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United States

The United States is a federal presidential republic in North America, formed when thirteen British colonies declared independence in 1776 and built a constitutional government over the following thirteen years. Its 1789 Constitution established a presidential system with power divided between a national government and the states, a structure the country has kept, amended twenty seven times, and exported as a model ever since.

Facts
Founding Year
1776 2
1776 is the Declaration of Independence, the conventional founding date. The constitutional government the Declaration promised took over a decade to arrive in practice: the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the Constitution's ratification in 1788, and the first Congress and president in 1789. This entry keeps the conventional date and narrates the gap rather than picking a different single year.
Classification
Freedom Status
Electoral Democracy 1
Foreign relations and policy

Current government: Trump Administration (since 2025)

Effective from 2025, ongoing.

Source Executive Order 14169, Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid (GovInfo)
NATO Membership, Policy subject

Effective from 2025, ongoing.

Source The Hague Summit Declaration (NATO)

Effective from 2025, ongoing.

Source Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation (Federal Register)

Earlier governments

Biden Administration (2021 to 2025)

Effective from 2022 to 2025.

Source Remarks by President Biden on the United Efforts of the Free World to Support the People of Ukraine (Biden White House Archives)

Effective from 2024 to 2025.

Source Explanation of Vote at a UN Security Council Meeting on Palestinian Membership (US Mission to the United Nations)

Effective from 2021 to 2025.

Source Executive Order 14024, Blocking Property With Respect To Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation (Wikisource)

Party positions (proposed or ideological, not state policy)

Democratic Party (United States) (proposed or ideological position, not state policy; governs as Biden Administration)

NATO Membership, Policy subject
Source 2024 Democratic Party Platform (The American Presidency Project, UCSB)

Republican Party (United States) (proposed or ideological position, not state policy; governs as Trump Administration)

NATO Membership, Policy subject

Effective from 2024, ongoing.

Source 2024 Republican Party Platform (The American Presidency Project)
Connections

Associated With

This source names United States directly: "1840), based on his 1831 tour of the United States, examined how democratic societies could preserve individual liberty against the leveling pressures of equality."

Source Alexis de Tocqueville (New World Encyclopedia)

This source names United States directly: "the federal logic exemplified by the United States Congress, where the Constitutional Convention's Great Compromise of 1787 paired a House of Representatives apportioned by population with a Senate..."

Source Bicameral System (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on May 17, 1954, consolidating challenges brought on behalf of Black schoolchildren in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware who had been..."

Source Brown v. Board of Education (National Archives)

This source names United States directly: "include the Bank of England, the United States Federal Reserve System, and the Bank of Japan."

Source Central Bank (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and a majority of other signatories."

Source History of the United Nations (UN)

This source names United States directly: "the practice its modern name in the United States; Thoreau had refused to pay taxes in protest of slavery and the Mexican American War, arguing that a citizen bears moral responsibility for..."

Source Civil Disobedience (Wikipedia)

This source names United States directly: "and discrimination in the United States between 1954 and 1968."

Source Civil Rights Movement (Wikipedia)
Source Confederation (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "over congressional term limits in the United States, including the Twenty-second Amendment's presidential term limit."

Source Congressional Term Limits (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "The United States Constitution, for example, requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress, or a convention called by two-thirds of the states, followed by ratification by three-quarters of..."

Source Constitution: Constitutional Change (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "the two major political parties in the United States, alongside the Republican Party, and is the oldest political party in the country and among the oldest in the world."

Source Democratic Party (Britannica)

The United States implements the Vienna Convention domestically through the Diplomatic Relations Act of 1978.

Source Diplomatic Immunity (Cornell LII)

US states incorporate direct-democracy elements through statewide referendums and citizen initiatives.

Source EBSCO Research Starters: Direct Democracy

This source names United States directly: "Sandford was an 1857 United States Supreme Court decision holding, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roger B."

Source Dred Scott v. Sandford (National Archives)

This source names United States directly: "mandated mechanism by which the United States elects its president and vice president, in which voters in each state formally choose a slate of electors rather than the president directly."

Source Electoral College (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on the United States Electoral College, its constitutional basis, elector allocation and the winner-take-all convention."

Source Electoral College (Britannica)

The United States is the primary and earliest still-operating example, federated in 1789.

Source Center for the Study of Federalism: What is Federalism?

This source names United States directly: "first organized political party in the United States, formed around Alexander Hamilton's supporters in the early 1790s to advocate a strong federal government, a national bank and close commercial..."

Source Federalist Party (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "Commons, the Indian Lok Sabha, and the United States House of Representatives and most state legislatures, and it reached these systems largely through the shared inheritance of British..."

Source Election: Plurality and Majority Systems (Britannica)

The term originated in an 1812 Massachusetts redistricting law signed by Governor Elbridge Gerry.

Source Massachusetts Historical Society: The Gerrymander

This source names United States directly: "body rather than leave it, as in the United States, to ordinary courts."

Source Hans Kelsen (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "Presidential systems such as the United States instead combine both roles in a single elected president."

Source Head of Government (Britannica)
Source Impeachment (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "several major powers, including the United States, Russia, and China, are not parties, which has led to disputes over the Court's authority to issue arrest warrants against their nationals or..."

Source International Criminal Court (Cornell LII)

This source names United States directly: "was a court established in 1945 by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union under the London Agreement and Charter of August 8, 1945, to try major officials of Nazi..."

Source International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (USHMM)

This source names United States directly: "A foundational influence on liberalism and on the United States Declaration of Independence."

Source Locke's Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source Judicial Review (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "The United States Congress's own procedure, tracked continuously on its own public record, documents the mechanism in full, though the same basic sequence, introduce, deliberate, vote, enact, recurs..."

Source The Legislative Process (Congress.gov)

This source names United States directly: "a foreign policy aligned with the United States."

Source Liberal-Democratic Party of Japan (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "political label and movement in the United States in the mid twentieth century, developing internal variants from a minimal state associated with Robert Nozick to the anarcho capitalism associated..."

Source Libertarianism (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "its lasting name after touring the United States in the 1830s, writing in Democracy in America that a minority struck by injustice has nowhere to appeal, since public opinion itself is the majority..."

Source Tyranny of the Majority (Wikipedia)

This source names United States directly: "Madison was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on February 24, 1803, arising after outgoing President John Adams commissioned William Marbury as a justice of the peace for the..."

Source Marbury v. Madison (National Archives)

This source names United States directly: "leader of the mid twentieth century United States civil rights movement."

Source Martin Luther King Jr. (Wikipedia)

This source names United States directly: "of Man and the Constitution of the United States."

Source Montesquieu (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States, on 4 April 1949 at the Departmental Auditorium in Washington, D.C., committing signatories to collective defence under Article 5."

Source Founding Treaty (NATO)

This source names United States directly: "the victorious Allied powers, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, prosecuted surviving leaders and officials of Nazi Germany for crimes committed before and during..."

Source Nuremberg Trials (National WWII Museum)

Washington's 1797 voluntary retirement is the classic first case; historians also point to the contested 1800-1801 Adams-to-Jefferson transition (see dissent).

Source President, Government Official (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "Ferguson was an 1896 United States Supreme Court decision upholding a Louisiana law requiring racially segregated railway cars, ruling that state mandated segregation did not violate the Fourteenth..."

Source Plessy v. Ferguson (National Archives)

The United States is the paradigm presidential system, the office created 1787-88.

Source President, Government Official (Britannica)
Public Health Policy, Policies

The US CDC is named as the national public-health coordinating body.

Source Public Health (Britannica)
Referendum, Political Mechanisms

US states began ratifying constitutions and amendments by referendum in the 19th century.

Source Referendum and Initiative (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "the two major political parties in the United States, alongside the Democratic Party, founded in 1854 by antislavery activists, including former members of the Democratic, Whig, and Free Soil..."

Source Republican Party (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "ending on 20 December 1956 when the United States Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in Browder v."

Source Rosa Parks (Wikipedia)

This source names United States directly: "Economic strain, political polarisation and a covert United States destabilisation campaign preceded the military coup of 11 September 1973, led by Augusto Pinochet, in which Allende died."

Source Salvador Allende (Britannica)

This source names United States directly: "women's rights convention held in the United States, meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, from 19 to 20 July 1848 and organised chiefly by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott."

Source Seneca Falls Convention (Britannica)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states Montesquieu's doctrine had an enormous impact on the framers of the US Constitution.

Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Montesquieu

This source names United States directly: "The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States, established under Article III of the Constitution and given its organizational form by the..."

Source Supreme Court Procedures (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts)

The 22nd Amendment imposes the two-term presidential limit.

Source Twenty-Second Amendment (National Constitution Center)

This source names United States directly: "Congress.gov, the official portal for United States federal legislative information, of how a bill moves from introduction through committee, floor consideration in each chamber and presidential..."

Source The Legislative Process (Congress.gov)

Showing 1 to 50 of 53 in Associated With, page 1 of 2.

Governed By

Source Barack Obama (Wikipedia)
Source Joe Biden (Wikipedia)
Source George Washington (Wikipedia)
Source Donald Trump (Wikipedia)
Source Woodrow Wilson (Wikipedia)

Has Article

Practices

Source Duverger's law (Wikipedia)
Source Electoral college (Wikipedia)
Source Gerrymandering (Wikipedia)
Source Separation of powers (Wikipedia)

Shaped By

Signed

Original 1959 signatory to the Antarctic Treaty.

Source Antarctic Treaty System (Wikipedia)

Original depositary state, Outer Space Treaty, 1967.

Source Outer Space Treaty (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases

Same As

Also in Geography Atlas: the same subject.

Discusses

Also in History Atlas: which this subject discusses.

Source Abraham Lincoln (Wikipedia)tier 2

Also in History Atlas: which this subject discusses.

Source George Washington (Wikipedia)tier 2

Also in History Atlas: which this subject discusses.

Source Thomas Jefferson (Wikipedia)tier 2

Has Member

Also in Economics Atlas: a member of this subject.

Also in Economics Atlas: a member of this subject.

Sources
1. Freedom House: United States (Freedom in the World 2025)
Freedom HouseOverview, Global Freedom Score 81/100 (free)
Quote, Overview, Global Freedom Score 81/100 (free)
The United States is a federal republic whose people benefit from a vibrant political system, a strong rule-of-law tradition, robust freedoms of expression and religious belief, and a wide array of other civil liberties.
View the Source
2. United States (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaView the Source
Confederation (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaAssociated With: ConfederationView the Source
Impeachment (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaAssociated With: ImpeachmentView the Source
Judicial Review (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaAssociated With: Judicial ReviewView the Source
British Empire (Britannica)
Part Of: British Empire
George Washington (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationGoverned By: George Washington, Lead section
Quote, Governed By: George Washington, Lead section
George Washington...was a Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797.
View the Source
Barack Obama (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationGoverned By: Barack Obama, Lead section
Quote, Governed By: Barack Obama, Lead section
served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017
View the Source
Woodrow Wilson (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationGoverned By: Woodrow Wilson, Lead section
Quote, Governed By: Woodrow Wilson, Lead section
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 - February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921.
View the Source
Duverger's law (Wikipedia)
Practices: Duverger's Law, Article text
Quote, Practices: Duverger's Law, Article text
in political systems with single-member districts and the first-past-the-post voting system, as in, for example, the United States and United Kingdom, only two powerful political parties tend to control power every election cycle.
View the Source
Separation of powers (Wikipedia)
WikipediaPractices: Separation of Powers, Article text
Quote, Practices: Separation of Powers, Article text
Under this influence, it was implemented in 1787 in the Constitution of the United States separation of powers.
View the Source
Electoral college (Wikipedia)
Practices: Electoral College, Lead paragraph
Quote, Practices: Electoral College, Lead paragraph
The United States Electoral College is the only remaining electoral college in democracies where an executive president is indirectly elected via an electoral college.
View the Source
Gerrymandering (Wikipedia)
Practices: Gerrymandering, Lead paragraph
Quote, Practices: Gerrymandering, Lead paragraph
The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States until his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisanly-drawn district in the Boston area that was thought to be similar to the shape of a salamander.
View the Source
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