The United States of America or the USA, is a country inhabiting nearly the entire continent of North America. Its official language is English, with regional languages of German, French and a little Spanish in the Old Southwest. The US covers an area of 20,883,665.56 sq km (8,062242.33 sq mi).
History[]
Main Article: History of the United States
Political Situation[]
The United States is a federal republic, with a small federal government that has no central welfare state like some other countries, having been ruled unconstitutional in the 1930's and 1940's after President Franklin Roosevelt's aborted run for a third term. The current President, George Allen, and the Vice President, Michelle Bachmann, of the Republican and Constitution Parties, respectively, were elected in 2008 after succeeding the former President, Jean Pierre Miquelon and Laura Wallace, both of whom who served one term.
The federal government has limited power to regulate interstate commerce, mostly confined to general product safety, food safety and standard interfaces for the country, through the FDA and FCC. Unique tax regulations in the US allow tax-free retirement accounts rather than a general 'social security' tax that all pay into, as well as a 'Health Savings Account' with similar tax-free investment to use for medical expenses, rather than a nationalized health care as in Communist China, Russia, and in British East Africa. Germany recently abandoned its nationalized health care system for a model more in line with the American system.
Administrative Divisions[]
States[]
There are 74 States in the United States of America, along with 12 organized territories.
Official State Name | Common | IPA | USPS | Flag | Date | 2008 Pop | Capital | Most Populous City |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
State of Alabama | Alabama | /ˌæləˈbæmə/ | AL | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,661,900 | Montgomery | Birmingham | |
State of Alaska | Alaska | /əˈlæskə/ | AK | Template:Dts/out1 | 686,293 | Juneau | Anchorage | |
State of Arizona | Arizona | /ˌær |
AZ | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,500,180 | Phoenix | Phoenix | |
State of Arkansas | Arkansas | /ˈɑrkənsɑː/ | AR | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,855,390 | Little Rock | Little Rock | |
State of California | California | /ˌkæl |
CA | Template:Dts/out1 | 36,756,666 | Sacramento | Los Angeles | |
State of Colorado | Colorado | /ˌkɒləˈrædoʊ/ | CO | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,939,456 | Denver | Denver | |
State of Connecticut | Connecticut | /kəˈnɛt |
CT | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,501,252 | Hartford | Bridgeport | |
State of Cuba | Cuba | /ˈkjuːbə/ | CU | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,939,456 | Havana | Havana | |
State of Delaware | Delaware | /ˈdɛləwɛər/ | DE | Template:Dts/out1 | 873,092 | Dover | Wilmington | |
State of Durango | Durango | /duˈɾaŋɡo/ | DR | File:Flag of Durango.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 873,092 | Durango City | Madison |
State of Florida | Florida | /ˈflɔr |
FL | Template:Dts/out1 | 18,328,340 | Tallahassee | Jacksonville | |
State of Franklin | Franklin | /ˈflɔr |
FR | File:Flag of Franklin.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 13,150,000 | Franklin City | Toronto |
State of Georgia | Georgia | /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ | GA | Template:Dts/out1 | 9,685,744 | Atlanta | Atlanta | |
State of Guyana | Guyana | /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ | GU | Template:Dts/out1 | 9,685,744 | Georgetown | Cayenne | |
State of Hamilton | Hamilton | /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ | HA | Template:Dts/out1 | 9,685,744 | Vallarta City | Alexandria | |
State of Hawaii | Hawaii | /həˈwaɪ.iː/, Hw: [mokuˈʔaːinɐ oː hɐˈvɛiʔi] | HI | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,288,198 | Honolulu | Honolulu | |
State of Idaho | Idaho | /ˈaɪdəhoʊ/ | ID | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,523,816 | Boise | Boise | |
State of Illinois | Illinois | /ɪl |
IL | Template:Dts/out1 | 12,901,563 | Springfield | Chicago | |
State of Indiana | Indiana | /ˌɪndiˈænə/ | IN | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,376,792 | Indianapolis | Indianapolis | |
State of Iowa | Iowa | /ˈaɪ.ɵwə/ | IA | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,002,555 | Des Moines | Des Moines | |
State of Jefferson | Jefferson | /ˈaɪ.ɵwə/ | JF | File:Flag of Jefferson.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,002,555 | Laredo | Charleston |
State of Kansas | Kansas | /ˈkænzəs/ | KS | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,802,134 | Topeka | Wichita | |
Commonwealth of Kentucky | Kentucky | /kənˈtʌki/ | KY | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,269,245 | Frankfort | Louisville | |
State of Lincoln | Lincoln | /nəˈvædə/ | NA | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,600,167 | New Glasgow | Winnipeg | |
State of Louisiana | Louisiana | /luˌiziˈænə/, Fr: [lwizjan] | LA | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,410,796 | Baton Rouge | New Orleans | |
State of Madison | Madison | /ˈaɪ.ɵwə/ | MA | File:Flag of Madison.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,002,555 | Calgary | Saskatoon |
State of Maine | Maine | /ˈmeɪn/, Fr: [mɛn] | ME | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,316,456 | Augusta | Portland | |
State of Maryland | Maryland | /ˈmɛrələnd/ | MD | Template:Dts/out1 | 5,633,597 | Annapolis | Baltimore | |
Commonwealth of Massachusetts | Massachusetts | /ˌmæsəˈtʃuːs |
MU | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,497,967 | Boston | Boston | |
State of Mexico | Mexico | /ˈmɛksɪkoʊ/ | MX | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,497,967 | Toluca | South York | |
State of Michigan | Michigan | /ˈmɪʃ |
MI | Template:Dts/out1 | 10,003,422 | Lansing | Detroit | |
State of Minnesota | Minnesota | /ˌmɪn |
MN | Template:Dts/out1 | 5,220,393 | Saint Paul | Minneapolis | |
State of Mississippi | Mississippi | /ˌmɪs |
MS | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,938,618 | Jackson | Jackson | |
State of Missouri | Missouri | /m |
MO | Template:Dts/out1 | 5,911,605 | Jefferson City | Kansas City | |
State of Montana | Montana | /mɒnˈtænə/ | MT | Template:Dts/out1 | 967,440 | Helena | Billings | |
State of Nebraska | Nebraska | /nəˈbræskə/ | NE | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,783,432 | Lincoln | Omaha | |
State of Nevada | Nevada | /nəˈvædə/ | NV | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,600,167 | Carson City | Las Vegas | |
State of New Hampshire | New Hampshire | /nuː ˈhæmpʃər/ | NH | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,315,809 | Concord | Manchester | |
State of New Jersey | New Jersey | /nuː ˈdʒɜrzi/ | NJ | Template:Dts/out1 | 8,682,661 | Trenton | Newark | |
State of New Mexico | New Mexico | /nuː ˈmɛks |
NM | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,984,356 | Santa Fe | Albuquerque | |
State of New York | New York | /nuː ˈjɔrk/ | NY | Template:Dts/out1 | 19,490,297 | Albany | New York | |
State of Newfoundland | Newfoundland | /nuː ˈhæmpʃər/ | NB | Template:Dts/out1 | 508,925 | St. John's | St. John's | |
State of North Carolina | North Carolina | /ˌnɔrθ kɛrɵˈlaɪnə/ | NC | Template:Dts/out1 | 9,222,414 | Raleigh | Charlotte | |
State of North Columbia | North Columbia | /ˌnɔrθ kəˈlʌmbiə/ | NU | File:Flag of North Columbia.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 9,222,414 | Vancouver | Vancouver |
State of North Dakota | North Dakota | /ˌnɔrθ dəˈkoʊtə/ | ND | Template:Dts/out1 | 641,481 | Bismarck | Fargo | |
State of Nova Scotia | Nova Scotia | /ˌnɔrθ dəˈkoʊtə/ | NS | Template:Dts/out1 | 641,481 | Halifax | Halifax | |
State of Ohio | Ohio | /ɵˈhaɪ.oʊ/ | OH | Template:Dts/out1 | 11,485,910 | Columbus | Columbus | |
State of Oklahoma | Oklahoma | /ˌoʊkləˈhoʊmə/ | OK | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,642,361 | Oklahoma City | Oklahoma City | |
State of Oregon | Oregon | /ˈɔər |
OR | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,790,060 | Salem | Portland | |
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | Pennsylvania | /ˌpɛns |
PA | Template:Dts/out1 | 12,448,279 | Harrisburg | Philadelphia | |
State of Puerto Rico | Puerto Rico | /ˌnɔrθ dəˈkoʊtə/ | PR | Template:Dts/out1 | 3,994,259 | San Juan | San Juan | |
State of Quebec | Quebec | /kəˈbɛk/ | QU | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,050,788 | Quebec City | Quebec City | |
State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations | Rhode Island | /rɵˈdaɪlənd/ | RI | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,050,788 | Providence | Providence | |
State of Saint Dominic's Island | Saint Dominic's Island | /ˌsaʊθ dəˈkoʊtə/ | SA | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,804,194 | Santo Domingo | Santo Domingo | |
State of Sonora | Sonora | /ˌsaʊθ dəˈkoʊtə/ | SR | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,804,194 | Jacksonville | Jacksonville | |
State of South California | South California | /ˌsaʊθ ˌkæl |
SL | File:Flag of South California.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,804,194 | San Diego | Tijuana |
State of South Carolina | South Carolina | /ˌsaʊθ kɛrɵˈlaɪnə/ | SC | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,479,800 | Columbia | Columbia | |
State of South Columbia | South Columbia | /ˌsaʊθ kəˈlʌmbiə/ | SU | File:Flag of South Columbia.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,804,194 | Olympia | Seattle |
State of South Dakota | South Dakota | /ˌsaʊθ dəˈkoʊtə/ | SD | Template:Dts/out1 | 804,194 | Pierre | Sioux Falls | |
State of Tennessee | Tennessee | /ˌtɛn |
TN | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,214,888 | Nashville | Memphis | |
State of Texas | Texas | /ˈtɛksəs/ | TX | Template:Dts/out1 | 24,326,974 | Austin | Houston | |
State of Utah | Utah | /ˈjuːtɔː/ | UT | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,736,424 | Salt Lake City | Salt Lake City | |
State of Veracruz | Veracruz | /ˌver-ə-ˈkrüz/ | VZ | Template:Dts/out1 | 621,270 | Boca del Rio | Burlington | |
State of Vermont | Vermont | /vərˈmɒnt/ | VT | Template:Dts/out1 | 621,270 | Montpelier | Burlington | |
State of Victoria | Victoria | /viktɔɹiːə/ | VI | File:Flag of Victoria.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 621,270 | Victoria City | Victoria City |
Commonwealth of Virginia | Virginia | /vərˈdʒɪnjə/ | VA | Template:Dts/out1 | 7,769,089 | Richmond | Virginia Beach | |
State of Washington | Washington | /ˈwɒʃɪŋtən/ | WA | Template:Dts/out1 | 6,549,224 | Olympia | Seattle | |
State of West Virginia | West Virginia | /ˌwɛst vərˈdʒɪnjə/ | WV | Template:Dts/out1 | 1,814,468 | Charleston | Charleston | |
State of Wisconsin | Wisconsin | /wɪsˈkɒns |
WI | Template:Dts/out1 | 5,627,967 | Madison | Milwaukee | |
State of Wyoming | Wyoming | /waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ | WY | Template:Dts/out1 | 532,668 | Cheyenne | Cheyenne | |
State of Yucatan | Yucatan | /ˌjü-kə-ˈtan/ | YC | Template:Dts/out1 | 532,668 | Merida | Jackson City | |
State of Yukon | Yukon | /ˈjuːkɒn/ | YK | Template:Dts/out1 | 532,668 | Washington City | Washington City |
Territories[]
Official Territory Name | Common | IPA | USPS | Flag | Date | 2008 Pop | Capital | Most Populous City |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Territory of American Samoa | American Samoa | /əˈmɛrɪkən səˈmoʊə/ | SM | Template:Dts/out1 | 67,375 | Fagatogo | Fagatogo | |
Territory of Canary Islands | Canary Islands | /kəˈnæriː ˈaɪləndz/ | CY | File:Flag of Canary Islands.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 2,145,375 | Las Palmas de Gran Canaria | Las Palmas de Gran Canaria |
Territory of Cape Verde | Cape Verde | /ˌkeɪp ˈvɜ:rd/ | CV | Template:Dts/out1 | 621,900 | Mindelo | Mindelo | |
Territory of Guam | Guam | /ˌkeɪp ˈvɜ:rd/ | GU | Template:Dts/out1 | 178,900 | Hagåtña | Hagåtña | |
Territory of Hudson | Hudson | /ˌæləˈbæmə/ | KW | File:Flag of Hudson.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 71,432 | Fort Rupert | Fort Rupert |
Territory of Keewatin | Keewatin | /ˌæləˈbæmə/ | KW | File:Flag of Keewatin.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 51,600 | Port Nelson | Port Nelson |
Territory of Labrador | Labrador | /əˈlæskə/ | LN | Template:Dts/out1 | 256,743 | Red Bay | Red Bay | |
Territory of Manitoba | Manitoba | /ˌmænɨˈtoʊbə/ | MB | Template:Dts/out1 | 4,661,900 | Montgomery | Birmingham | |
Territory of North Pacific Islands | North Pacific Islands | /kəˈnæriː ˈaɪləndz/ | NP | File:Flag of North Pacific Islands.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 745,375 | Saipan | Saipan |
Territory of São Tomé and Príncipe | São Tomé and Príncipe | /ˌsaʊ toʊˈmeɪ ən ˈprɪnsɨpə/ | SP | File:Flag of Saint Thomas.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 164,900 | São Tomé | São Tomé |
Territory of South Pacific Islands | South Pacific Islands | /kəˈnæriː ˈaɪləndz/ | SP | Template:Dts/out1 | 562,375 | South Tarawa | South Tarawa | |
Territory of U.S. Virgin Islands | U.S. Virgin Islands | /ˈjuːkɒn/ | VI | File:Flag of Virgin Islands.svg | Template:Dts/out1 | 109,455 | Charlotte Amelie | Charlotte Amelie |
Parties[]
Demographics[]
Race[]
The United States is a remarkably diverse nation, with European, African, Asian, Hispanic, and Middle-Eastern immigrants coming in each year through the quota system that was set up in 1882, amended in 1924, which provides that those who are educated and have skills necessary for the nation as a whole, and who can speak English will be allowed in.
- Ethnic breakdown of US:
- 85% European-origin (mostly UK, Germany, Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries)
- 8% African-origin
- 4% Hispanic-origin (Central, South America)
- 3% Asian-origin
Language[]
The United States has a diverse range of languages, ranging from Native American, to European, to Asian. The majority language is English, being the first language of 75% of the population, and German and French the first language of 20% of the population.
- Language Spoken at Home (2005)
- English-only 80.4% (387.6 million)
- French 9.4% (45.3 million)
- German 7.2% (34.7 million)
- Dutch 1.1% (5.3 million)
- Spanish 1.0% (4.8 million)
Several states have official languages, some only English, while others are bilingual or trilingual.
- Bilingual states (English/French)
- East Hudson
- East Quebec
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Quebec
- West Hudson
- Bilingual states (English/German)
- Franklin
- Kentucky
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
- South Dakota
- Texas
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Bilingual states (English/Dutch)
- New York
Age[]
Power[]
The United States has a diverse power generation system, comprising mostly nuclear, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. About 69% of the energy of the United States comes from nuclear power, 20% from coal, 5% from natural gas, and the remaining 6% from wind, solar and hydroelectric combined.
There are over 350 nuclear plants within the United States, from Yucatan and Guiana in the south, to Columbia and Labrador in the north. Since 1961, the United States has standardized its nuclear plant program under the Atomic Energy Commission, yielding three main classes of reactor: 900 Mw, 1200 Mw, and 1500 Mw. The high degree of standardization has allowed the United States to develop the most advanced nuclear power industry in the world.
Culture[]
The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. Aside from the now small Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries. The culture held in common by most Americans — 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. More recent immigration from Asia and to a much lesser degree Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as both a homogenizing melting pot and a heterogeneous salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics. The majority of immigrants into the United States arrive from northern Europe.
According to Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions analysis, the United States has the highest individualism score of any country studied. While the mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. The American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary social trends such as modern feminism, environmentalism, and founderism. While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute. The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants, though some analysts find that the United States has less social mobility in certain areas of the country than Western Europe.
Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees. In 2007, 67% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 17% had never been married. A disturbing trend appeared with rising divorce rates in the late 60's and early 70's, when Fascist-inspired feminists took over the feminist movement and inspired an 'us vs. them' mentality amongst a number of women, which died out with the counter-feminist movement of the late 70's and early 80's. Black separatism arose in the inner cities due to habitual neglect by the perpetually elected Democrat governments of these large cities, which has not penetrated into the now Republican South or into the Southwest or Midwest, as in those regions, black Americans are majority middle class.
Popular media[]
The world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City in 1894, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited as the greatest film of all time. American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. The major film studios of Hollywood have produced the most commercially successful movies in history, such as Star Trek (1979) and Titanic (1999), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry.
Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world, and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006. The four major broadcast networks are all commercial entities. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day. Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are Facebook, NetTube, Wikipedia, Blogger, eBay, and Craigslist.
The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s. Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include hip hop and house music. American pop stars such as Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.
Literature, philosophy, and the arts[]
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the 19th century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, is now recognized as an essential American poet. A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel."
Fourteen U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Pierre Thibodeaux in 1993. Ernest Hemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate, is often named as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States. The Beat Generation writers opened up new literary approaches, as have postmodernist authors such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Don DeLillo.
The transcendentalists, led by Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Sanders Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the 20th century, the work of W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty, built upon by Noam Chomsky, brought analytic philosophy to the fore of U.S. academics. John Rawls and Robert Nozick led a revival of political philosophy.
In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the 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. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new styles, displaying a highly individualistic sensibility. 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. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought fame to American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry.
One of the first major promoters of American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.
Though largely overlooked at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition; other experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created an American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a unique synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham helped create modern dance, while George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in 20th century ballet. Americans have long been important in the modern artistic medium of photography, with major photographers including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Ansel Adams. The newspaper comic strip and the comic book are both U.S. innovations. Superman, the quintessential comic book superhero, has become an American icon, along with Ultra-Man, Spider-Man, and Batman.
Food[]
Mainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important.
Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, German dishes such as wurstchens, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed. Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%; frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American "obesity epidemic." Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American's caloric intake. A retro-cuisine based on earlier colonial diets has taken hold and become quite popular amongst a wide range of the country, from Durango to Quebec and Yukon in response to the rise in fast-food chains, using all-natural foods without preservatives or pesticides.
Sports[]
Since the late 19th century, baseball has been regarded as the national sport; American football, basketball, and ice hockey are the country's three other leading professional team sports. College football and basketball attract large audiences. Football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport. Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. Soccer is played widely at the youth and amateur levels due to high levels of immigration from Germany and Scandinavia. Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as well.
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American inventions. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,475 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country, and 293 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most.
Measurement systems[]
The country retains United States customary units, constituted largely by British imperial units such as yards, miles, and degrees Fahrenheit. Distinct units include the U.S. gallon and pint volume measurements. The United States is one of several countries, along with Qatar, Israel, and Liberia, that has not officially adopted the metric system. However, metric units are increasingly used in science, medicine, and many industrial fields. Bottles of Soda and other drinks are sold in quarts, not liters as in Europe.
References[]
- ↑ The Hartford-West Hartford-Willimantic Combined Statistical Area is the most populous metropolitan area in Connecticut.
- ↑ The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area is the most populous metropolitan area in Florida.
- ↑ Baltimore City and the 12 Maryland counties of the Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia Combined Statistical Area form the most populous metropolitan region in Maryland.
- ↑ The City of Saint Louis and the 8 Missouri counties of the St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington Combined Statistical Area form the most populous metropolitan region in Missouri.
- ↑ The five southeastern New Hampshire counties of the Boston-Worcester-Manchester Combined Statistical Area form the most populous metropolitan region in New Hampshire.
- ↑ The 13 northern New Jersey counties of the New York-Newark-Bridgeport Combined Statistical Area form the most populous metropolitan region in New Jersey.
- ↑ New York City is the most populous city in the United States.
- ↑ The Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Combined Statistical Area is the most populous metropolitan area in Ohio.
- ↑ The Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson Combined Statistical Area is the most populous metropolitan area in South Carolina.
- ↑ The Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Columbia Combined Statistical Area is the most populous metropolitan area in Tennessee.
- ↑ The Dallas-Fort Worth Combined Statistical Area is the most populous metropolitan area in Texas.
- ↑ The ten Virginia counties and six Virginia cities of the Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia Combined Statistical Area form the most populous metropolitan region in Virginia.