United States

The land was home to hundreds of Indigenous nations for millennia before European contact. Spanish, French, Dutch, and English colonisation began in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; thirteen British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard declared independence in 1776, won it by 1783, and adopted the Constitution in 1787. The new republic expanded rapidly west across the continent through purchase, war, and treaty, displacing Native Americans in the process.

Slavery, concentrated in the plantation South, was the central unresolved contradiction. It brought on the Civil War of 1861–65, the deadliest conflict in US history, which preserved the Union and ended slavery — but Reconstruction gave way to the Jim Crow system of racial segregation and disenfranchisement in the South that lasted into the 1960s. Industrialisation and huge waves of immigration, mostly from Europe, transformed the country between the Civil War and the First World War.

The twentieth century saw the US emerge from the two world wars as the leading Western power, contend with the Great Depression and the New Deal, wage the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and go through the Civil Rights Movement that dismantled legal segregation. Recent decades have brought the end of the Cold War, the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the wars that followed, the 2008 financial crisis, the election of Barack Obama as the first Black president in 2008, and a period of deep political polarisation spanning the two presidencies of Donald Trump and that of Joe Biden.

The US is less a single culture than a federation of regional and communal ones — New England, the South, the Midwest, Texas, the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, California — plus the distinct worlds of its big cities and its rural areas. Federalism means that laws on guns, abortion, cannabis, taxes, alcohol, and much else differ significantly from state to state, and Americans are used to those differences.

Common threads are often described as an emphasis on individualism, mobility, optimism, informality, entrepreneurialism, and patriotism, alongside a strong (if declining) religiosity and a deep, unresolved reckoning with race. Social etiquette tends to be friendly and direct; small talk with strangers is normal; and tipping is a genuine part of many workers' income rather than an optional extra.

Sport (American football, baseball, basketball), Hollywood and streaming television, and popular music from jazz and blues to hip-hop and country are central to national life and are among the country's largest cultural exports. Immigration continues to reshape the culture, and roughly one in seven residents was born abroad.

About 335 million people live in the United States, the third most populous country, spread very unevenly — dense on the coasts and around the Great Lakes, sparse across the interior West. Most people live in suburban areas and drive for almost everything; only a few cities have transit systems that make car-free life practical.

The economy is the world's largest, led by technology, finance, healthcare, energy, entertainment, and agriculture, with high average incomes but also high inequality and no universal healthcare — medical costs are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. Work culture features relatively few holidays and no statutory paid vacation, though norms vary by employer and sector.

Daily life is shaped by the car, the strip mall and big-box store, the neighbourhood and its school district, and, for many, church, youth sports, and the seasonal calendar of holidays from the Fourth of July to Thanksgiving.

American food is regional and immigrant-driven. Barbecue alone splits into Texas brisket, Carolina pulled pork, Kansas City ribs, and Memphis styles; the South adds fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, grits, gumbo, and jambalaya; New England has clam chowder, lobster rolls, and the clam bake; the Southwest and California have Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex, and farm-to-table cooking.

City food cultures are strong: New York pizza, bagels, and delis; Chicago deep dish and the Italian beef; the Philly cheesesteak; New Orleans Creole and Cajun. Diners, food trucks, and the drive-through are institutions, portions are large, and the hamburger, the hot dog, and apple pie are the national shorthand. Every sizeable city has deep Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese, Indian, Ethiopian, Korean, and other communities with the restaurants to match.

Craft beer is now everywhere after a decades-long boom, American wine (California, Oregon, Washington, New York) is world-class, bourbon and rye whiskey are the native spirits, and coffee culture runs from the bottomless diner cup to third-wave roasters.

The national parks are the country's greatest travel asset: the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone with its geysers and wildlife, Yosemite, Zion, Grand Teton, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains (the most visited), Acadia, the Everglades, and the desert parks of Utah and California, linked by classic road trips.

The cities each offer something distinct: New York's skyline, museums, and neighbourhoods; Washington's monuments and free Smithsonian museums; New Orleans's music and food; Chicago's architecture and lakefront; San Francisco's bay and the Pacific Coast Highway south to Big Sur; Los Angeles and Hollywood; Las Vegas; and the historic cities of the Northeast and the South.

Beyond them: the Southwest's Monument Valley, Sedona, and Santa Fe; the Civil Rights trail through Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee; New England's autumn foliage; the Pacific Northwest's volcanoes and coastline; the Florida Keys and theme parks; and the very different worlds of Hawaii's volcanic islands and Alaska's glaciers, fjords, and wildlife.