Etymology




The first known use of the name "America" dates back to 1507, when it appeared on a world map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. On this map, the name applied to South America in honor of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first to postulate that the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern limit, but part of a previously unknown landmass. In 1538, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator used the name "America" on his own world map, applying it to the entire Western Hemisphere.

The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" dates from a January 2, 1776 letter written by Stephen Moylan, Esquire, to George Washington's aide-de-camp Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort. The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776.

The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed no later than June 17, 1776, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the 'United States of America'." The final version of the Articles, sent to the states for ratification in late 1777, stated that "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'." In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence. This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation.

The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms are the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". The term "America" was seldom used in the United States before the 1890s, and rarely used by presidents before Theodore Roosevelt. It does not appear in patriotic songs composed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including "The Star Spangled Banner", "My Country, 'Tis of Thee", and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", although it is common in 20th-century songs like "God Bless America". Colloquial names are the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a name popular in American poetry and songs of the late 18th century, derives its origin from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia". Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia.

The phrase "United States" was originally plural in American usage. It described a collection of independent states—e.g., "the United States are"—and the plural form was used in documents as recent as the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. The singular form became popular after the end of the Civil War and is now standard usage in the U.S.; the plural is retained only in traditional, idiomatic expressions such as "these United States". The difference is more significant than usage; it is a difference between a collection of states and a unit.

A citizen of the United States is an "American". "United States", "American" and "U.S." refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). In English, the word "American" rarely refers to topics or subjects not directly connected with the United States.

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United States

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Coordinates: 40°N 100°W  /  40°N 100°W  / 40; -100 The United States of America ( USA ), commonly known as the United States ( U.S. or US ) or America , is a country located primarily in North America, consisting of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.h At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million square kilometers), it is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area.d With a population of over 328 million , it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Disputes over taxation and political representation with Great Britain led to the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), whi
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Demographics

None Population Historical population Census Pop. %± 1790 3,929,214 — 1800 5,308,483 35.1% 1810 7,239,881 36.4% 1820 9,638,453 33.1% 1830 12,866,020 33.5% 1840 17,069,453 32.7% 1850 23,191,876 35.9% 1860 31,443,321 35.6% 1870 38,558,371 22.6% 1880 50,189,209 30.2% 1890 62,979,766 25.5% 1900 76,212,168 21.0% 1910 92,228,496 21.0% 1920 106,021,537 15.0% 1930 123,202,624 16.2% 1940 132,164,569 7.3% 1950 151,325,798 14.5% 1960 179,323,175 18.5% 1970 203,211,926 13.3% 1980 226,545,805 11.5% 1990 248,709,873 9.8% 2000 281,421,906 13.2% 2010 308,745,538 9.7% 2019 (est.) 328,239,523 6.3% Note that the census numbers do not include Native Americans until 1860. The U.S. Census Bureau officially estimated the country's population to be 328,239,523 as of July 1, 2019 . According to the Bureau's U.S. Population Clock, on May 23, 2020 , the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 19 seconds, or about 4,547 people per day. The United States is the third most populous nation
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Indigenous peoples and pre-Columbian history It has been generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival. The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas. This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts, and Eskimos. Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly complex, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. The city-state of Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States. In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloan culture developed from centuries of agr
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