- Population:
- 334,998,400
- Religion:
- Christianity
'The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York a global finance and culture center and capital Washington DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast Los Angeles'' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.'
Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country in 1776 and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of America following the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries 37 new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions. The two most traumatic experiences in the nation's history were the Civil War (1861-65) in which a northern Union of states defeated a secessionist Confederacy of 11 southern slave states and the Great Depression of the 1930s an economic downturn during which about a quarter of the labor force lost its jobs. Buoyed by victories in World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold War in 1991 the US remains the world's most powerful nation state. Since the end of World War II the economy has achieved relatively steady growth low unemployment and inflation and rapid advances in technology.
