The United States of America—also referred to as the United States, the USA, the US, America, the States (colloquially), and Columbia (poetically)—is a democratic, federal republic of 50 states. Located primarily in central North America, the United States has land borders with Canada and Mexico, and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia and the Bahamas. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. Forty-eight of the states—often referred to as the continental, contiguous or Lower 48 states—are located in a single region between Canada and Mexico. The other two—Alaska and the archipelago of Hawaii—are not contiguous with any of the others. There is a federal district—the District of Columbia, comprising the capital, Washington—and a number of overseas territories and possessions.

The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing the 13 British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the United States was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution; the date on which each of the original 13 states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States), although these states were technically already part of the first United States Republic (Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union), and upon ratification entered into the Second Republic under the Constitution. Since the mid-twentieth century, the United States has become a dominant global influence in contemporary economic, political, military, scientific, technological and cultural matters.

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering Sea approximately 10,000–40,000 years ago. The Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. During the 1500s and 1600s, Spanish settlers sparsely settled parts of what are now the southwest and Florida. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements were established in what is now the state of New York, including New Amsterdam on the site of the present day New York City. This was followed by extensive English settlement of the east coast. The colonials remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France lost its land around the Great Lakes and Mississippi River in a war with the British. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the settlers as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the settlers increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule.

In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed.

First President of the United States, George WashingtonFrom early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid 19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis point in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments.

During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across the North America. In the process, the US displaced most Native American nations. (See Trail of Tears.) This displacement of Native Americans continues to be a matter of contention in the US with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas Native American populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. Unlike European countries, the US was never a colonial power (having itself been spawned from a colonial rebellion) but through various military victories, diplomacy, and outside dealings, the US acquired a number of overseas possessions, from Cuba to the Philippines, though it gave up most of these over time. (See United States territorial acquisitions.)

During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation and aeronautics.

In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929–1941). The US has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in which the US was allied with Britain and other states). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the US became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Gulf War to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. After terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, the US and other allied nations entered a War on Terrorism and later the war against Iraq.

The government of the United States may be accurately categorized as a republic or as a liberal democracy. Specifically, the United States is an example of a representative democracy. There are three levels of government in the United States—federal, state, and local. All of these are freely elected by the American people. Americans enjoy universal suffrage upon reaching the age of 18, however the residents of Washington, D.C.'s representation in Congress is limited.

Constitution

The Constitution of the United States sets out the powers of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government and provides for a number of rights for its citizens, including freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, trial by jury, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, printing money, controlling trade and relations between the states, and protecting human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the government has generally extended these powers, citing the "necessary and proper clause" of the Constitution, into such areas as welfare and education. The federal government is made up of the Congress (the legislative branch), the President (the executive branch), and the Supreme Court (the judicial branch). These three branches are said to apply checks and balances on each other.

The Congress is a bicameral law-making institution composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Traditionally, the House is considered the "lower house" and the Senate the "upper house," but Congressional publications disagree with this. The House has 435 members, called representatives or congressmen and congresswomen, who are elected by the people of a congressional district to represent that district for a term of two years. The number of districts for each state depends on the size of the population of the state, and each state has at least one representative. As of the 2000 census, the districts had an average size of about 640,000 people.

The Senate has 100 members called senators, who are also elected by the people of a state to represent that state for a term of six years. Each state has two senators, regardless of its size. The Constitution initially gave the power to elect senators to the state legislatures; the Seventeenth Amendment transferred this ability to the people.

At the top of the executive branch is the President of the United States, who is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The President signs laws into action, and can also issue pardons and executive orders. He has few other Constitutional duties, among them being the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress from time to time. Below the President is the Vice President, who is first in the line of succession and is the President of the Senate, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. These two posts are elected, as running mates, by the people via the Electoral College for four-year terms.

Next are the members of the Cabinet, and the various departments they head, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads hold much regulatory and political power, and it is these departments that are used to execute the laws of the nation.

The judicial branch of the federal government is used when dealing with federal and constitutional matters. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question, the supreme court of a state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution. The highest court in the land is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below that are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law.

State and local governments

United States of America, showing states, divided into counties.The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system.

The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county councils, making laws that effect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Military

Four of America's five military branches are under the Department of Defense: United States Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and the Air Force. The Coast Guard is under the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but part of the Department of Defense in time of war.

The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed Forces are considered to be the most powerful military on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other single nation.

Foreign relations

The immense military, economic, and cultural dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited Amerophilia (admiration and mimicking of all things American) to anti-Americanism.

U.S. foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and allegations of imperialism and everywhere in between.

Physical geography

As the world's third-largest country (by total area), the United States landscape varies greatly: temperate forestland and rolling hills on the East coast, mangrove in Florida, the Great Plains in the center of the country, the Mississippi-Missouri river system, the Great Lakes which are shared with Canada, the Rocky Mountains west of the plains, deserts and temperate coastal zones west of the Rocky Mountains and temperate rain forests in the Pacific Northwest. Alaska's tundra and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic and climatic diversity.

The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the American South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semiarid shortgrass prairies on the High Plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the American Southwest from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of the American West, including California, have a Mediterranean climate. Rain forests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

Political geography

The political geography is notable as well, with the Canadian border being the longest undefended border in the world, and with the country being divided into three distinct sections: the continental United States, also known as "The Lower 48"; Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada; and the archipelago of Hawaii in the central Pacific Ocean.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Following union-victory in that event in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union, has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states within the U.S. grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships.

The United States also holds several other territories, districts and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this is moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

The United States has dozens of major cities, including several important global cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 esitmates, are as follows. (It should be noted that some cities not listed are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage and politics.)

Los Angeles

Chicago

New York

The economy of the United States is organized primarily on a capitalist model, with some government regulation in many industries. There are also some social welfare programs like Social Security and unemployment benefits, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families ("welfare"), the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicare, and Medicaid. Such departures from a pure free-market economy have generally increased since the late 1800s, but are less pronounced in the United States than in other industrialized countries.

The United States dollar is the official currency.The country has rich mineral resources, with extensive gold, oil, coal, and uranium deposits. Successful farm industries rank the country among the top producers of, among others, corn, wheat, sugar, and tobacco. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces, among other things, cars, airplanes, and electronics. The largest industry is now service, which employs roughly three-quarters of U.S. residents.

Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as “the breadbasket of America” for their tremendous agricultural output, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeastern U.S. is a major hub for medical research, as well as many of the nation's textiles manufacturers.

Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.

The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (20%), followed by Mexico (12%), China (Mainland 10%, Hong Kong 1%) and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40.4 million visitors ranked behind France's 75 million and Spain's 52.5 million.

Transportation

Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of US cities has taken place after the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territories, the United States built a network of high capacity, high speed highways, of which the most important aspect is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves 46 of the lower forty-eight states.

Many cities in the United States have extensive mass transit systems. New York City, NY operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems.

Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 km) away, and some airports, such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, are among the busiest in the world. There are several major seaports in the United States, the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles (California), Port of Long Beach (California) and Port of New York/New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas, Savannah, Georgia, Miami, Florida, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, California and Seattle, Washington, plus, outside the contiguous 48 states, Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Demographics

Ethnicity and race

Americans, in part due to categories decided by the U.S. government, generally describe themselves as being one of five ethnic groups: White, also called Caucasian; African American, also called Black; Hispanic, also called Latino; Asian American, frequently specified as Chinese American, Filipino American, Indian American, Korean American, Vietnamese American, etc.; and Native American, also called American Indian.

The category Asian is popularly identified with East Asia, rather than South or Southwest Asia; Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians, technically Native Americans, may be assigned to Asian-American because of their geographic origins in Oceania; the term African-American is associated with centuries-long residents, and does not make distinctions between them and, say, recent Afro-Caribbean immigrants from Jamaica or refugees from Somalia. Furthermore, the categories disregard the multi-ethnic heritage of many Americans.

The majority of the 295 million people currently living in the United States descend from European immigrants who have arrived since the establishment of the first colonies (most, however, arrived after Reconstruction). This majority decreases each year, and whites are expected to become a plurality within several decades. Major components of the European segment of the United States population are descended from immigrants from Germany (15.2%), Ireland (10.8%), England (8.7%), Italy (5.6%), Scandinavia (3.7%) and many immigrants also coming from Slavic countries (mainly Catholic Slavs such as Poles, as well as Jews). Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Most Americans of French descent, in fact, including the Cajuns of Louisiana, are descended from French Canadians, as France has never been a major immigrant-sending country. These numbers, however, are less precise than they appear, as many citizens listed themselves as "American" on the census (7.2%). A county by county map of plurality ethnic groups reveals that the areas with the largest "American" ancestry populations were mostly settled by English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh, suggesting that the percentages listed for those groups should consequently be slightly larger. (See British-Americans.)

Top ancestries in 2000.Likewise, while there were few immigrants directly from Spain, Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are considered the largest minority group in the country, comprising 13.4% of the population in 2002. This has brought increasing use of the Spanish language in the United States. Mexicans alone made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. The Hispanic category is based more on language than race and is defined by the Census as anybody from or with forebears from Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America so Hispanics may be of any race. About 45% identify by their ethnic background only ("Mexican", "Salvadoran"); they are usually mestizos or even American Indians of unmixed ancestry. About 40% identify as white with more European (especially Spanish) ancestry; however, on average, they tend to have more Amerindian or African blood than non-Hispanic whites. They are a diverse group consisting of most Puerto Ricans and Cubans, and a large proportion of the New Mexican Spanish, Tejanos, and recent South American immigrants, as well as children of mixed marriages between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. Another 5% identify as black or mulatto; they typically are descended from Spanish-speaking Caribbean immigrants such as Dominicans. The remainder includes mostly self-identified Indians (Maya, Mixtec, etc.) and people of mixed background. Most Filipinos, however, are not considered Hispanic.

About 12.9% (2000 census) of the American people is African Americans of non-Hispanic origin, most of whom are descendants of the enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. between the 1620s and 1807 and emancipated during the American Civil War. Starting in the 1970s, the black population has been bolstered by immigration from the Caribbean, especially Jamaica and Haiti; more recently, starting in the 1990s, there has been an influx of African immigrants to the United States due to the instability in political and economic opportunities in various nations in Africa.

A third significant minority is the Asian American population (4.2%), most of whom are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. It is by no means a monolithic group; the largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan. While the Asian-American population is generally a fairly recent addition to the nation's ethnic mix, large waves of Chinese, Filipino and Japanese immigration happened in the mid to late 1800s.

The aboriginal population of Native Americans, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up about 1.5% of the population.

According to the 2000 census, the United States has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million people each.

Religion

The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast.

Education

In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten and following through twelfth grade (although in some states, students are permitted to drop out upon the age of 16 with the permission of their parents/guardians). Parents may educate their own children at home (with varying degrees of state oversight), send their children to a public school, which is free, or to a private school, where parents must pay tuition. Public schools are highly decentralized with funding and curriculum decisions taking place mostly at the local level through school boards.

After high school, students have a choice of attending either a public/state university or a private university. Public universities receive funding from the federal and state government but students still pay tuition, which can vary depending on the university, state, and whether the student is a resident of the state or not. Tuition at private universities tends to be much higher than at public universities.

American colleges and universities range from highly competitive schools, such as Stanford University and Harvard University, to hundreds of local community colleges with open admission policies. For a complete list, see Colleges and Universities in the United States.

Language

The United States does not have an official language at federal level; nevertheless, English is the first and/or only language of the overwhelming majority of the population and serves as the de facto official language: English is the language used for legislation, regulations, executive orders, treaties, federal court rulings, and all other official pronouncements.

Twenty-seven individual states have adopted English as their official language, and three of those—Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico—have also adopted a second official language (Hawaiian, French and Spanish, respectively). Spanish follows English as the second-most spoken language in the United States, primarily due to the influence of recent Latin American immigrants and the fact that almost a fifth of its continental territory was originally part of Mexico, and it is a primary spoken language in some areas of the Southwest.

The primary signed language is American Sign Language (ASL).

As of 2004, the United States was the home of approximately 336 languages (spoken or signed), of which 176 are indigenous to U.S. territory.

Class

U.S. residents enjoy one of the highest average personal incomes in the world, in 2005 the US was ranked 3rd in GDP per capita (calculated by purchase power parity) and 8th in GDP per capita (calculated nominally).

As of 2002, 51 percent of all households have access to a computer and 67.9 percent of U.S. households owned their dwellings.

Despite its having one of the highest average personal incomes, there is also a considerable amount of poverty in the United States with 12.1 percent of the population living below the official national poverty level. It is conceded even by defenders of the U.S. that people who cannot compete effectively in the employment marketplace, such as the elderly and the disabled, enjoy less material security in the U.S. than they would in the social democracies of Western Europe unless, of course, they hold significant savings or get significant help from family members.

The social structure of the United States is somewhat stratified, with a significant class of very wealthy individuals; 11 of the 20 richest people in the world are American. On one widely used measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, the United States has the highest inequality of any wealthy country. Nevertheless, ideas of social mobility figure prominently in the American dream, which holds that someone born into a poor family can, through hard work, ultimately rise into the upper classes. However, there is some debate over how often this actually occurs in modern American society, both compared with earlier eras and with other developed nations.

Culture

Elvis Presley, an American singer and star who had a large impact on music and youth culture in the world.U.S. popular culture has a significant influence on the rest of the world, especially the Western world. U.S. music is heard all over the world, and it is the sire of such forms as blues and jazz and had a primary hand in the shaping of modern rock and roll and popular music culture. Many great Western classical musicians and ensembles find their home in the U.S. New York City is a hub for international operatic and instrumental music as well as the world-famed Broadway plays and musicals, Seattle is a world leader in the grunge and heavy metal music industries, and Nashville is the capital of country music. New York, Seattle, and San Francisco are worldwide leaders in graphic design and New York and Los Angeles compete with major European cities in the fashion industry.

U.S. movies (primarily embodied in Hollywood) and television shows can be seen almost anywhere. This is in stark contrast to the early days of the republic, when the country was viewed by Europeans as an agricultural backwater with little to offer the culturally "advanced" world centers of Asia and Europe. Nearing the mid-point of its third century of nationhood, the U.S. plays host to the gamut of human intellectual and artistic endeavor in nearly every major city, offering classical and popular music; historical, scientific and art research centers and museums; dance performances, musicals and plays; outdoor art projects and internationally significant architecture. This development is a result of both contributions by private philanthropists and government funding.

Sports

Some sports that originated or evolved in the United States, particularly basketball, American football, and baseball, which is often referred to as the Great American Pastime, have achieved a worldwide audience; the Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League, is one of the most highly watched broadcasts in the world, with viewership far outnumbering the total American population. Baseball is extremely popular in Latin American nations and Japan, and football has had some success in expanding to other areas, like NFL Europe. However, few "foreign" sports have caught on in America; attempts to create professional soccer (football) leagues have struggled, and cricket and rugby are not played on any professional level.

The United States hosts some of the premier events in other sports such as golf (including The Masters), tennis (U.S. Open), and auto racing (particularly the Indianapolis 500), and hosted the World Cup in 1994.

Eight Olympic Games have been hosted in the US, more than any other nation. The United States generally fares very well in the Olympics, especially the Summer Olympics: in 2004, the US collected a record 103 Olympic medals (35 gold, 39 silver and 29 bronze).