United States of America (New World)

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.

The 74 United States of America

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	/ˌærɪˈzoʊnə/	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	/ˌkælɪˈfɔrnjə/	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	/kəˈnɛtɪkət/	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	/ˈflɔrɪdə/	FL		Template:Dts/out1	18,328,340	Tallahassee	Jacksonville
State of Franklin	Franklin	/ˈflɔrɪdə/	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	/ɪlɪˈnɔɪ/	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	/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsɪts/	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	/ˈmɪʃɪɡən/	MI		Template:Dts/out1	10,003,422	Lansing	Detroit
State of Minnesota	Minnesota	/ˌmɪnɪˈsoʊtə/	MN		Template:Dts/out1	5,220,393	Saint Paul	Minneapolis
State of Mississippi	Mississippi	/ˌmɪsɪˈsɪpi/	MS		Template:Dts/out1	2,938,618	Jackson	Jackson
State of Missouri	Missouri	/mɪˈzʊəri, mɪˈzʊərə/	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 ˈmɛksɪkoʊ/, Sp: [ˈnweβo ˈmexiko]	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	/ˈɔərɪɡən/	OR		Template:Dts/out1	3,790,060	Salem	Portland
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania	/ˌpɛnsɪlˈveɪnjə/	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 ˌkælɪˈfɔrnjə/	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	/ˌtɛnɪˈsiː/	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	/wɪsˈkɒnsɪn/	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

The 12 Territories of the United States of America

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

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

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

File:Motherhood and apple pie.jpg

American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flag

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

File:PB050006.JPG

The Hollywood Sign

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

File:Kerouac by Palumbo.jpg

Jack Kerouac, one of the best-known figures of the Beat Generation, a group of writers that came to prominence in the 1950s

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.

File:Times Square 1-2.JPG

Times Square in New York City, part of the Broadway theater district

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

File:Strip Mall Troy.jpg

A strip mall, with restaurants featuring Italian-, American-, and Chinese/Japanese-based cuisine

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

A college football quarterback looking to pass the ball

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.