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The United States of America is a federal republic [1] consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. [2] [3] Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. [4]
The 50 states have taken their names from a wide variety of languages. Twenty-four state names originate from Native American languages . Of these, eight are from Algonquian languages , seven are from Siouan languages , three are from Iroquoian languages , one is from Uto-Aztecan languages and five others are from other indigenous languages.
The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort.
States (highlighted in purple) whose capital city is also their most populous States (highlighted in blue) that have changed their capital city at least once. This is a list of capital cities of the United States, including places that serve or have served as federal, state, insular area, territorial, colonial and Native American capitals.
The following table is a list of all 50 states and their respective dates of statehood. The first 13 became states in July 1776 upon agreeing to the United States Declaration of Independence, and each joined the first Union of states between 1777 and 1781, upon ratifying the Articles of Confederation, its first constitution. [6]
While most states (39 of the 50) use the term "capitol" for their state's seat of government, Indiana and Ohio use the term "Statehouse" and eight states use "State House": Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont. Delaware has a "Legislative Hall".
The United States has 50 states and 5 territories that each elect a governor to serve as chief executive of the state or territorial government. [1] The sole federal district, the District of Columbia, elects a mayor to oversee its government in a similar manner.
This is a complete list of all 50 U.S. states, its federal district (Washington, D.C.) and its major territories ordered by total area, land area and water area. [1] The water area includes inland waters, coastal waters, the Great Lakes and territorial waters. Glaciers and intermittent bodies of water are counted as land area. [2]