Infrastructure

Science and technology

A photograph from Apollo 11 of Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon

Main article: Science and technology in the United States

See also: Technological and industrial history of the United States

The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first US patent for the telephone . Thomas Edison 's laboratory developed the phonograph , the first long-lasting light bulb , and the first viable movie camera . Nikola Tesla pioneered alternating current , the AC motor , and radio. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford popularized the assembly line . The Wright brothers , in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight . [ 114 ]

The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein , Enrico Fermi , and John von Neumann , to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age . The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science , and computers. IBM , Apple Computer , and Microsoft refined and popularized the personal computer . The United States largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet . Today, 64% of research and development funding comes from the private sector. [ 115 ] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor . [ 116 ] Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods, [ 117 ] and almost half of US households have broadband Internet access . [ 118 ] The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food , representing half of the world's biotech crops. [ 119 ]

Transportation

The Interstate Highway System , which extends 46,876 miles (75,440 km) [ 120 ]

Main article: Transportation in the United States

Personal transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operate on a network of 13 million roads, [ 121 ] including the world's longest highway system . [ 122 ] The world's second largest automobile market, [ 123 ] the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 765 vehicles per 1,000 Americans. [ 124 ] About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs , or light trucks. [ 125 ] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers) spends 55 minutes driving every day, traveling 29 miles (47 km). [ 126 ]

Mass transit accounts for 9% of total US work trips, [ 127 ] ranking last in a survey of 17 countries. [ 128 ] While transport of goods by rail is extensive, relatively few people use rail to travel. [ 129 ] Light rail development has increased in recent years but, like high speed rail , is below European levels. [ 130 ] Bicycle usage for work commutes is minimal. [ 131 ]

The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978 , while most major airports are publicly owned. The four largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are American; Southwest Airlines is number one. [ 132 ] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport . [ 133 ]

Energy

See also: Energy policy of the United States

The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, the 10th highest rate in the world. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources. [ 134 ] The United States is the world's largest consumer of petroleum. [ 135 ] For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries, in part due to public perception in the wake of a 1979 accident . In 2007, several applications for new nuclear plants were filed. [ 136 ] The United States has 27% of global coal reserves. [ 137 ]

Education

Some 80% of US college students attend public universities such as the University of Virginia , founded by Thomas Jefferson . [ 138 ]

Main article: Education in the United States

See also: Educational attainment in the United States and Higher education in the United States

American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade ) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through twelfth grade , the end of high school ); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen. [ 139 ] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools . Just over 2% of children are homeschooled . [ 140 ]

The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education . According to prominent international rankings, 13 or 15 American colleges and universities are ranked among the top 20 in the world. [ 141 ] [ 142 ] There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree , and 9.6% earned graduate degrees. [ 143 ] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%. [ 1 ] [ 144 ] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world. [ 145 ]

Health

See also: Health care in the United States , Health care reform in the United States , and Health insurance in the United States

The Texas Medical Center in Houston , the world's largest medical center [ 146 ]

The United States life expectancy of 78.4 years at birth ranks it 50th among 221 nations. [ 147 ] Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements elsewhere have contributed to lowering the country's rank in life expectancy from 1987, when it was 11th in the world. [ 148 ] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight; [ 149 ] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century. [ 150 ] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals. [ 151 ] The infant mortality rate of 6.06 per thousand places the United States 176th out of 222 countries, higher than all of Western Europe. [ 152 ]

The US health care system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP. [ 153 ] The World Health Organization ranked the US health care system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance.

Health care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts, and is not universal as in all other developed countries. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%. [ 154 ] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The main cause of this rise is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance. [ 155 ] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue. [ 156 ] A 2009 study estimated that lack of insurance is associated with nearly 45,000 deaths a year. [ 157 ] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance. [ 158 ] Federal legislation passed in early 2010 will create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014.

Demographics

Main articles: Demographics of the United States and Americans

Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000 Race/Ethnicity (2010) [ 171 ]

White 72.4%

Black/African American 12.6%

Asian 4.8%

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.9%

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 0.2%

Other 6.2%

Two or more races 2.9%

Hispanic/Latino ( of any race ) 16.3%

The US Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be 312,868,000, [ 2 ] including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants . [ 172 ] The US population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from about 76 million in 1900. [ 173 ] The third most populous nation in the world, after China and India , the United States is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected. [ 174 ] Even with a birth rate of 13.82 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, its population growth rate is positive at 1%, significantly higher than those of many developed nations. [ 175 ] In fiscal year 2010, over 1 million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification ) were granted legal residence . [ 176 ] Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year. [ 177 ]

The United States has a very diverse population —thirty-one ancestry groups have more than one million members. [ 178 ] White Americans are the largest racial group ; German Americans , Irish Americans , and English Americans constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups. [ 178 ] African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group. [ 178 ] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ethnic groups are Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans . [ 178 ] In 2010, the US population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively). [ 179 ] The census counted more than 19 million people of "Some Other Race" who were "unable to identify with any" of its five official race categories in 2010. [ 179 ]

The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend . The 50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent [ 179 ] are identified as sharing a distinct " ethnicity " by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent . [ 180 ] Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 4.9%. [ 171 ] Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2007, 12.6% of the US population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America . [ 181 ] Fertility is also a factor; the average Hispanic woman gives birth to 3.0 children in her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1). [ 174 ] Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau as all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constitute 36.3% of the population in 2010, [ 182 ] and nearly 50% of children under age 1, [ 183 ] and are projected to constitute the majority by 2042. [ 184 ]

About 82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs); [ 1 ] about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. [ 185 ] In 2008, 273 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million ( New York City , Los Angeles , Chicago , and Houston ). [ 186 ] There are fifty-two metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million. [ 187 ] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, forty-seven are in the West or South. [ 188 ] The metro areas of Dallas , Houston, Atlanta , and Phoenix all grew by more than a million people between 2000 and 2008. [ 187 ]

Rank Core city Metro area pop. [ 189 ] Metropolitan Statistical Area Region [ 190 ]

New York City

Los Angeles

1 New York City 18,897,109 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA Northeast

2 Los Angeles 12,828,837 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA West

3 Chicago 9,461,105 Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA Midwest

4 Dallas 6,371,773 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA South

5 Philadelphia 5,965,343 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA Northeast

6 Houston 5,946,800 Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX MSA South

7 Washington, DC 5,582,170 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA South

8 Miami 5,564,635 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA South

9 Atlanta 5,268,860 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA South

10 Boston 4,552,403 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA Northeast

Language

Main article: Languages of the United States

See also: Language Spoken at Home (US Census) Languages (2007) [ 191 ]

English ( only ) 225.5 million

Spanish , incl. Creole 34.5 million

Chinese 2.5 million

French , incl. Creole 2.0 million

Tagalog 1.5 million

Vietnamese 1.2 million

German 1.1 million

Korean 1.1 million

English is the de facto national language . Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as US naturalization requirements —standardize English. In 2007, about 226 million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish , spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language. [ 191 ] [ 192 ] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states. [ 5 ] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law. [ 193 ]

While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French. [ 194 ] Other states, such as California , mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms. [ 195 ] Many jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce government materials, especially voting information, in the most commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions. Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.

Religion

A Presbyterian church; most Americans identify as Christian.

Main article: Religion in the United States

See also: History of religion in the United States , Freedom of religion in the United States , Separation of church and state in the United States , and List of religious movements that began in the United States

The United States is officially a secular nation ; the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance . In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation. [ 196 ] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian , [ 197 ] down from 86.4% in 1990. [ 198 ] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism , at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white evangelicals , 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort; [ 197 ] another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%. [ 199 ] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990. [ 198 ] The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). [ 197 ] The survey also reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic , atheist , or simply having no religion , up from 8.2% in 1990. [ 197 ] [ 198 ]

Family structure

In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married. [ 200 ] Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees . [ 201 ]

Same-sex marriage is a contentious issue. Some states permit civil unions or domestic partnerships in lieu of marriage. Since 2003, several states have legalized gay marriage as the result of judicial or legislative action. Meanwhile, the federal government and a majority of states define marriage as between a man and a woman and/or explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage. Public opinion on the issue has shifted from general opposition in the 1990s to a statistical deadlock as of 2011 . [ 202 ]

The US teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among OECD nations. [ 203 ] Abortion policy was left to the states until the Supreme Court legalized the practice in 1973 . The issue remains highly controversial, with public opinion closely divided for many years. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations. [ 20

Culture

Main article: Culture of the United States

See also: Social class in the United States

The Statue of Liberty is a globally recognized symbol of both the United States and ideals such as freedom, democracy, and opportunity. [ 205 ]

The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. [ 6 ] [ 206 ] Aside from the now small Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries. [ 207 ] 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 . [ 6 ] [ 208 ] More recent immigration from Asia and especially 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. [ 6 ]

American culture is considered the most individualistic in the world. [ 209 ] Though the American Dream , or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility , plays a key role in attracting immigrants, other developed nations offer greater social mobility. [ 210 ] While the mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society , [ 211 ] scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization , language, and values. [ 212 ] The American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary social trends such as modern feminism , environmentalism , and multiculturalism. [ 213 ] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree. [ 214 ] While Americans tend greatly to value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute. [ 215 ]

Popular media

Main articles: Cinema of the United States , Television in the United States , and Music of the United States

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 US film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood , California. Director DW 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. [ 216 ] 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 Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry. [ 217 ]

Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world, [ 218 ] and the average viewing time continues to rise, reaching five hours a day in 2006. [ 219 ] 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. [ 220 ] Aside from web portals and search engines , the most popular websites are Facebook , YouTube , Wikipedia , Blogger , eBay , and Craigslist . [ 221 ]

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. [ 222 ]

Literature, philosophy, and the arts

Main articles: American literature , American philosophy , American art , and American classical music

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 18th and early 19th 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. [ 223 ] 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 ". [ 224 ]

Eleven US citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature , most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway are often named among the most influential writers of the 20th century. [ 225 ] 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 WV Quine and Richard Rorty , built upon by Noam Chomsky , brought analytic philosophy to the fore of US 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 realist paintings of Thomas Eakins are now widely celebrated. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art , shocked the public and transformed the US art scene. [ 226 ] 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 .

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

One of the first major promoters of American theater was impresario PT 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 US dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams , Edward Albee , and August Wilson .

Though little known at the time, Charles Ives 's work of the 1910s established him as the first major US composer in the classical tradition, while experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created a distinctive American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a new 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 US innovations. Superman , the quintessential comic book superhero , has become an American icon. [ 22

Food

Main article: American cuisine

Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, which were consumed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American foods. 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, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed. [ 228 ] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by US industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages. [ 229 ]

The American fast food industry, the world's largest, pioneered the drive-through format in the 1930s. Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%; [ 228 ] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American " obesity epidemic ". [ 230 ] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for 9% of American caloric intake. [ 231 ]

Sports

Main article: Sports in the United States

A college football quarterback looking to pass the ball

Baseball has been regarded as the national sport since the late 19th century, while American football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport. [ 232 ] Basketball and ice hockey are the country's next two leading professional team sports. College football and basketball attract large audiences. 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. Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as well.

While most major US 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 2,301 medals at the Summer Olympic Games , more than any other country, [ 233 ] and 253 in the Winter Olympic Games , the second most. [ 234 ]

Measurement systems

Main article: United States customary units

The nation retains United States customary units, comprising mainly former British imperial units such as miles, yards , and degrees Fahrenheit. Distinct units include the US gallon and US pint volume measurements. The United States is one of only three countries that do not rely primarily on the International System of Units . However, metric units are increasingly used in science, medicine, and many industrial fields. [