United States

State

The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America, a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C., with a population exceeding 341 million, the third-largest in the world. British colonization began in 1607 and independence from Great Britain was declared in 1776 after victory in the 1775-1783 Revolutionary War. The U.S. expanded westward, and a sectional division over slavery led 11 Southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; the Union's victory in the 1861-1865 Civil War ended slavery. By 1900 the U.S. had emerged as a great power; after World War II it became one of two rival superpowers during the Cold War, and the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse left the U.S. as the world's sole superpower.