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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]
Early in American history, four state governments differentiated themselves from the others in their first constitutions by choosing to self-identify as Commonwealths rather than as states: Virginia, in 1776; [20] Pennsylvania, in 1777; Massachusetts, in 1780; and Kentucky, in 1792.
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]
The states and territories included in the United States Census Bureau's statistics for the United States population, ethnicity, and most other categories include the 50 states and Washington, D.C. Separate statistics are maintained for the five permanently inhabited territories of the United States: Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands ...
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.
The second largest state, Texas, has only 40% of the total area of the largest state, Alaska. Rhode Island is the smallest state by total area and land area. San Bernardino County is the largest county in the contiguous U.S. and is larger than each of the nine smallest states; it is larger than the four smallest states combined.
Until 1964, state senators were generally elected from districts that were not necessarily equal in population. In some cases state senate districts were based partly on county lines. In the vast majority of states, the Senate districts provided proportionately greater representation to rural areas. However, in the 1964 decision Reynolds v.
As the United States has grown in area and population, new states have been formed out of U.S. territories or the division of existing states. The population figures provided here reflect modern state boundaries. Shaded areas of the tables indicate census years when a territory or the part of another state had not yet been admitted as a new state.