The world's fourth-largest country, the United States is neither overpopulated (like China) nor in the main subject to extremes of climate (like much of Russia and Canada). Its main landmass, bounded by Canada and Mexico, contains 48 of its 50 states. The two others, Alaska at the northwest tip of the Americas and Hawaii in the Pacific, became states in 1959. The USA was not built on ethnic identity but on a concept of nationhood intimately bound up with the 18th-century founding fathers' ideas of democracy and liberty – still powerful touchstones in both a political and an economic sense. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the USA holds a unique position – but also arouses extreme hatreds – as the sole global superpower.

Native Americans, the sole inhabitants before white settlers arrived, were dispossessed in the 19th century and now make up under 3% of the total population. In their reservations can be found some of the USA's worst poverty and deprivation.

The USA's population increased by some 25 million residents during the 1990s. An immigration boom peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but since then numbers have fallen below a million a year. The new immigrants are disproportionately drawn from Asia and Latin America, with more than two million from Mexico alone in the 1980s.

Census Bureau projections for the year 2050 suggest that 53% of the population will be white non-Hispanics, and just under 14% black, while Asians (and Pacific islanders) will total nearly 9% and as many as a quarter of the population will be Hispanics. Blacks increasingly find that they have to compete politically and economically with the newer immigrants. In some communities, such as Los Angeles, this has been a source of tension leading to inner-city riots.

Despite the growth of a black business leadership class, only two black people – television personality Oprah Winfrey and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson – make the list of the 400 richest Americans. In the mid-1990s, the O. J. Simpson trial, when a black sports hero was acquitted of murdering his white estranged wife, exposed how far the country was divided by race in its perceptions of the justice system. The Nation of Islam, led by the controversial and often provocative Louis Farrakhan, is prominent in emphasizing self-discipline, self-improvement, and community in the quest for empowerment among African-Americans.

Strengths

World's largest economy. Wealth of natural resources: energy, raw materials, and food. Strong high-tech base; world-leading research and development. Global leader in computer software. Sophisticated service sector; advanced and competitive manufacturing industry. World-class multinationals. Entrepreneurial business ethic. High quality of postgraduate education, especially in high-tech business. Global dominance of US culture a major boost to US manufacturers. Subsidized crops and favorable tariffs for domestic industries.

Weaknesses

Dramatic fall in manufacturing employment over recent decades. Globalization, problem of job losses to lower-wage economies. Tough competition from Asia and EU in leading-edge technologies. Lower savings rate than many competitors. Volatile market values driven by speculation. Weak business regulation and short-termism. Corporate collapses provoking crisis over accounting standards and scope for fraud.

Profile

In 1945, the USA accounted for about 50% of world output; by the 1990s its share was down to about 25%. That is not, as Americans often think, a sign of failure, but a clear indication that the 1940s and 1950s were unusual periods. A share of 25% is about the same as was claimed by the USA claimed in 1914, when it was already the world's biggest economy.

The USA has become a great exporter, and continues to have both a stable political system and a uniquely strong combination of skilled labor and natural resources. In 2001, although still ranked the world's most competitive economy, the USA entered downturn after a nine-year boom, its longest ever. The collapse of the massive Enron corporation threatened confidence in business values.

The USA is a democracy with a federal system of government. Many issues are dealt with by the 50 individual states.

Profile

Despite a "big business" affiliation, controversial policies notably on energy, and deep divisions when he was first elected in 2000, Republican president George W. Bush gained overwhelming popular support in September 2001, when a wave of patriotic emotion rallied the nation behind him and his declaration of a "war on terrorism," after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Republicans narrowly control the House but Bush still lacks, by the narrowest of margins in the Senate, a complete congressional majority. His predecessors, whether Democrat (Clinton, elected in 1992) or Republican, had struggled to get major initiatives enacted by a hostile Congress.

Main Political Issues

The limits of government

The USA has a strong tradition of resisting the extension of government powers. The vigorous defense of constitutional liberties and the rights of citizens, such as freedom of speech or the right to bear arms, is sometimes taken to lengths which appear extreme to other societies. States similarly resist the arrogation of powers by the federal authorities. In areas such as health care and education, conservatives oppose as interference what others see as the proper concern of government with social welfare. "Big government" is also denounced in the economic sphere. Opponents of environmental controls, for example, portray them as an obstruction of free enterprise and wealth creation.

The prestige of the presidency

When George W. Bush took office in January 2001, the presidency faced a threefold challenge. The tendentious manner of his election, with fewer votes nationwide than his Democrat rival Al Gore, and controversy over the conduct of polling in Florida, left questions as to the legitimacy of his victory. The narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and a "hung" Senate, with an effective Democrat majority after one elected Republican switched to independent, promised problems. Thirdly, the moral authority of the office of president had suffered serious damage under the outgoing administration of Bill Clinton, beset by personal, financial, and political scandals, and hamstrung toward the end by impeachment proceedings. Bush, initially derided by opponents as an intellectual lightweight, rose in public esteem to appear unassailable within his first year in office. His simple messages of belief in "the American way" rallied a nation shocked by the implications of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

Energy and the environment

Controversial energy policies introduced by Bush in 2001, at the height of a crisis over Californian electricity shortages, offered much freer rein for the US oil industry to exploit reserves in Alaska. Wilderness conservation activists were appalled. The expansion of nuclear power was also revived as an issue under the Bush energy plan, while the USA, alone, chose to repudiate the international Kyoto agreement on cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Crime, race and poverty

Efforts to regenerate depressed urban areas have relied on new economic opportunities and programs that empower the poor (such as self-management of public housing projects). Both rates of criminality and crime victims are higher in the black community than in any other. Tough anticrime policies in cities such as New York have had a real impact in reducing the level of violence, but have also been accused of unfairly targeting minority ethnic groups; there remains the prospect of a permanently disaffected urban underclass.

Isolated by two great oceans, the USA has for much of its history been able to choose the extent of its involvement in the affairs of others. Only reluctantly involved in the two world wars, after 1945 it swapped isolationism for involvement. The USA took its seat on the Security Council of the UN, based in New York. It helped to set up NATO, although for the USA the Cold War was most immediate – and costly – in the Korean and Vietnam wars. The death toll and shock of defeat in Vietnam in the 1970s kept the USA out of military involvement overseas for over a decade. Instead, it focused on diplomacy – particularly with China and in the Middle East – and on supporting the opponents of left-wing regimes in developing countries including Nicaragua, Cuba, and Angola.

The collapse of the Eastern bloc after 1989 meant that the USA had to redetermine the scope of its foreign responsibilities as the only remaining superpower. It led the intervention in the 1991 Gulf War, but a fiasco in Somalia and a lack of clear policy on Bosnia and Haiti showed its uncertainty about a role as world policeman. Increasingly isolated in actions against Iraq, the USA has shown a preference for air power rather than committing ground forces. Even before the 11 September 2001 attacks, the USA had used air strikes to hit back at anti-US terrorism and its alleged sponsors.

The subsequent "war on terrorism" has focused on Islamic extremists, with rumors of imminent attacks on "sponsors" of terrorism, principally Iraq. It also redefined relations with Russia, prompting further dramatic cuts in both countries' nuclear arsenals and leading Russia to drop its previous objections to the highly controversial national missile defense system (NMD). China, however, remains wary of the NMD and under Bush the US stance toward China has been notably more confrontational.

Even before the 11 September 2001 attacks, the country's defense policy emphasis had shifted from strategic nuclear deterrence and large warships to "smart" missile systems and "long-range power projection," with rapid intervention capabilities built around air power. Despite setbacks in early tests, a project to create a missile defense "shield" system was taken up enthusiastically by the incoming Bush administration in 2001.

The enormous US military–industrial complex dates only from the close of World War II. In the 1990s a combination of the end of the Cold War and the need to cut the budget deficit meant that, in real terms, the defense budget fell to its lowest level since 1945. The 2000/2001 budget, however, was up by 5% to $310.5 billion, amounting to one-third of all military spending worldwide.

The USA has an abundance of natural resources, including oil. The 2001 energy plan aimed to step up oil exploration and output, reducing the need for imports. There are massive deposits of coal in the western states – where almost all mining is open-cast – and substantial mineral deposits in the mountains and intramontane basins.

Environmental concerns halted the development of nuclear power after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, but expansion is now being considered. The timber industry, forced to retreat by conservationists in the Pacific northwest, especially Washington State, has moved to the south, where great stands of pine are harvested as if they were fields of wheat. The USA has harnessed hydroelectric power in the past; today, imports of hydropower from Canada are commonplace.

By comparison with western Europe, the USA is not intensively farmed. The huge size of farms in the Midwest and west has allowed both arable and livestock farming to be based on a low-input for low-output model.

The USA lags far behind other Western countries on environmental issues. The international commitment made at the 1997 Kyoto conference on cutting carbon dioxide emissions was scrapped by President Bush in 2001. The Rockies are a battleground between those who want to maintain their beauty, and those who advocate "wise use" – in practice this often means giving ranchers and miners free rein. In 2002, Congress approved plans to dump nuclear waste in Mt. Yucca, Nevada. Similar issues surround the arguments over extending oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. The USA is the home of genetically modified (GM) food. Huge acreages have been planted to GM cereals, and over 60% of soybean production had gone GM by 2001. A consumer backlash, especially in Europe, has worried many farmers.

The Mississippi–Missouri river system provided the USA's first transportation network. Today, the USA has the world's cheapest, most extensive internal air network and a good system of interstate highways. Railroads, comparatively neglected for years, mainly carry freight, although modern high-speed trains are starting to attract passengers back. Americans have been wedded to the car since Henry Ford began mass production 90 years ago. By 1919 there were nine million cars in the USA. Today the total tops 210 million, including pickups and the ubiquitous "sports utes" (SUVs). Americans make more than half of the world's car journeys. Cheap gasoline underpinned the rise of the car, but problems of congestion and pollution, and the environmental costs of ever more oil production, mean that its role in society needs reviewing.

There are enormous disparities in US health provision, but a proposed reform of the health care system, high on the Democrats' political agenda in the early 1990s, was blocked by Congress. Sophisticated techniques are available to those with insurance (which they typically receive from their employer); the Texas Medical Center, in Houston, for example, has a budget equivalent to that of some small countries. On the other hand, costs have skyrocketed, and facilities for those dependent on state medical care and aid are woefully underfunded. Preventive care fails to reach all sections of society, and infant mortality statistics in some areas are at near-African levels.

Nearly one in five of the population is clinically obese, and one in every two adults overweight.

Education in the USA is primarily the responsibility of the state governments.

Recent reports critical of standards in US high schools cite problems of discipline, poor structural maintenance, and lack of resources in many areas as driving people away from the public education sector. Private education at secondary level continues to develop rapidly. While the number of Catholic private schools has shrunk, more nondenominational fee-paying schools have been founded.

Four out of every five high school students now go on to some form of tertiary college. The leading US universities are internationally recognized as being of world class.

Violent crime – especially murder – is much more common than in other developed countries, even in relatively well-off areas. However, the murder rate has fallen; six deaths per 100,000 people in 2000 was the lowest for over 30 years. Mass shootings have made gun control a major issue, but a powerful lobby opposes restrictions, basing its arguments on the constitution and the defense of individual liberties.

Imprisonment for narcotics crimes in the USA is much more widespread than in most Western countries. Capital punishment has increased since the 1980s, especially in the south. Texas carries out most executions. There are two million people in prison in the USA, a quarter of the world total.

Between 1945 and 1973, most Americans got richer. Since then, however, living standards have gone on rising only among those who finish high school. This "education effect" has led to noticeable class divisions, despite the long economic boom of the 1990s. The top 20% had average household incomes of $137,500 by 2000, whereas the incomes of the poorest 20% averaged only $13,000 – and were lower in real terms than in 1980.

The USA as a destination for international tourism benefited greatly from the deregulation of air fares. Domestic tourism expanded just as rapidly, along with the rise in real incomes. The impact of the 11 September 2001 attacks was complex. While confidence in air travel took time to be rebuilt, the fact that US tourists put safety first meant that over 80% vacationed within the USA in 2002. All the states have their attractions, and most court tourists. Top tourist destinations include Florida's Disney World and Disneyland in California, Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, New Orleans, Atlantic City, and Washington D.C.

Tourism's rapid expansion has also brought some problems. The parks and sites run by the National Parks Service (NPS) have been particular casualties; visitor numbers rocketed in the three decades after 1970. To try and reduce pressure on the most popular areas, there has been a significant expansion in the area of protected land under NPS management since the mid-1970s. Even so, Yellowstone Park has a continuing traffic management crisis, bumper-to-bumper cars plague other high-profile attractions, and those wanting to take a raft ride down the Grand Canyon are likely to spend many months on a waiting list.

The original 13 colonies, first established by British settlers on the eastern seaboard in the 17th century, joined to wage a war for independence, 1775–1781, which Britain recognized in 1783. The 1776 Declaration of Independence was followed by the writing of the world's first constitution. A century of westward expansion began. Following the victory of the northern states in the 1861–1865 Civil War, slavery was abolished throughout the USA, but native Americans were dispossessed of their land in a series of conflicts.

• 1917 Enters World War I.
• 1929 New York stock market collapse; economic depression.
• 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; USA enters World War II.
• 1950–1953 Korean War.
• 1954 Supreme Court rules racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. Blacks, seeking constitutional rights, start campaign of civil disobedience.
• 1959 Alaska, Hawaii become states.
• 1961 John F. Kennedy president. Promises aid to South Vietnam. US-backed invasion of Cuba defeated at Bay of Pigs.
• 1962 Soviet missile bases found on Cuba; threat of nuclear war averted.
• 1963 November, Kennedy assassinated. Lyndon Baines Johnson president.
• 1964 US involvement in Vietnam stepped up. Civil Rights Act gives blacks constitutional equality.
• 1968 Martin Luther King assassinated.
• 1969 Republican Richard Nixon takes office as president. Growing public opposition to Vietnam War.
• 1972 Nixon reelected. Makes historic visit to China.
• 1973 Withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam; 58,000 US troops dead by end of war.
• 1974 August, Nixon resigns following "Watergate" scandal over break-in to Democrat headquarters. Gerald Ford president.
• 1976 Democrat Jimmy Carter elected president.
• 1978 US-sponsored "Camp David" accord between Egypt and Israel.
• 1979 Seizure of US hostages in Tehran, Iran.
• 1980 Ronald Reagan wins elections for Republicans. Adopts tough anticommunist foreign policy.
• 1983 Military invasion of Grenada.
• 1985 Air strikes against Libyan cities. Relations with USSR improve; first of three summits held.
• 1986 Iran-Contra affair revealed.
• 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by USA and USSR.
• 1988 George Bush Sr. wins presidency.
• 1989 USA overthrows Panama's Gen. Noriega, arrests him on drugs charges.
• 1991 January–February, Gulf War against Iraq. USA and USSR sign START arms reduction treaty.
• 1992 Black youths riot in Los Angeles and other cities. Bush–Yeltsin summit agrees further arms reductions. Democrat Bill Clinton defeats Bush in election.
• 1994 Health care reform legislation defeated in Congress. Special counsel investigation begins into Clintons' financial dealings. Midterm elections, Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.
• 1995 Oklahoma bombing by Timothy McVeigh: over 160 die.
• 1996 Clinton reelected.
• 1998 Scandal over Clinton's affair with White House intern leads to impeachment proceedings. August, bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; revenge air strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan. December, air strikes against Iraq.
• 1999 February, Clinton acquitted in Senate impeachment trial. April, Columbine High School shootings by two students. March–June, NATO involvement to end Kosovo conflict, bombardment of Yugoslavia.
• 2000 November–December, Al Gore concedes tightest presidential election ever to George W. Bush.
• 2001 January, Republican president Bush takes office. September, world's worst terrorist attack kills thousands as hijacked planes crash into and destroy World Trade Center, damage Pentagon. October, US-led military action in "war on terrorism" begins with intensive aerial bombing campaign in Afghanistan. December, accounting scandal at Enron.
• 2002 July, Worldcom bankruptcy is biggest ever corporate collapse.