American

The United States of America, also referred to in short form as the United States, the USA, or simply the U.S. more...

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, and colloquially as America, is a country in North America that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and shares land borders with Canada and Mexico. The United States is a federal constitutional republic, with its capital in Washington, D.C.

At over 3.7 million square miles (over 9.6 million km²), the United States (including its non-contiguous and overseas states and territories) is the third largest country by total area. It is the world's third most populous nation, with over 300 million people.

With a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2006 of $13.3 trillion, the United States has the biggest and most technologically advanced economy in the history of the world. GDP per capita is also among the highest in the world at $44,000, ranking seventh; of decent-sized Western World countries only exceeded by Norway. Most economists agree that U.S. consumers have the most purchasing power in the world, and the United States is currently the most influential country in the global economy.

The USA was founded by 13 colonies that declared their independence from Great Britain, on 4 July 1776, under the name "The United States of America," and were recognized by Britain as sovereign states in 1783. The United States has existed continuously as a united, sovereign, national state since it adopted the Articles of Confederation, on 1 March 1781. The nation's form of government was significantly altered when it adopted the current Constitution, the Articles' replacement, on 17 September 1787. American military, economic, cultural, and political influence increased through the 19th and 20th centuries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower, greatly influencing world affairs, as it continues to do today.

Name

Common names and abbreviations of the United States of America include the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the USA, the U.S. of A., the States (informal), and America. The earliest known use of the name America is from 1507, when a globe and a large map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, described the combined continents of North and South America. Although the origin of the name is uncertain, the most widely held belief is that expressed in an accompanying book, Cosmographiae Introductio, which explains it as the feminine version of the Latin name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (Americus Vespucius); in Latin, the other continents' names were all feminine. Vespucci theorized, correctly, that Christopher Columbus, on reaching islands in the Caribbean Sea in 1492, had come not to India but to a "New World".

Read more at Wikipedia.org