racine County Eye
eNews Park Forest
FāVS News
Augusta Business Daily
Idaho Enteprise
Eye on Dunn County
The Pioneer
Baker City Herald
Beaverton Valley Times
The Bulletin
Blue Mountain Eagle
Capital Press
Central Oregonian
Chinook Observer
Columbia County Spotlight
The Daily Astorian
East Oregonian
Estacada News
Forest Grove News-Times
Herald Pioneer
Hermiston Herald
Hillsboro News-Times
La Grande Observer
Lake Oswego Review
The Madras Pioneer
Milwaukie Review
Newberg Graphic
Oregon Capital Insider
Oregon City News
Portland Tribune
Redmond Spokesman
Rogue Valley Times
Sandy Post
Seaside Signal
The Bee
The Outlook
Valley Times
Wallowa County Chieftain
West Linn Tidings
Wilsonville Spokesman
Woodburn Independent
Your Oregon News
The News Courier
The Cullman Times
The Daily Iberian
The Valdosta Daily Times
Dalton Daily Citizen
Moultrie Observer
The Lake Oconee Breeze
Meridian Star
Thomasville Times-Enterprise
St. Claire News-Aegis
The Union-Recorder
Tifton Gazette
UBI-Interactive
blerp
Current 94.3
TV Show Auditions
KCCR-AM
XPR Media
Inentertainment
XBODE
FriendHood Relationship Advice
Gamezon
Info Tech Inc
NEWSnet Boise
Sharism
Storytelling Co
SuccessXL
Harcourt Health
UC Connection
Easy House Remodeling
The Rogue Mag
Taste Terminal
Agree
Servers Free
Only Golf News
Side Car
Street Register
Successful Daily
E-Business Planet
All Podcasts
Annika Bansal
Capital Hill Times
Digital Ad Blog
Hungry Bear
Lincoln Labs
GoPreneurs
East Minnesota Weekly News
Entreprenerd
IM One
News Radio KOTA
forks to feet
Boost Up Blog
Idea Wins
CFX Magazine
Cosmetic Surgery Insider
Washington Guardian
Axcess News
Pierre Country
NEWSnet Anchorage
Z106.3
Awesome
Flore De Champagne
Recent Legal News
Jardal Paintball
Houston News Today
Passionate About Food
independent.mk
NEWSnet Detroit
Men Under Microscope
Celeb Homes
NEWSnet Louisville
Maui Sky
NEWSnet Nashville
Film Television Auditions
Childcare Partnerships
NEWSnet Salt Lake City
Spazio Tribu
Business Times
NEWSnet Sioux Falls
Max Mention
NEWSnet Minneapolis
Newsblaze - IN
NEWSnet San Antonio
Movie Casting Call
NEWSnet Norfolk
Robo Earth
Operation Infinite Justice
1045 Capital Rock
Teethgrinder
Webe Honey
The Great News
Reipet
Top Globe News
Wired News Engine
South Ark Daily
Try Mental Wellness
Boca Raton City Online
Top Hustler
Aussie 8
NEWSnet Fresno
Travels HQ
Clarity Pointe
BuyersDesire.
Thrive Insider
The Point News
ketodash
Presby Camp
Altius
Media Training for CEO's
NEWSnet Odessa
Adrienne Monson
Baltimore News Journal
NEWSnet Austin
Baret News
Acting Auditions
Times LA
Military Parenting
NEWSnet Augusta
Austin Top 50
Middletown Life
NEWSnet Palm Springs
NEWSnet St. Louis
The Glimpse
Fiction Talk
NEWSnet Hawaii
NEWSnet Orlando
Folsom Local News
Health Source Magazine
NEWSnet Columbus
Classic Hits 92.3
Gold Mining News
KYNT-AM
Words Journal
Client Internet Marketing
Adam Torkildson
World of Video Gaming
NBlaz
NEWSnet Las Vegas
Spiritual Quotes
Trondstidkon Troll
Rogue.
A Green Sign
Get Pet Savvy
Eagle Country
Loop Biz
Blackberry Empire
Brown Planet
Next Mentors
The NYC Times
World City Press
NEWSnet Michigan
ONE by FOUR
Phenomena
NEWSnet Waco
1st Counsel
Small Business Sense
NEWSnet Santa Barbara
NEWSnet Tampa
Career Savvy
TWEETER
Ribbon.co
God Of Sound
NEWSnet Atlanta
Lamora
Womens Conference
Article Rich
Bomb Report
Social-Matic
Therapy But Better
NEWSnet Miami
Brights Future
SM Solar
NEWSnet Monterey
SportsnewsHIGHLIGHTS
Quebec News Tribune
Fairy Tale Ink Books
SourceFed
NEWSnet Los Angeles
Slimag
RushPR News
KBEW - The Information Station
Top Travel Trends
The Daily Haze
Pluralist
Newsblaze - AU
NEWSnet Columbia
Idea Crossing
UK Uncut
Sexuality
E-Topical
Realie.org
Diet & Fitness For All
The Dam FM
NEWSnet Quincy
Humane Network
NEWSnet Sacramento
ePub Zone
US Features
Hub Spotes
Cultural Foundation
Hotel E-Guide
Long Island Report
Faith Family America
Good Decisions
Newsblaze
Men Style
Emphasis
LM Cordoba
Matomy SEO
LA Tabloid
Inspired N
Chronic Cities
Mmminimal
Paraskevas
Market Research Journals
Mass News
LuxedB
Dev Insider
Duovolt Art
Good Sciencing
Microcap
100 Mile Free Press
Abbotsford News
Agassiz Harrison Observer
Alberni Valley News
Aldergrove Star
Arrow Lakes News
Ashcroft Cache Creek Journal
Boundary Creek Times
Burns Lake Lakes District News
Caledonia Courier
Campbell River Mirror
Castlegar News
Chemainus Valley Courier
Clearwater Times
Cloverdale Reporter
Coast Mountain News
Comox Valley Record
Cowichan Valley Citizen
Cranbrook Townsman
Creston Valley Advance
Eagle Valley News
Eckville Echo
Goldstream Gazette
Grand Forks Gazette
Haida Gwaii Observer
Hope Standard
Houston Today
Kelowna Capital News
Keremeos Review
Kimberley Bulletin
Lacombe Express
Monday Magazine
North Thompson Star/Journal
Interior News
Vancouver Island Free Daily
Vernon Morning Star
Victoria News
Westerly News
West K News
Williams Lake Tribune
Yukon News
Maple Observer
Vancouver Chronicles
Toronto Daily Report
Ontario Sun
Montreal Breaking
Calgary Observer
Halifax Daily
Manitoba Reporter
Edmonton Observer
Ottawa Recorder
Calgary Monitor
Quebec News.net
Toronto News.net
Vancouver News.net
Winnipeg News.net
GoInvest
Visionary Finance
Technology Crowds
InvestorIdeas.com
InvestorWire
TheStreet.com
EVStockpicks.com
AIStockInfo.com
StockOptionNews.com
MegacapStockpicks.com
ESGStockInfo.com
ADRStockpicks.com
MicrocapStockPicks.com
MagSevenStocks.com
NanocapStockpicks.com
GlobalCorporateGiants.com
EnergyStockInfo.com
DividendStockNews.com
21st Century Tech Blog
Scalability is another important benefit that organizations gain from managed security services. gateway As businesses grow and adopt new technologies, their security needs become more complex, requiring solutions that can adapt without compromising performance or protection.
Endpoint Security USA plays a crucial role in helping organizations navigate these challenges by delivering tailored solutions that align with specific business requirements. Their approach combines expertise, technology, and strategic planning to ensure comprehensive protection.
Compliance with industry regulations is a significant concern for many organizations, particularly those handling sensitive data. A managed security services provider helps businesses meet these requirements by implementing policies, controls, and reporting mechanisms that align with regulatory standards.
Risk management is also enhanced through continuous assessment and vulnerability scanning.
Another critical component of managed security services is incident response. Having a structured response plan ensures that organizations can act quickly during a security event, minimizing downtime and reducing the overall impact on operations.
Automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly being integrated into security operations. These technologies enable faster detection and response, allowing organizations to handle threats more efficiently while reducing the burden on internal teams.
User awareness and training are essential elements of a comprehensive security strategy. Even with advanced systems in place, human error can still lead to vulnerabilities, making it important to educate employees on best practices and safe digital behavior.
Integration with existing IT infrastructure is vital for seamless security management. A managed security services provider ensures that new solutions work cohesively with current systems, avoiding disruptions while enhancing overall protection.
Visibility across networks, endpoints, and applications is crucial for effective threat detection. Organizations must have a clear understanding of their environment to identify suspicious activity and respond appropriately.
Cloud adoption has introduced new security challenges, requiring organizations to protect data across multiple environments.
Continuous improvement is a key aspect of effective cybersecurity. Regular reviews, updates, and testing help organizations refine their strategies and stay prepared for new and evolving threats.
Collaboration between internal teams and external security experts enhances overall resilience. By combining resources and knowledge, organizations can create a more robust defense against cyber risks.
Cost efficiency is another important consideration for businesses. Partnering with a managed security services provider allows organizations to access advanced capabilities without the expense of building and maintaining a full in-house security team.
As cyber threats continue to grow in scale and complexity, organizations must adopt a proactive approach to security.
Ultimately, working with a managed security services provider enables businesses to maintain a secure and resilient digital environment. This foundation allows organizations to operate with confidence, protect their assets, and support long-term growth in an increasingly connected world.
Cloud computing is defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on demand".[1] It is commonly referred to as "the cloud".[2]
In 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) identified five "essential characteristics" for cloud systems.[3] Below are the exact definitions according to NIST:[3]
By 2023, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) had expanded and refined the list.[4]
The history of cloud computing extends to the 1960s, with the initial concepts of time-sharing becoming popularized via remote job entry (RJE). The "data center" model, where users submitted jobs to operators to run on mainframes, was predominantly used during this era. This period saw broad experimentation with making large-scale computing power more accessible through time-sharing, while optimizing infrastructure, platforms, and applications to improve efficiency for end users.[5]
The "cloud" metaphor for virtualized services dates to 1994, when it was used by General Magic for the universe of "places" that mobile agents in the Telescript environment could "go". The metaphor is credited to David Hoffman, a General Magic communications specialist, based on its long-standing use in networking and telecom.[6] The expression cloud computing became more widely known in 1996 when Compaq Computer Corporation drew up a business plan for future computing and the Internet. The company's ambition was to supercharge sales with "cloud computing-enabled applications". The business plan foresaw that online consumer file storage would likely be commercially successful. As a result, Compaq decided to sell server hardware to internet service providers.[7]
In the 2000s, the application of cloud computing began to take shape with the establishment of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, which allowed developers to build applications independently. In 2006 Amazon Simple Storage Service, known as Amazon S3, and the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) were released. In 2008 NASA's development of the first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds.[8][9]
The following decade saw the launch of various cloud services. In 2010, Microsoft launched Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace Hosting and NASA initiated an open-source cloud-software project, OpenStack. IBM introduced the IBM SmartCloud framework in 2011, and Oracle announced the Oracle Cloud in 2012. In December 2019, Amazon launched AWS Outposts, a service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to customer data centers, co-location spaces, or on-premises facilities.[10][11]
 |
This section cites its sources but does not provide page references. (January 2024)
|
Cloud computing can shorten time to market by offering pre-configured tools, scalable resources, and managed services, allowing users to focus on core business value rather than maintaining infrastructure. Cloud platforms can enable organizations and individuals to reduce upfront capital expenditures on physical infrastructure by shifting to an operational expenditure model, where costs scale with usage. Cloud platforms also offer managed services and tools, such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and machine learning, which might otherwise require significant in-house expertise and infrastructure investment.[12][13][14]
While cloud computing can offer cost advantages through effective resource optimization, organizations often face challenges such as unused resources, inefficient configurations, and hidden costs without proper oversight and governance. Many cloud platforms provide cost management tools, such as AWS Cost Explorer and Azure Cost Management, and frameworks like FinOps have emerged to standardize financial operations in the cloud. Cloud computing also facilitates collaboration, remote work, and global service delivery by enabling secure access to data and applications from any location with an internet connection.[12][13][14]
Cloud providers offer various redundancy options for core services, such as managed storage and managed databases, though redundancy configurations often vary by service tier. Advanced redundancy strategies, such as cross-region replication or failover systems, typically require explicit configuration and may incur additional costs or licensing fees.[12][13][14]
Cloud environments operate under a shared responsibility model, where providers are typically responsible for infrastructure security, physical hardware, and software updates, while customers are accountable for data encryption, identity and access management (IAM), and application-level security. These responsibilities vary depending on the cloud service model—Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS)—with customers typically having more control and responsibility in IaaS environments and progressively less in PaaS and SaaS models, often trading control for convenience and managed services.[12][13][14]
|
|
This section cites its sources but does not provide page references. (January 2024)
|
The decision to adopt cloud computing or maintain on-premises infrastructure depends on factors such as scalability, cost structure, latency requirements, regulatory constraints, and infrastructure customization.[15][16][17][18]
Organizations with variable or unpredictable workloads, limited capital for upfront investments, or a focus on rapid scalability benefit from cloud adoption. Startups, SaaS companies, and e-commerce platforms often prefer the pay-as-you-go operational expenditure (OpEx) model of cloud infrastructure. Additionally, companies prioritizing global accessibility, remote workforce enablement, disaster recovery, and leveraging advanced services such as AI/ML and analytics are well-suited for the cloud. In recent years, some cloud providers have started offering specialized services for high-performance computing and low-latency applications, addressing some use cases previously exclusive to on-premises setups.[15][16][17][18]
On the other hand, organizations with strict regulatory requirements, highly predictable workloads, or reliance on deeply integrated legacy systems may find cloud infrastructure less suitable. Businesses in industries like defense, government, or those handling highly sensitive data often favor on-premises setups for greater control and data sovereignty. Additionally, companies with ultra-low latency requirements, such as high-frequency trading (HFT) firms, rely on custom hardware (e.g., FPGAs) and physical proximity to exchanges, which most cloud providers cannot fully replicate despite recent advancements. Similarly, tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon build their own data centers due to economies of scale, predictable workloads, and the ability to customize hardware and network infrastructure for optimal efficiency. However, these companies also use cloud services selectively for certain workloads and applications where it aligns with their operational needs.[15][16][17][18]
In practice, many organizations are increasingly adopting hybrid cloud architectures, combining on-premises infrastructure with cloud services. This approach allows businesses to balance scalability, cost-effectiveness, and control, offering the benefits of both deployment models while mitigating their respective limitations.[15][16][17][18]
One of the primary challenges of cloud computing, compared with traditional on-premises systems, is maintaining data security and privacy. Cloud users entrust their sensitive data to third-party providers, who may not have adequate measures to protect it from unauthorized access, breaches, or leaks. Cloud users also face compliance risks if they have to adhere to certain regulations or standards regarding data protection, such as GDPR or HIPAA.[19]
Another challenge of cloud computing is reduced visibility and control. Cloud users may not have full insight into how their cloud resources are managed, configured, or optimized by their providers. They may also have limited ability to customize or modify their cloud services according to their specific needs or preferences.[19] Complete understanding of all technology may be impossible, especially given the scale, complexity, and deliberate opacity of contemporary systems; however, there is a need for understanding complex technologies and their interconnections to have power and agency within them.[20] The metaphor of the cloud can be seen as problematic as cloud computing retains the aura of something noumenal and numinous; it is something experienced without precisely understanding what it is or how it works.[21]
Additionally, cloud migration is a significant challenge. This process involves transferring data, applications, or workloads from one cloud environment to another, or from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. Cloud migration can be complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, particularly when there are compatibility issues between different cloud platforms or architectures. If not carefully planned and executed, cloud migration can lead to downtime, reduced performance, or even data loss.[22]
According to the 2024 State of the Cloud Report by Flexera, approximately 50% of respondents identified the following top challenges when migrating workloads to public clouds:[23]
Applications hosted in the cloud are susceptible to the fallacies of distributed computing, a series of misconceptions that can lead to significant issues in software development and deployment.[24]
In a report by Gartner, a survey of 200 IT leaders revealed that 69% experienced budget overruns in their organizations' cloud expenditures during 2023. Conversely, 31% of IT leaders whose organizations stayed within budget attributed their success to accurate forecasting and budgeting, proactive monitoring of spending, and effective optimization.[25]
The 2024 Flexera State of Cloud Report identifies the top cloud challenges as managing cloud spend, followed by security concerns and lack of expertise. Public cloud expenditures exceeded budgeted amounts by an average of 15%. The report also reveals that cost savings is the top cloud initiative for 60% of respondents. Furthermore, 65% measure cloud progress through cost savings, while 42% prioritize shorter time-to-market, indicating that cloud's promise of accelerated deployment is often overshadowed by cost concerns.[23]
Typically, cloud providers' Service Level Agreements (SLAs) do not encompass all forms of service interruptions. Exclusions typically include planned maintenance, downtime resulting from external factors such as network issues, human errors, like misconfigurations, natural disasters, force majeure events, or security breaches. Typically, customers bear the responsibility of monitoring SLA compliance and must file claims for any unmet SLAs within a designated timeframe. Customers should be aware of how deviations from SLAs are calculated, as these parameters may vary by service. These requirements can place a considerable burden on customers. Additionally, SLA percentages and conditions can differ across various services within the same provider, with some services lacking any SLA altogether. In cases of service interruptions due to hardware failures in the cloud provider, the company typically does not offer monetary compensation. Instead, eligible users may receive credits as outlined in the corresponding SLA.[26][27][28][29]
Cloud computing abstractions aim to simplify resource management, but leaky abstractions can expose underlying complexities. These variations in abstraction quality depend on the cloud vendor, service and architecture. Mitigating leaky abstractions requires users to understand the implementation details and limitations of the cloud services they utilize.[30][31][32]
Service lock-in within the same vendor occurs when a customer becomes dependent on specific services within a cloud vendor, making it challenging to switch to alternative services within the same vendor when their needs change.[33][34]
Cloud computing poses privacy concerns because the service provider can access the data that is in the cloud at any time. It could accidentally or deliberately alter or delete information.[35] Many cloud providers can share information with third parties if necessary for purposes of law and order without a warrant. That is permitted in their privacy policies, which users must agree to before they start using cloud services. Solutions to privacy include policy and legislation as well as end-users' choices for how data is stored.[35] Users can encrypt data that is processed or stored within the cloud to prevent unauthorized access.[35] Identity management systems can also provide practical solutions to privacy concerns in cloud computing. These systems distinguish between authorized and unauthorized users and determine the amount of data that is accessible to each entity.[36] The systems work by creating and describing identities, recording activities, and getting rid of unused identities.
According to the Cloud Security Alliance, the top three threats in the cloud are Insecure Interfaces and APIs, Data Loss & Leakage, and Hardware Failure—which accounted for 29%, 25% and 10% of all cloud security outages respectively. Together, these form shared technology vulnerabilities. In a cloud provider platform being shared by different users, there may be a possibility that information belonging to different customers resides on the same data server. Additionally, Eugene Schultz, chief technology officer at Emagined Security, said that hackers are spending substantial time and effort looking for ways to penetrate the cloud. "There are some real Achilles' heels in the cloud infrastructure that are making big holes for the bad guys to get into". Because data from hundreds or thousands of companies can be stored on large cloud servers, hackers can theoretically gain control of huge stores of information through a single attack—a process he called "hyperjacking". Some examples of this include the Dropbox security breach, and iCloud 2014 leak.[37] Dropbox had been breached in October 2014, having over seven million of its users passwords stolen by hackers in an effort to get monetary value from it by Bitcoins (BTC). By having these passwords, they are able to read private data as well as have this data be indexed by search engines (making the information public).[37]
There is the problem of legal ownership of the data (If a user stores some data in the cloud, can the cloud provider profit from it?). Many Terms of Service agreements are silent on the question of ownership.[38] Physical control of the computer equipment (private cloud) is more secure than having the equipment off-site and under someone else's control (public cloud). This delivers great incentive to public cloud computing service providers to prioritize building and maintaining strong management of secure services.[39] Some small businesses that do not have expertise in IT security could find that it is more secure for them to use a public cloud. There is the risk that end users do not understand the issues involved when signing on to a cloud service (persons sometimes do not read the many pages of the terms of service agreement, and just click "Accept" without reading). This is important now that cloud computing is common and required for some services to work, for example for an intelligent personal assistant (Apple's Siri or Google Assistant). Fundamentally, private cloud is seen as more secure with higher levels of control for the owner, however public cloud is seen to be more flexible and requires less time and money investment from the user.[40]
The attacks that can be made on cloud computing systems include man-in-the middle attacks, phishing attacks, authentication attacks, and malware attacks. One of the largest threats is considered to be malware attacks, such as Trojan horses. Recent research conducted in 2022 has revealed that the Trojan horse injection method is a serious problem with harmful impacts on cloud computing systems.[41]
The CLOUD Act allows United States authorities to request data from cloud providers, and courts can impose nondisclosure requirements preventing providers from notifying affected users.[42] This framework is in legal tension with Article 48 of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which restricts the transfer of personal data in response to foreign court or administrative orders unless based on an international agreement. As a result, cloud service providers operating in both Europe and the U.S. may face competing legal obligations.[43]
According to Laura K. Donohue writing for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, cloud service providers also fall within the broader category of service providers subject to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which has had documented effects on cloud providers and their customers.[44]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology recognized three cloud service models in 2011: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).[3] The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) later identified additional models in 2023, including "Network as a Service", "Communications as a Service", "Compute as a Service", and "Data Storage as a Service".[4]
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) refers to online services that provide high-level APIs used to abstract various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup, etc. A hypervisor runs the virtual machines as guests. Pools of hypervisors within the cloud operational system can support large numbers of virtual machines and the ability to scale services up and down according to customers' varying requirements. Linux containers run in isolated partitions of a single Linux kernel running directly on the physical hardware. Linux cgroups and namespaces are the underlying Linux kernel technologies used to isolate, secure and manage the containers. The use of containers offers higher performance than virtualization because there is no hypervisor overhead. IaaS clouds often offer additional resources such as a virtual-machine disk-image library, raw block storage, file or object storage, firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, virtual local area networks (VLANs), and software bundles.[45]
The NIST's definition of cloud computing describes IaaS as "where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls)."[3]
IaaS-cloud providers supply these resources on-demand from their large pools of equipment installed in data centers. For wide-area connectivity, customers can use either the Internet or carrier clouds (dedicated virtual private networks). To deploy their applications, cloud users install operating-system images and their application software on the cloud infrastructure. In this model, the cloud user patches and maintains the operating systems and the application software. Cloud providers typically bill IaaS services on a utility computing basis: cost reflects the number of resources allocated and consumed.[46]
The NIST's definition of cloud computing defines Platform as a Service as:[3]
The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.
PaaS vendors offer a development environment to application developers. The provider typically develops toolkit and standards for development and channels for distribution and payment. In the PaaS models, cloud providers deliver a computing platform, typically including an operating system, programming-language execution environment, database, and the web server. Application developers develop and run their software on a cloud platform instead of directly buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers. With some PaaS, the underlying computer and storage resources scale automatically to match application demand so that the cloud user does not have to allocate resources manually.[47][need quotation to verify]
Some integration and data management providers also use specialized applications of PaaS as delivery models for data. Examples include iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) and dPaaS (Data Platform as a Service). iPaaS enables customers to develop, execute and govern integration flows.[48] Under the iPaaS integration model, customers drive the development and deployment of integrations without installing or managing any hardware or middleware.[49] dPaaS delivers integration—and data-management—products as a fully managed service.[50] Under the dPaaS model, the PaaS provider, not the customer, manages the development and execution of programs by building data applications for the customer. dPaaS users access data through data-visualization tools.[51]
The NIST's definition of cloud computing defines Software as a Service as:[3]
The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.
In the software as a service (SaaS) model, users gain access to application software and databases. Cloud providers manage the infrastructure and platforms that run the applications. SaaS is sometimes referred to as "on-demand software" and is usually priced on a pay-per-use basis or using a subscription fee.[52] In the SaaS model, cloud providers install and operate application software in the cloud and cloud users access the software from cloud clients. Cloud users do not manage the cloud infrastructure and platform where the application runs. This eliminates the need to install and run the application on the cloud user's own computers, which simplifies maintenance and support. Cloud applications differ from other applications in their scalability—which can be achieved by cloning tasks onto multiple virtual machines at run-time to meet changing work demand.[53] Load balancers distribute the work over the set of virtual machines. This process is transparent to the cloud user, who sees only a single access-point. To accommodate a large number of cloud users, cloud applications can be multitenant, meaning that any machine may serve more than one cloud-user organization.
The pricing model for SaaS applications is typically a monthly or yearly flat fee per user,[54] so prices become scalable and adjustable if users are added or removed at any point. It may also be free.[55] Proponents claim that SaaS gives a business the potential to reduce IT operational costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the cloud provider. This enables the business to reallocate IT operations costs away from hardware/software spending and from personnel expenses, towards meeting other goals. In addition, with applications hosted centrally, updates can be released without the need for users to install new software. One drawback of SaaS comes with storing the users' data on the cloud provider's server. As a result,[citation needed] there could be unauthorized access to the data.[56] Examples of applications offered as SaaS are games and productivity software like Google Docs and Office Online. SaaS applications may be integrated with cloud storage or File hosting services, which is the case with Google Docs being integrated with Google Drive, and Office Online being integrated with OneDrive.[57]
Serverless computing allows customers to use various cloud capabilities without the need to provision, deploy, or manage hardware or software resources, apart from providing their application code or data. ISO/IEC 22123-2:2023 classifies serverless alongside Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) under the broader category of cloud service categories. Notably, while ISO refers to these classifications as cloud service categories, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) refers to them as service models.[3][4]
"A cloud deployment model represents the way in which cloud computing can be organized based on the control and sharing of physical or virtual resources."[4] Cloud deployment models define the fundamental patterns of interaction between cloud customers and cloud providers. They do not detail implementation specifics or the configuration of resources.[4]
Private cloud is cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third party, and hosted either internally or externally.[3] Undertaking a private cloud project requires significant engagement to virtualize the business environment, and requires the organization to reevaluate decisions about existing resources. It can improve business, but every step in the project raises security issues that must be addressed to prevent serious vulnerabilities. Self-run data centers[58] are generally capital intensive. They have a significant physical footprint, requiring allocations of space, hardware, and environmental controls. These assets have to be refreshed periodically, resulting in additional capital expenditures. They have attracted criticism because users "still have to buy, build, and manage them" and thus do not benefit from less hands-on management,[59] essentially "[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept".[60][61]
Cloud services are considered "public" when they are delivered over the public Internet, and they may be offered as a paid subscription, or free of charge.[62] Architecturally, there are few differences between public- and private-cloud services, but security concerns increase substantially when services (applications, storage, and other resources) are shared by multiple customers. Most public-cloud providers offer direct-connection services that allow customers to securely link their legacy data centers to their cloud-resident applications.[63][64]
Several factors like the functionality of the solutions, cost, integrational and organizational aspects as well as safety & security are influencing the decision of enterprises and organizations to choose a public cloud or on-premises solution.[65]
Hybrid cloud is a composition of a public cloud and a private environment, such as a private cloud or on-premises resources,[66][67] that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. Hybrid cloud can also mean the ability to connect collocation, managed or dedicated services with cloud resources.[3] Gartner defines a hybrid cloud service as a cloud computing service that is composed of some combination of private, public and community cloud services, from different service providers.[68] A hybrid cloud service crosses isolation and provider boundaries so that it cannot be simply put in one category of private, public, or community cloud service. It allows one to extend either the capacity or the capability of a cloud service, by aggregation, integration or customization with another cloud service.
Varied use cases for hybrid cloud composition exist. For example, an organization may store sensitive client data in house on a private cloud application, but interconnect that application to a business intelligence application provided on a public cloud as a software service.[69] This example of hybrid cloud extends the capabilities of the enterprise to deliver a specific business service through the addition of externally available public cloud services. Hybrid cloud adoption depends on a number of factors such as data security and compliance requirements, level of control needed over data, and the applications an organization uses.[70]
Another example of hybrid cloud is one where IT organizations use public cloud computing resources to meet temporary capacity needs that can not be met by the private cloud.[71] This capability enables hybrid clouds to employ cloud bursting for scaling across clouds.[3] Cloud bursting is an application deployment model in which an application runs in a private cloud or data center and "bursts" to a public cloud when the demand for computing capacity increases. A primary advantage of cloud bursting and a hybrid cloud model is that an organization pays for extra compute resources only when they are needed.[72] Cloud bursting enables data centers to create an in-house IT infrastructure that supports average workloads, and use cloud resources from public or private clouds, during spikes in processing demands.[73]
Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether it is managed internally or by a third-party, and hosted internally or externally, the costs are distributed among fewer users compared to a public cloud (but more than a private cloud). As a result, only a portion of the potential cost savings of cloud computing is achieved. [3]
According to ISO/IEC 22123-1: "multi-cloud is a cloud deployment model in which a customer uses public cloud services provided by two or more cloud service providers". [74] Poly cloud refers to the use of multiple public clouds for the purpose of leveraging specific services that each provider offers. It differs from Multi cloud in that it is not designed to increase flexibility or mitigate against failures but is rather used to allow an organization to achieve more than could be done with a single provider.[75]
According to International Data Corporation (IDC), global spending on cloud computing services has reached $706 billion and is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025.[76] Gartner estimated that global public cloud services end-user spending would reach $600 billion by 2023.[77] According to a McKinsey & Company report, cloud cost-optimization levers and value-oriented business use cases foresee more than $1 trillion in run-rate EBITDA across Fortune 500 companies as up for grabs in 2030.[78] In 2022, more than $1.3 trillion in enterprise IT spending was at stake from the shift to the cloud, growing to almost $1.8 trillion in 2025, according to Gartner.[79]
The European Commission's 2012 Communication identified several issues which were impeding the development of the cloud computing market:[80]: Section 3
The Communication set out a series of "digital agenda actions" which the Commission proposed to undertake in order to support the development of a fair and effective market for cloud computing services.[80]: Pages 6–14
As of 2025, the three largest cloud computing providers by market share, commonly referred to as hyperscalers, are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.[81][82] These companies dominate the global cloud market due to their extensive infrastructure, broad service offerings, and scalability.
In recent years, organizations have increasingly adopted alternative cloud providers, which offer specialized services that distinguish them from hyperscalers. These providers may offer advantages such as lower costs, improved cost transparency and predictability, enhanced data sovereignty (particularly within regions such as the European Union to comply with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)), stronger alignment with local regulatory requirements, or industry-specific services.[83]
Alternative cloud providers are often part of multi-cloud strategies, where organizations use multiple cloud services—both from hyperscalers and specialized providers—to optimize performance, compliance, and cost efficiency. However, they do not necessarily serve as direct replacements for hyperscalers, as their offerings are typically more specialized.[83]
The goal of cloud computing is to allow users to take benefit from all of these technologies, without the need for deep knowledge about or expertise with each one of them. The cloud aims to cut costs and helps the users focus on their core business instead of being impeded by IT obstacles.[84] The main enabling technology for cloud computing is virtualization. Virtualization software separates a physical computing device into one or more "virtual" devices, each of which can be easily used and managed to perform computing tasks. With operating system-level virtualization essentially creating a scalable system of multiple independent computing devices, idle computing resources can be allocated and used more efficiently. Virtualization provides the agility required to speed up IT operations and reduces cost by increasing infrastructure utilization. Autonomic computing automates the process through which the user can provision resources on-demand. By minimizing user involvement, automation speeds up the process, reduces labor costs and reduces the possibility of human errors.[84]
Cloud computing uses concepts from utility computing to provide metrics for the services used. Cloud computing attempts to address QoS (quality of service) and reliability problems of other grid computing models.[84]
Cloud computing shares characteristics with:
cite web: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)cite web: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
Media related to Cloud computing at Wikimedia Commons
| General | |
|---|---|
| Levels | |
| Multithreading | |
| Theory | |
| Elements | |
| Coordination | |
| Programming | |
| Hardware | |
| APIs | |
| Problems | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
|
United States of America
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Motto: "In God We Trust"[1]
Other traditional mottos:[2]
|
|||
| Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"[3]
|
|||
   |
|||
| Capital | Washington, D.C. 38°53′N 77°1′W / 38.883°N 77.017°W |
||
| Largest city | New York City | 40°43′N 74°0′W / 40.717°N 74.000°W | |
| Official languages | English[a] | ||
| Ethnic groups |
By race:
|
||
| Religion
(2025)[9]
|
|||
| Demonym | American[10][b] | ||
| Government | Federal presidential republic | ||
| Donald Trump | |||
| JD Vance | |||
| Mike Johnson | |||
| John Roberts | |||
| Legislature | Congress | ||
| Senate | |||
| House of Representatives | |||
| Independence
from Great Britain
|
|||
| July 4, 1776 | |||
| March 1, 1781 | |||
| September 3, 1783 | |||
| March 4, 1789 | |||
| 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 | |||
|
• 2025 estimate
|
 341,784,857[13] |
||
|
• 2020 census
|
331,449,281[14][d] (3rd) |
||
|
• Density
|
96.8/sq mi (37.4/km2) (180th) | ||
| GDP | (PPP) | 2025 estimate | |
|
• Total
|
 $30.616 trillion[15][e] (2nd) |
||
|
• Per capita
|
$89,599[15] (10th) |
||
| GDP | (nominal) | 2025 estimate | |
|
• Total
|
$30.616 trillion[15] (1st) |
||
|
• Per capita
|
$89,599[15] (8th) |
||
| Gini | (2024) |  41.8[16][f]medium inequality |
|
| HDI | (2023) | 0.938[17] |
very high (17th) |
| Currency | U.S. dollar ($) (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 | .com, .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 341 million.[k]
Paleo-Indians first migrated from North Asia to North America at least 15,000 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. Enslavement of Africans was practiced in every colony and supplied most of the labor for the Southern Colonies' plantation economy. Clashes with the British Crown began as a civil protest over the illegality of taxation without representation in Parliament and the denial of other English rights. They evolved into the American Revolution, which led to the Declaration of Independence and a society based on universal rights. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international recognition of U.S. sovereignty and fueled westward expansion, further dispossessing native inhabitants. As more states were admitted into the Union, a North–South division over slavery led 11 Southern states to attempt to secede and join as the Confederate States of America, which fought against the Union in the American Civil War of 1861–1865. 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 collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the U.S. as the world's sole superpower. After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. launched the war on terror, invading Afghanistan and Iraq. It has continued carrying out numerous foreign interventions since then.
The U.S. federal government is a representative democracy with a president and a constitution that creates a separation of powers among three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The United States Congress is 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. American ideals and 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 is widely considered to have the most powerful armed forces in the world and was the first to develop nuclear weapons. A member of numerous international organizations including the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. plays a major role in global political, cultural, economic, and military affairs.
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 name 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" (used without a qualifier) seldom refers to topics unrelated to the United States. "The Americas" is the general term to describe the totality of the continents of North and South America.[33]
The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia approximately 15,000 years ago, either across the Bering land bridge or along the now-submerged Ice Age coastline.[35][36] Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers are said to have migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska, with ice-free corridors developing along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America in c. 16,500 – c. 13,500 BCE (c. 18,500 – c. 15,500 BP).[37] The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BCE, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas.[38][39] Over time, Indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies.[40] 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.[41] Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European colonizers range from around 500,000[42][43] to nearly 10 million.[43][44]
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.[45][46][47][48] After several settlements failed there due to starvation and disease, Spain's first permanent town, Saint Augustine, was founded in 1565.[49]
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 (St. Louis, 1764) and especially the Gulf of Mexico (New Orleans, 1718).[50] 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 became Delaware). British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and the Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts, 1620).[51][52]
The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for local representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[53][54] 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.[55][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.[59][60] Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked Africans through the Atlantic slave trade, largely to provide manual labor on plantations.[61]
The original Thirteen Colonies[p] that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of the British Empire by Crown-appointed governors,[62] though local governments held elections open to most white male property owners.[63][64] The colonial population grew rapidly from Maine to Georgia, eclipsing Native American populations;[65] by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[66] The colonies' distance from Britain facilitated the entrenchment of self-governance,[67] and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals, fueled colonial interest in guaranteed religious liberty.[68]
Following its victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local affairs in the Thirteen Colonies, resulting in growing political resistance. One of the primary grievances of the colonists was the 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 the Second Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution to create an independent, sovereign nation, the Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776.[69] The political values of the American Revolution evolved from an armed rebellion demanding reform within an empire to a revolution that created a new social and governing system founded on the defense of liberty and the protection of inalienable natural rights; sovereignty of the people;[70] republicanism over monarchy, aristocracy, and other hereditary political power; civic virtue; and an intolerance of political corruption.[71] 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.[72][73]
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.[69] 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.[74] 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.[75]
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.[76] 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.[77] 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.[78]
In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward in larger numbers, many with a sense of manifest destiny.[79][80] The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States.[81][82] Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw.[83] Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819.[84]
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.[85]
As Americans expanded further into territory inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government implemented policies of Indian removal or assimilation.[86][87] 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.[88] Settler expansion as well as this influx of Indigenous peoples from the East resulted in the American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi.[89][90]
During the colonial period, slavery became legal in all the Thirteen colonies, and by 1770 it provided 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,[91] 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.[92] 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.[93][94][95]
The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845,[96] and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.[97] 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.[79][98] 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.[99] Additional western territories and states were created.[100]
Throughout the 1850s, the 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.[101] 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).[102][103]
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][104][105] War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter.[106][107] Following the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, many freed slaves joined the Union army.[108] 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.[109]
Efforts toward reconstruction in the secessionist South had begun as early as 1862,[112] 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.[113][114][115] As a result, African Americans took an active political role in ex-Confederate states in the decade following the Civil War.[116][117] The former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, beginning with Tennessee in 1866 and ending with Georgia in 1870.[118][119]
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.[120][121] From 1865 through 1917, an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe.[122] Most came through the Port of New York, as 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.[123] During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North.[124] Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867.[125]
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.[126] Immediately, the Redeemers began evicting the Carpetbaggers and quickly regained local control of Southern politics in the name of white supremacy.[127][128] African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often considered the nadir of American race relations.[129][130] 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 in part by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation.[131]
An explosion of technological advancement, accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor,[132] led to rapid economic expansion during the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. It continued into the early 20th, when the United States already outpaced the economies of Britain, France, and Germany combined. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries, as the United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry.[133][134][135][136] This fostered the amassing of enormous economic and political power by a few prominent industrialists, largely through the formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition.[137] These changes resulted in significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest, creating a fertile environment for labor unions and socialist movements to flourish.[138][139][140] This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant economic and social reforms.[141][142]
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.)[143] American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War.[144] The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917 after Danish voters approved the sale in a 1916 referendum.[145]
The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies in 1917 helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers.[146] In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage.[147] During the 1920s and 1930s, radio for mass communication and early television transformed communications nationwide.[148] 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.[149][150]
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 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.[151] Agreeing to a "Europe first" policy, the U.S. concentrated its wartime efforts on Japan's allies Italy and Germany until their final defeat in May 1945. 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.[152][153] 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.[154][155] The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence.[156]
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.[157][158][159] The U.S. implemented a policy of containment intended to limit the Soviet Union's sphere of influence; engaged in regime change against governments perceived to be aligned with the Soviets; and prevailed in the Space Race, which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969.[160][161]
Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II.[162] The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s.[163] 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.[164]
The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality.[165][166] It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973)[167] and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam, with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975.[168] A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation starting in the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed.[169]
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.[170][171][172][173][174] 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.[175][176]
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.[177]
In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait.[178] 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.[179][180][181]
The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression.[182] Beginning in the 2010s, and particularly in the 2020s, the United States has experienced increased political polarization[183][184] and democratic backsliding.[185][186] The country's polarization was violently reflected in the January 2021 Capitol attack,[187] when a mob of insurrectionists[188] entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power[189] in an attempted self-coup d'état.[190]
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][191] In 2021, the United States had 8% of the Earth's permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of its cropland.[192]
Starting in the east, the coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region.[193] The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack Massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest.[194] 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.[194]
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.[195] The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera, is the continent's largest volcanic feature.[196] Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, and Mojave deserts.[197] In the northwest corner of Arizona, carved by the Colorado River, is the Grand Canyon, a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination[198] 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,[199] about 84 miles (135 km) apart.[200]
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.[201] 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.[202]
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.[203][204]
With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south.[205] The western Great Plains are semi-arid.[206] Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon, Washington, and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii, the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical.[207]
The United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country.[208][209] States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley.[210] Due to climate change in the country, extreme weather has become more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves compared to the 1960s.[211][212][213] Since the 1990s, droughts in the American Southwest have become more persistent and more severe.[214] The regions considered as the most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable.[215]
The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.[217] The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians,[218] and around 91,000 insect species.[219]
There are 63 national parks, and hundreds of other federally managed monuments, forests, and wilderness areas, administered by the National Park Service and other agencies.[220] About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed,[221] primarily in the Western States.[222] Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes.[223][224]
Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy, air and water pollution, biodiversity, logging and deforestation,[225][226] and climate change.[227][228] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues.[229] The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act.[230] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act.[231] In 2024, the U.S. ranked 35th among 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index.[232]
The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The U.S. asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions.[19][233] It is the world's oldest surviving federation,[234] and its presidential system of federal government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization.[235] The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document.[236] Most scholars describe the United States as a liberal democracy,[237] though some have used descriptions such as oligarchy or plutocracy instead.[r]
Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. The U.S. Constitution establishes a separation of powers intended to provide a system of checks and balances to prevent any of the three branches from becoming supreme.[249]
The U.S. Congress is a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate has 100 members—two residents from each state and elected by that state's voters for a six-year term. The House of Representatives has 435 members, elected for a two-year term by the constituency of the congressional district where they reside. A state's legislature decides the district boundaries, which are contiguous within the state. Every U.S. congressional district is of equivalent population and sends one representative to Congress.[250] Election years for senators are staggered so that only one-third of them will be up for election every two years.[251] U.S. representatives are all up for election at the same time every two years. The U.S. Congress makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse,[252] and has the power of impeachment.[253] One of its foremost non-legislative functions is the power to investigate and oversee the executive branch.[254] Congressional oversight is usually delegated to committees and is facilitated by Congress's power to issue subpoenas.[255] Much of the work of Congress is performed by a collection of committees, each appointed for a specific purpose or function. Committee membership is by tradition and statute bipartisan, but all committees are chaired by a member of the majority party, who sets the committee agenda.[256]
The U.S. president is the head of state, commander-in-chief of the military, and chief executive of the federal government. The president appoints the members of the Cabinet, subject to Senate approval, and names other officials who administer and enforce federal law and policy through their respective agencies.[257] The president has the ability to veto legislative bills from the U.S. Congress before they become law. However, presidential vetoes can be overridden by a two-thirds supermajority vote in both chambers of Congress. The president also has clemency power for federal crimes and can issue pardons. Finally, the president has the authority to issue expansive "executive orders" in a number of policy areas, subject to judicial review. Candidates for president campaign with a vice-presidential running mate. Both candidates are elected together, or defeated together, in a presidential election. Unlike other votes in American politics, this is technically an indirect election in which the winner will be determined by the U.S. Electoral College. There, votes are officially cast by individual electors selected by their state legislature.[258] In practice, however, each of the 50 states chooses a group of presidential electors who are required by state law to confirm the winner of their state's popular vote. Each state is allocated two electors plus one additional elector for every congressional district in the state, which in effect combines to equal the number of elected officials that state sends to Congress. The District of Columbia, with no representatives or senators, is allocated three electoral votes. Both the president and the vice president serve a four-year term, and the president may be reelected to the office only once, for one additional four-year term.[s]
The U.S. federal judiciary, whose judges are all appointed for life by the president with Senate approval, consists primarily of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. courts of appeals, and the U.S. district courts. The lowest level in the federal judiciary is the federal district court, which decides all cases considered to be under "original jurisdiction", such as federal statutes, constitutional law, or international treaties. After a federal district court has decided a case, its decision may be contested and sent to a higher court, a federal court of appeals. The U.S. judicial system's 12 federal circuits divide the country into 12 separate geographic administrative regions for appeals decisions. The next and highest court in the system is the Supreme Court of the United States.[259] The U.S. Supreme Court interprets laws and overturns those it finds unconstitutional.[259] On average, the Supreme Court receives about 7,000 appeals petitions for writs of certiorari each year, but only grants about 80.[260] Consisting of nine members led by the Chief Justice of the United States, the court judges each case before it by majority decision. As with all other federal judges, the members are appointed for life by the sitting president with Senate approval when a vacancy becomes available.[261]
The three-branch system is known as the presidential system, in contrast to the parliamentary system where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world adopted this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States, especially in the postcolonial Americas.[262]
In the U.S. federal system, sovereign powers are shared between three levels of government specified in the Constitution: the federal government, the states, and Indian tribes.[263][264] The U.S. also asserts sovereignty over five permanently inhabited territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.[19]
Residents of the 50 states are governed by their elected state government, under state constitutions compatible with the national constitution, and by elected local governments that are administrative divisions of a state.[265] States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and (except for Hawaii) further divided into municipalities, each administered by elected representatives. The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C.[266] The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government.[267]
Indian country is made up of 574 federally recognized tribes and 326 Indian reservations. They hold a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. federal government in Washington and are legally defined as domestic dependent nations with inherent tribal sovereignty rights.[264][263][268][269]
In addition to the five major territories, the U.S. also asserts sovereignty over the United States Minor Outlying Islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean.[19] The seven undisputed islands without permanent populations are Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll. U.S. sovereignty over the unpopulated Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island, Serranilla Bank, and Wake Island is disputed.[19]
The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties.[270] Since then, the United States has operated as a de facto two-party system, though the parties have changed over time.[271] Since the mid-19th century, the two main national parties have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative in its platform.[272]
The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, with the world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024[update]. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council[273] and home to the United Nations headquarters.[274] The United States is a member of the G7,[275] G20,[276] and OECD intergovernmental organizations.[277] Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with the United States, except Iran,[278] North Korea,[279] and Bhutan.[280] Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations.[281] The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression.[282] Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan.[283]
The United States has a "Special Relationship" with the United Kingdom[284] and strong ties with Canada,[285] Australia,[286] New Zealand,[287] the Philippines,[288] Japan,[289] South Korea,[290] Israel,[291] and several European Union countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland.[292] The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau through the Compact of Free Association.[259] It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India,[293] while its ties with China have steadily deteriorated.[294][295] Beginning in 2014, the U.S. had become a key ally of Ukraine.[296][297]
The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense, headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of the six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force.[298] The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime.[299] Total strength of the entire military is about 1.3 million active duty with an additional 400,000 in reserve.
The United States spent $997 billion on its military in 2024, which is by far the largest amount of any country, making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of the country's GDP.[300] The U.S. possesses 42% of the world's nuclear weapons—the second-largest stockpile after that of Russia.[301] The U.S. military is widely regarded as the most powerful and advanced in the world.[302][303]
The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces.[304] The U.S. military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad,[305] and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries.[306] The United States has engaged in over 400 military interventions since its founding in 1776, with over half of these occurring between 1950 and 2019 and 25% occurring in the post-Cold War era.[307]
State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor.[308][309][310] By contrast, the 54 U.S. National Guard organizations[t] fall under the dual control of state or territorial governments and the federal government; their units can also become federalized entities, but SDFs cannot be federalized.[311] The National Guard personnel of a state or territory can be federalized by the president under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933; this legislation created the Guard and provides for the integration of Army National Guard and Air National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force.[312] The total number of National Guard members is about 430,000, while the estimated combined strength of SDFs is less than 10,000.[313]
There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States.[314] Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security, enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws, and interstate criminal activity.[315] State courts conduct almost all civil and criminal trials,[316] while federal courts adjudicate the much smaller number of civil and criminal cases that relate to federal law.[317]
There is no unified "criminal justice system" in the United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2025, "these systems hold nearly 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,277 juvenile correctional facilities, 133 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories."[318]
Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities.[319] Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold pretrial detainees as well as people who have been convicted of federal crimes.[319] State prisons, run by the department of corrections of each state, hold people sentenced and serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses.[319] Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under a year).[319] Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined.[320]
In January 2023, the United States had the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in the world, with more than 1.9 million people incarcerated.[318][321][322] An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher".[323]
The U.S. has a highly developed mixed economy[324] that has been the world's largest nominally since about 1890.[325] Its 2024 gross domestic product (GDP)[e] of more than $29 trillion[326] constituted over 25% of nominal global economic output, or 15% at purchasing power parity (PPP). From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7.[327] The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP,[328] second when adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPP),[15] and ninth by PPP-adjusted GDP per capita.[15] In February 2024, the total U.S. federal government debt was $34.4 trillion.[329]
Of the world's 500 largest companies by revenue, 138 were headquartered in the U.S. in 2025,[330] the highest number of any country.[331] The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and the world's foremost reserve currency, backed by the country's dominant economy, its military, the petrodollar system, its large U.S. treasuries market, and its linked eurodollar.[332] Several countries use it as their official currency, and in others it is the de facto currency.[333][334] The U.S. has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA.[335] Although the United States has reached a post-industrial level of economic development[336] and is often described as having a service economy,[336][337] it remains a major industrial power;[338] in 2024, the U.S. manufacturing sector was the world's second-largest by value output after China's.[339]
New York City is the world's principal financial center,[341][342] and its metropolitan area is the world's largest metropolitan economy.[343] The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, both located in New York City, are the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume.[344][345] The United States is at the forefront of technological advancement and innovation in many economic fields, especially in artificial intelligence; electronics and computers; pharmaceuticals; and medical, aerospace and military equipment.[346] The country's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.[347] The largest trading partners of the United States are the European Union, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan.[348] The United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter.[u] It is by far the world's largest exporter of services.[351]
Americans have the highest average household[352] and employee income among OECD member states, and the fourth-highest median household income in 2023,[353] up from sixth-highest in 2013.[354] With personal consumption expenditures of over $18.5 trillion in 2023,[355] the U.S. has a heavily consumer-driven economy and is the world's largest consumer market.[356] The U.S. ranked first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires in 2023, with 735 billionaires and nearly 22 million millionaires.[357]
Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated; in 2011, the richest 10% of the adult population owned 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom 50% owned just 2%.[358] U.S. wealth inequality increased substantially since the late 1980s,[359] and income inequality in the U.S. reached a record high in 2019.[360] In 2024, the country had some of the highest wealth and income inequality levels among OECD countries.[361] Since the 1970s, there has been a decoupling of U.S. wage gains from worker productivity.[362] In 2016, the top fifth of earners took home more than half of all income,[363] giving the U.S. one of the widest income distributions among OECD countries.[364][362] There were about 771,480 homeless persons in the U.S. in 2024.[365] In 2022, 6.4 million children experienced food insecurity.[366] Feeding America estimates that around one in five, or approximately 13 million, children experience hunger in the U.S. and do not know where or when they will get their next meal.[367] Also in 2022, about 37.9 million people, or 11.5% of the U.S. population, were living in poverty.[368]
The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high-income countries.[369][370] It is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation nationally[371] and one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right.[372] The United States has a higher percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed country, largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at-risk workers.[373]
The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid-20th century.[376] Methods for producing interchangeable parts and the establishment of a machine tool industry enabled the large-scale manufacturing of U.S. consumer products in the late 19th century.[377] By the early 20th century, factory electrification, the introduction of the assembly line, and other labor-saving techniques created the system of mass production.[378]
In the 21st century, the United States continues to be one of the world's foremost scientific powers,[379] though China has emerged as a major competitor in many fields.[380] The U.S. has the highest research and development expenditures of any country[381] and ranks ninth as a percentage of GDP.[382] In 2022, the United States was (after China) the country with the second-highest number of published scientific papers.[383] In 2021, the U.S. ranked second (also after China) by the number of patent applications, and third by trademark and industrial design applications (after China and Germany), according to World Intellectual Property Indicators.[384] In 2025[385][386] the United States ranked third (after Switzerland and Sweden) in the Global Innovation Index. The United States is considered to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence technology.[387] In 2023, the United States was ranked the second most technologically advanced country in the world (after South Korea) by Global Finance magazine.[388]
The United States has maintained a space program since the late 1950s, beginning with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958.[389][390] NASA's Apollo program (1961–1972) achieved the first crewed Moon landing with the 1969 Apollo 11 mission; it remains one of the agency's most significant milestones.[391][392] Other major endeavors by NASA include the Space Shuttle program (1981–2011),[393] the Voyager program (1972–present), the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes (launched in 1990 and 2021, respectively),[394][395] and the multi-mission Mars Exploration Program (Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance).[396] NASA is one of five agencies collaborating on the International Space Station (ISS);[397] U.S. contributions to the ISS include several modules, including Destiny (2001), Harmony (2007), and Tranquility (2010), as well as ongoing logistical and operational support.[398]
The United States private sector dominates the global commercial spaceflight industry.[399] Prominent American spaceflight contractors include Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX. NASA programs such as the Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Resupply Services, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and NextSTEP have facilitated growing private-sector involvement in American spaceflight.[400]
In 2023, the United States received approximately 84% of its energy from fossil fuel, and its largest source of energy was petroleum (38%), followed by natural gas (36%), renewable sources (9%), coal (9%), and nuclear power (9%).[401][402] In 2022, the United States constituted about 4% of the world's population, but consumed around 16% of the world's energy.[403] The U.S. ranks as the second-highest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China.[404]
The U.S. is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, generating around 30% of the world's nuclear electricity.[405] It also has the highest number of nuclear power reactors of any country.[406] From 2024, the U.S. plans to triple its nuclear power capacity by 2050.[407]
The United States' 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of road network, owned almost entirely by state and local governments, is the longest in the world.[408][409] The extensive Interstate Highway System that connects all major U.S. cities is funded mostly by the federal government but maintained by state departments of transportation. The system is further extended by state highways and some private toll roads.
The U.S. is among the top ten countries with the highest vehicle ownership per capita (850 vehicles per 1,000 people) in 2022. A 2022 study found that 76% of U.S. commuters drive alone and 14% ride a bicycle, including bike owners and users of bike-sharing networks. About 11% use some form of public transportation.[410][411]
Public transportation in the United States is well developed in the largest urban areas, notably New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco; otherwise, coverage is generally less extensive than in most other developed countries. The U.S. also has many relatively car-dependent localities.[412]
Long-distance intercity travel is provided primarily by airlines, but travel by rail is more common along the Northeast Corridor, the only high-speed rail in the U.S. that meets international standards. Amtrak, the country's government-sponsored national passenger rail company, has a relatively sparse network compared to that of Western European countries. Service is concentrated in the Northeast, California, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Virginia/Southeast.
The United States has an extensive air transportation network. U.S. civilian airlines are all privately owned. The three largest airlines in the world, by total number of passengers carried, are U.S.-based; American Airlines became the global leader after its 2013 merger with US Airways.[415] Of the 50 busiest airports in the world, 16 are in the United States, as well as five of the top 10.[416] The world's busiest airport by passenger volume is Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International in Atlanta, Georgia.[413][416] In 2022, most of the 19,969 U.S. airports[417] were owned and operated by local government authorities, and there are also some private airports. Some 5,193 are designated as "public use", including for general aviation. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has provided security at most major airports since 2001.
The country's rail transport network, the longest in the world at 182,412.3 mi (293,564.2 km),[418] handles mostly freight[419][420] (in contrast to more passenger-centered rail in Europe[421]). Because they are often privately owned operations, U.S. railroads lag behind those of the rest of the world in terms of electrification.[422]
The country's inland waterways are the world's fifth-longest, totaling 25,482 mi (41,009 km).[423] They are used extensively for freight, recreation, and a small amount of passenger traffic. Of the world's 50 busiest container ports, four are located in the United States, with the busiest in the country being the Port of Los Angeles.[424]
| State | Population (millions) |
|---|---|
| California | |
| Texas | |
| Florida | |
| New York | |
| Pennsylvania | |
| Illinois | |
| Ohio | |
| Georgia | |
| North Carolina | |
| Michigan |
The U.S. Census Bureau reported 331,449,281 residents on April 1, 2020,[v][426] making the United States the third-most-populous country in the world, after India and China.[427] The Census Bureau's official 2025 population estimate was 341,784,857, an increase of 3.1% since the 2020 census.[13] According to the Bureau's U.S. Population Clock, on July 1, 2024, the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 16 seconds, or about 5400 people per day.[428] In 2023, 51% of Americans age 15 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 34% had never been married.[429] In 2023, the total fertility rate for the U.S. stood at 1.6 children per woman,[430] and, at 23%, it had the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households in 2019.[431] Most Americans live in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas.
The United States has a diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members.[432] White Americans with ancestry from Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57.8% of the United States population.[433][434] Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total U.S. population.[432] Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%,[432] and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government.[435] In 2024, the median age of the United States population was 39.1 years.[436]
While many languages and dialects are spoken in the United States, English is by far the most commonly spoken and written.[437] De facto, English is the official language of the United States, and in 2025, Executive Order 14224 declared English official.[4] However, the U.S. has never had a statutory official language, as Congress has never passed a law to designate English as official for all three federal branches. Some laws, such as U.S. naturalization requirements, nonetheless standardize English. Twenty-eight states and the United States Virgin Islands have laws that designate English as the sole official language; 19 states and the District of Columbia have no official language.[438] Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English: Hawaii (Hawaiian),[439] Alaska (twenty Native languages),[w][440] South Dakota (Sioux),[441] American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In total, 169 Native American languages are spoken in the United States.[442] In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English.[443]
According to the American Community Survey (2020),[444] some 245.4 million people in the U.S. age five and older spoke only English at home. About 41.2 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (3.40 million), Tagalog (1.71 million), Vietnamese (1.52 million), Arabic (1.39 million), French (1.18 million), Korean (1.07 million), and Russian (1.04 million). German, spoken by 1 million people at home in 2010, fell to 881,000 estimated total speakers in 2020.[445]
America's immigrant population is by far the world's largest in absolute terms.[446][447] In 2022, there were 87.7 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for nearly 27% of the overall U.S. population.[448] In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents, 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants.[449] In 2019, the top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (24% of immigrants), India (6%), China (5%), the Philippines (4.5%), and El Salvador (3%).[450] In fiscal year 2022, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence.[451] The undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. reached a record high of 14 million in 2023.[452]
The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion in the country and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment.[453][454] Religious practice is widespread, among the most diverse in the world,[455] and profoundly vibrant.[456]
The country has the world's largest Christian population, which includes the fourth-largest population of Catholics.[457] Other notable faiths include Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, New Age, and Native American religions.[458] Religious practice varies significantly by region.[459] "Ceremonial deism" is common in American culture.[460]
The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power or spiritual force, engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, and consider themselves religious or spiritual.[461][462] In the Southern United States' "Bible Belt", evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally; New England and the Western United States tend to be more secular.[459][463] Mormonism, a Restorationist movement founded in the U.S. in 1847,[464] is the predominant religion in Utah and a major religion in Idaho.
About 82% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, particularly in suburbs;[346] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.[465] In 2022, 333 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four cities—New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—had populations exceeding two million.[466] Many U.S. metropolitan populations are growing rapidly, particularly in the South and West.[467]
|
Largest metropolitan areas in the United States
|
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Region | Pop. | Rank | Name | Region | Pop. | ||
| 1 | New York | Northeast | 20,112,448 | 11 | Boston | Northeast | 5,034,221 | ||
| 2 | Los Angeles | West | 12,844,441 | 12 | Riverside–San Bernardino | West | 4,769,007 | ||
| 3 | Chicago | Midwest | 9,434,123 | 13 | San Francisco | West | 4,630,041 | ||
| 4 | Dallas–Fort Worth | South | 8,477,157 | 14 | Detroit | Midwest | 4,390,913 | ||
| 5 | Houston | South | 7,904,627 | 15 | Seattle | West | 4,161,883 | ||
| 6 | Atlanta | South | 6,482,182 | 16 | Minneapolis–Saint Paul | Midwest | 3,790,295 | ||
| 7 | Washington, D.C. | South | 6,465,724 | 17 | Tampa–St. Petersburg | South | 3,418,895 | ||
| 8 | Miami | South | 6,391,072 | 18 | San Diego | West | 3,282,248 | ||
| 9 | Philadelphia | Northeast | 6,329,118 | 19 | Denver | West | 3,092,037 | ||
| 10 | Phoenix | West | 5,228,938 | 20 | Orlando | South | 2,957,672 | ||
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), average U.S. life expectancy at birth reached 79.0 years in 2024, its highest recorded level. This was an increase of 0.6 years over 2023. The CDC attributed the improvement to a significant fall in the number of fatal drug overdoses in the country, noting that "heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer and unintentional injuries."[472] In 2024, life expectancy at birth for American men rose to 76.5 years (+0.7 years compared to 2023), while life expectancy for women was 81.4 years (+0.3 years).[473] Starting in 1998, life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans' "health disadvantage" gap has been increasing ever since.[474]
The Commonwealth Fund reported in 2020 that the U.S. had the highest suicide rate among high-income countries.[475] Approximately one-third of the U.S. adult population is obese and another third is overweight.[476] The U.S. healthcare system far outspends that of any other country, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP, but attains worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer countries for reasons that are debated.[477] The United States is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance.[478] Government-funded healthcare coverage for the poor (Medicaid) and for those age 65 and older (Medicare) is available to Americans who meet the programs' income or age qualifications. In 2010, then-President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[x][479] Abortion in the United States is not federally protected, and is illegal or restricted in 17 states.[480]
American primary and secondary education, known in the U.S. as K–12 ("kindergarten through 12th grade"), is decentralized. School systems are operated by state, territorial, and sometimes municipal governments and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. In general, children are required to attend school or an approved homeschool from the age of five or six (kindergarten or first grade) until they are 18 years old. This often brings students through the 12th grade, the final year of a U.S. high school, but some states and territories allow them to leave school earlier, at age 16 or 17.[482] The U.S. spends more on education per student than any other country,[483] an average of $18,614 per year per public elementary and secondary school student in 2020–2021.[484] Among Americans age 25 and older, 92.2% graduated from high school, 62.7% attended some college, 37.7% earned a bachelor's degree, and 14.2% earned a graduate degree.[485] The U.S. literacy rate is near-universal.[346][486] The U.S. has produced the most Nobel Prize winners of any country, with 411 (having won 413 awards).[487][488]
U.S. tertiary or higher education has earned a global reputation. Many of the world's top universities, as listed by various ranking organizations, are in the United States, including 19 of the top 25.[489][490] American higher education is dominated by state university systems, although the country's many private universities and colleges enroll about 20% of all American students. Local community colleges generally offer open admissions, lower tuition, and coursework leading to a two-year associate degree or a non-degree certificate.[491]
As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. spends more per student than the OECD average, and Americans spend more than all nations in combined public and private spending.[492] Colleges and universities directly funded by the federal government do not charge tuition and are limited to military personnel and government employees, including: the U.S. service academies, the Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges. Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place,[493] student loan debt increased by 102% between 2010 and 2020,[494] and exceeded $1.7 trillion in 2022.[495]
The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and customs.[497][498] The country has been described as having the values of individualism and personal autonomy,[499][500] as well as a strong work ethic[501] and competitiveness.[502] Voluntary altruism towards others also plays a major role;[503][504][505] according to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans donated 1.44% of total GDP to charity—the highest rate in the world by a large margin.[506] Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying political belief in an "American Creed" emphasizing consent of the governed, liberty, equality under the law, democracy, social equality, property rights, and a preference for limited government.[507][508] The U.S. has acquired significant hard and soft power through its diplomatic influence, economic power, military alliances, and cultural exports such as American movies, music, video games, sports, and food.[509][510] The influence that the United States exerts on other countries through soft power is referred to as Americanization.[511]
Nearly all present Americans or their ancestors came from Europe, Africa, or Asia (the "Old World") within the past five centuries.[512] Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa.[513] More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl, with immigrants contributing to, and often assimilating into, mainstream American culture.
Under the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country.[514] Flag desecration, hate speech, blasphemy, and lese majesty are all forms of protected expression.[515][516][517] A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured.[518] Additionally, they are the "most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the Internet without government censorship".[519] The U.S. is a socially progressive country[520] with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality.[521] LGBTQ rights in the United States are among the most advanced by global standards.[521][522][523]
The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high levels of social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants.[524][525] Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate.[526][527][528] While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society,[529] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.[530][531] Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition as well.[532]
The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities is an agency of the United States federal government that was established in 1965 with the purpose to "develop and promote a broadly conceived national policy of support for the humanities and the arts in the United States, and for institutions which preserve the cultural heritage of the United States."[533] It is composed of four sub-agencies:
Colonial American authors were influenced by John Locke and other Enlightenment philosophers.[535][536] The American Revolutionary Period (1765–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. Shortly before and after the Revolutionary War, the newspaper rose to prominence, filling a demand for anti-British national literature.[537][538] An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy, published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-19th century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture by criticizing predecessors such as Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts, and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe,[539] who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement;[540][541] Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement.
The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the 19th century American Renaissance include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson.[542][543] Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). As literacy rates rose, periodicals published more stories centered around industrial workers, women, and the rural poor.[544][545] Naturalism, regionalism, and realism were the major literary movements of the period.[546][547]
While modernism generally took on an international character, modernist authors working within the United States more often rooted their work in specific regions, peoples, and cultures.[548] Following the Great Migration to northern cities, African-American and black West Indian authors of the Harlem Renaissance developed an independent tradition of literature that rebuked a history of inequality and celebrated black culture. An important cultural export during the Jazz Age, these writings were a key influence on Négritude, a philosophy emerging in the 1930s among francophone writers of the African diaspora.[549][550] In the 1950s, an ideal of homogeneity led many authors to attempt to write the Great American Novel,[551] while the Beat Generation rejected this conformity, using styles that elevated the impact of the spoken word over mechanics to describe drug use, sexuality, and the failings of society.[552][553] Contemporary literature is more pluralistic than in previous eras, with the closest thing to a unifying feature being a trend toward self-conscious experiments with language.[554] Twelve American laureates have won the Nobel Prize in Literature.[555]
Media in the United States is broadly uncensored, with the First Amendment providing significant protections, as reiterated in New York Times Co. v. United States.[514] The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is the country's major non-commercial public broadcast network;[556] it also provides educational programming through local PBS stations.[557][558][559][560] The U.S. cable television system offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches.[561] In 2021, about 83% of Americans over age 12 listened to broadcast radio, while about 40% listened to podcasts.[562] In the prior year, there were 15,460 licensed full-power radio stations in the U.S. according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).[563] Public radio broadcasting is largely supplied by National Public Radio (NPR), incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.[564]
U.S. newspapers with a global reach and reputation include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today.[565] About 800 publications are produced in Spanish.[566][567] With few exceptions, newspapers are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or, in an increasingly rare situation, by individuals or families. Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers, such as The Village Voice in New York City and LA Weekly in Los Angeles. The five most-visited websites in the world are Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and ChatGPT—all of them American-owned. Other popular platforms used include X (formerly Twitter) and Amazon.[568][569]
In 2025, the U.S. was the world's second-largest video game market by revenue (after China).[570] In 2015, the U.S. video game industry consisted of 2,457 companies that employed around 220,000 jobs and generated $30.4 billion in revenue.[571] There are 444 game publishers, developers, and hardware companies in California alone.[572] According to the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the U.S. is the top location for video game development, with 58% of the world's game developers based there in 2025.[573]
The United States is well known for its theater. Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater.[574] By the middle of the 19th century, America had created new distinct dramatic forms in the Tom Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel show.[575] The central hub of the American theater scene is the Theater District in Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway.[576]
Many movie and television celebrities have gotten their big break working in New York productions. Outside New York City, many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons. The biggest-budget theatrical productions are musicals. U.S. theater has an active community theater culture.[577]
The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theater. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award.[578]
Folk art in colonial America grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves. It was distinct from Europe's tradition of high art, which was less accessible and generally less relevant to early American settlers.[580] Cultural movements in art and craftsmanship in colonial America generally lagged behind those of Western Europe. For example, the prevailing medieval style of woodworking and primitive sculpture became integral to early American folk art, despite the emergence of Renaissance styles in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The new English styles would have been early enough to make a considerable impact on American folk art, but American styles and forms had already been firmly adopted. Not only did styles change slowly in early America, but there was a tendency for rural artisans there to continue their traditional forms longer than their urban counterparts did—and far longer than those in Western Europe.[514]
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the visual arts tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.[581]
American Realism and American Regionalism sought to reflect and give America new ways of looking at itself. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new and individualistic styles, which would become known as American modernism. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, James Van Der Zee, Ansel Adams, and Gordon Parks.[582]
The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.[583] The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is the largest art museum in the United States[584] and the fourth-largest in the world.[585]
American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, mainland Europe, or Africa.[586] The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music in particular have influenced American music.[587] Banjos were brought to America through the slave trade. Minstrel shows incorporating the instrument into their acts led to its increased popularity and widespread production in the 19th century.[588][589] The electric guitar, first invented in the 1930s, and mass-produced by the 1940s, had an enormous influence on popular music, in particular due to the development of rock and roll.[590] The synthesizer, turntablism, and electronic music were also largely developed in the U.S.
Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz grew from blues and ragtime in the early 20th century, developing from the innovations and recordings of composers such as W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington increased its popularity early in the 20th century.[591] Country music developed in the 1920s,[592] bluegrass[593] and rhythm and blues in the 1940s,[594] and rock and roll in the 1950s.[590] In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of the country's most celebrated songwriters.[595] The musical forms of punk and hip hop both originated in the United States in the 1970s.[596]
The United States has the world's largest music market, with a total retail value of $15.9 billion in 2022.[597] Most of the world's major record companies are based in the U.S.; they are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[598] Mid-20th-century American pop stars, such as Frank Sinatra[599] and Elvis Presley,[600] became global celebrities and best-selling music artists,[591] as have artists of the late 20th century, such as Michael Jackson,[601] Madonna,[602] Whitney Houston,[603] and Mariah Carey,[604] and of the early 21st century, such as Eminem,[605] Britney Spears,[606] Lady Gaga,[606] Katy Perry,[606] Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.[607]
The United States has the world's largest apparel market by revenue.[608] Apart from professional business attire, American fashion is eclectic and predominantly informal. Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing; however, sneakers, jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps are emblematic of American styles.[609] New York, with its Fashion Week, is considered to be one of the "Big Four" global fashion capitals, along with Paris, Milan, and London. A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan's Garment District has been synonymous with American fashion since its inception in the early 20th century.[610]
A number of well-known designer labels, among them Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford and Calvin Klein, are headquartered in Manhattan.[611][612] Labels cater to niche markets, such as preteens. New York Fashion Week is one of the most influential fashion shows in the world, and is held twice each year in Manhattan;[613] the annual Met Gala, also in Manhattan, has been called the fashion world's "biggest night".[614][615]
The U.S. film industry has a worldwide influence and following. Hollywood, a district in central Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city, is also metonymous for the American filmmaking industry.[616][617][618] The major film studios of the United States are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies selling the most tickets in the world.[619][620]
Largely centered in the New York City region from its beginnings in the late 19th century through the first decades of the 20th century,[621][622][623][624] the U.S. film industry has since been primarily based in and around Hollywood. Nonetheless, American film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization in the 21st century, and an increasing number of films are made elsewhere.[625] The Academy Awards, popularly known as "the Oscars", have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929,[626] and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944.[627]
The industry peaked in what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s,[628] with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures.[629][630] In the 1970s, "New Hollywood", or the "Hollywood Renaissance",[631] was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period.[632] The 21st century has been marked by the rise of American streaming platforms, which came to rival traditional cinema.[633][634]
Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup. Of the most enduring and pervasive examples are variations of the native dish called succotash. Early settlers and later immigrants combined these with foods they were familiar with, such as wheat flour,[635] beef, and milk, to create a distinctive American cuisine.[636][637] New World crops, especially pumpkin, corn, potatoes, and turkey as the main course are part of a shared national menu on Thanksgiving, when many Americans prepare or purchase traditional dishes to celebrate the occasion.[638]
Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, doughnuts, french fries, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs, and American pizza derive from the recipes of various immigrant groups.[639][640][641][642] Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos preexisted the United States in areas later annexed from Mexico, and adaptations of Chinese cuisine as well as pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are all widely consumed.[643]
American chefs have had a significant impact on society both domestically and internationally. In 1946, the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angell and Frances Roth. This would become the United States' most prestigious culinary school, where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers.[644][645] The United States restaurant industry was projected at $899 billion in sales for 2020,[646][647] and employed more than 15 million people, representing 10% of the nation's workforce directly.[646] It is the country's second-largest private employer and the third-largest employer overall.[648][649] The United States is home to over 220 Michelin star-rated restaurants, 70 of which are in New York City.[650]
Wine has been produced in what is now the United States since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in what is now New Mexico in 1628.[651][652][653] In the modern U.S., wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84 percent of all U.S. wine. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.[654][655]
The classic American diner, a casual restaurant type originally intended for the working class, emerged during the 19th century from converted railroad dining cars made stationary. The diner soon evolved into purpose-built structures whose number expanded greatly in the 20th century.[656] The American fast-food industry developed alongside the nation's car culture.[657] American restaurants developed the drive-in format in the 1920s, which they began to replace with the drive-through format by the 1940s.[658][659] American fast-food restaurant chains, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts and many others, have numerous outlets around the world.[660]
The most popular spectator sports in the U.S. are American football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey.[661] Their premier leagues are, respectively, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association,[662] Major League Baseball,[663] Major League Soccer,[664] and the National Hockey League,[665] All these leagues enjoy wide-ranging domestic media coverage and, except for the MLS, all are considered the preeminent leagues in their respective sports in the world. While most major U.S. sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, many of which have become popular worldwide.[666] Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact.[667] The market for professional sports in the United States was approximately $69 billion in July 2013, roughly 50% larger than that of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.[668]
American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States.[669] Although American football does not have a substantial following in other nations, the NFL does have the highest average attendance (67,254) of any professional sports league in the world.[670] In the year 2024, the NFL generated over $23 billion, making them the most valued professional sports league in the United States and the world.[671] Baseball has been regarded as the U.S. "national sport" since the late 19th century. The most-watched individual sports in the U.S. are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR and IndyCar.[672][673]
On the collegiate level, earnings for the member institutions exceed $1 billion annually,[674] and college football and basketball attract large audiences, as the NCAA March Madness tournament and the College Football Playoff are some of the most watched national sporting events.[675] In the U.S., the intercollegiate sports level serves as the main feeder system for professional and Olympic sports, with significant exceptions such as Minor League Baseball. This differs greatly from practices in nearly all other countries, where publicly and privately funded sports organizations serve this function.[676]
Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were the first-ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe.[677] The Olympic Games will be held in the U.S. for a ninth time when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,968 medals (1,179 gold) at the Olympic Games, the most of any country.[678][679][680]
In other international competition, the United States is the home of a number of prestigious events, including the America's Cup, World Baseball Classic, the U.S. Open, and the Masters Tournament. The U.S. men's national soccer team has qualified for eleven World Cups, while the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament four and five times, respectively.[681] The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was hosted by the United States. Its final match was attended by 90,185, setting the world record for largest women's sporting event crowd at the time.[682] The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will co-host, along with Canada and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup.[683]
reflect base feature updates made in the MAF/TIGER database through August, 2010.
Archaeological evidence, in fact, recognizes that people started to leave Beringia for the New World around 40,000 years ago, but rapid expansion into North America didn't occur until about 15,000 years ago, when the ice had literally broken
By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy.
...the so-called sexual revolution in the United States in the 1960s, marked by greatly more permissive attitudes toward sexual interest and activity than had been prevalent in earlier generations.
Now evidence is mounting that a global reversal is challenging a series of established democracies, including the United States who were downgraded by both Freedom House and V-Dem in 2018.
Prominent cross-national measures of democracy from the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem), Bright Line Watch, and Freedom House, which had once ranked the country as a global leader, show a U.S. democracy slipping toward "mixed regime" or "illiberal democracy" status.
As with the Beer Hall Putsch, a would-be leader tried to take advantage of an already scheduled event (in Hitler's case, Kahr's speech; in Trump's, Congress's tallying of the electoral votes) to create a dramatic moment with himself at the center of attention, calling for bold action to upend the political order. Unlike Hitler's coup attempt, Trump already held top of office, so he was attempting to hold onto power, not seize it (the precise term for Trump's intended action is a 'self-coup' or 'autogolpe'). Thus, Trump was able to plan for the event well in advance, and with much greater control, including developing the legal arguments that could be used to justify rejecting the election's results.(p. 3)
What the United States went through on January 6th was an attempt at a self-coup, where Trump would use force to stay as head of state even if abandoning democratic practices in the U.S. Some advised Trump to declare martial law to create a state of emergency and use that as an excuse to stay in power.
[Trump] tried to delegitimize the election results by disseminating a series of far fetched and evidence-free claims of fraud. Meanwhile, with a ring of close confidants, Trump conceived and implemented unprecedented schemes to – in his own words – "overturn" the election outcome. Among the results of this "Big Lie" campaign were the terrible events of January 6, 2021 – an inflection point in what we now understand was nothing less than an attempted coup.
A good case can be made that the storming of the Capitol qualifies as a coup. It's especially so because the rioters entered at precisely the moment when the incumbent's loss was to be formally sealed, and they succeeded in stopping the count.
Because its object was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attack was widely regarded as an insurrection or attempted coup d'état.
cite web: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)During peacetime it is part of the Department of Homeland Security. During wartime, or when the president or Congress so direct, it becomes part of the Department of Defense and is included in the Department of the Navy.
The US has a mixed economy because both private businesses and the government are important.
The New York metro area dwarfs all other cities for economic output by a large margin.
In the United States, the average household net adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 45 284 a year, much higher than the OECD average of USD 33 604 and the highest figure in the OECD.
The United States is the only advanced economy that does not federally mandate any paid vacation days or holidays.
It was this secret sauce [...] that provided the spark for the biggest and most powerful technology hub in the world.
For decades it has been the beating heart of the tech industry, the place where the future is created and where anyone who wants to be part of it has to come in search of inspiration and funding.
As predicted, in post-industrial societies, characterized by predominately liberal social cultures, like the US, Sweden, and UK...
...(the United States and [Western] Europe) as "already in crisis" for their permissive attitudes toward nonnormative sexualities...
13.) United States
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a dramatic wave began to form in the waters of public opinion: American attitudes involving homosexuality began to change... The transformation of America's response to homosexuality has been — and continues to be — one of the most rapid and sustained shifts in mass attitudes since the start of public polling.
"Tesla, Master of Lightning", New Voyage Communications for PBS Television Network, 2000, 90 minutes.
Suarez joined the PBS NewsHour in 1999 and was a senior correspondent for the evening news program on the PBS television network until 2013.
We are pleased to announce the release of Inside Peace throughout the PBS television network in the United States.
Spanning just about 20 square blocks between Times Square and Penn Station along Seventh Avenue (also known as "Fashion Avenue"), the vibrant and always-busy neighborhood has a long and rich history that has become synonymous with American fashion since its inception more than a century ago.
When Hollywood, California, was mostly orange groves, Fort Lee, New Jersey, was a center of American film production.
Back in 1912, when Hollywood had more cattle than cameras, Fort Lee was the center of the cinematic universe. Icons from the silent era like Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and Lillian Gish crossed the Hudson River via ferry to emote on Fort Lee back lots.
Presidential environmental policies, 1933–2009
story of American freedom.
</ref>
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 (license statement/permission). Text taken from World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2023, FAO, FAO.
Wikimedia Atlas of the United States
Geographic data related to United States at OpenStreetMap
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Geographic | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
