Facts for Kids

United States of America is a large country mostly in North America. It has 50 states and a special capital city named Washington, D.C. Most of the states join together in one big piece of land that touches Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. Two states are farther away: Alaska is to the northwest, and Hawaii is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The United States is one of the biggest countries on Earth and has many people—cities, small towns, farms, and wild places. Because it is so large, the country has lots of different weather and lands, from snowy mountains and wide plains to deserts and sandy beaches.

Indigenous Peoples were the first people to live on the land now called the United States. Long ago—many thousands of years—people moved from other parts of the world and made homes here. Over time they formed many different cultures. For example, archaeologists find tools from the Clovis culture, and later groups like the Mississippian people built towns and grew crops.

These first peoples lived in every kind of place: forests, coasts, deserts, and mountains. Some grew corn and beans, some hunted or fished, and many traded with neighbors. Their ways of living, languages, and stories made the land rich with different ideas and skills long before European settlers arrived.

The United States uses a federal system, which means rule and power are shared between different levels. The national government in Washington, D.C., handles things that affect the whole country, like money and trade. Each of the 50 states has its own government for local matters such as schools, roads, and police. Many Native American tribes also govern themselves on their lands and make their own rules for community life.

Besides the states, the U.S. includes places called territories. Five territories where people live are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There are also tiny, mostly uninhabited islands and outlying areas in the Pacific and Caribbean that the United States controls.

Federal government means the national government that covers the whole country. It has three main parts: the President and agencies that carry out laws, Congress that makes laws, and the courts that explain them. Together they help run the country, keep people safe, and decide how money is spent.

In recent years the federal government has helped guide the economy, responded to emergencies, and worked on issues like health, safety, and technology. Big events—such as economic ups and downs, wars, and security changes after 2001—show why the government makes rules and why peaceful, lawful choices matter in public life.

World War I brought the United States into a large conflict in 1917, and it helped the country become more involved in world affairs. During and after the war, Americans saw changes at home: more factory jobs, women taking paid work, and shifts in how people lived and worked.

The 1930s brought the Great Depression, a long time when many people lost jobs and money. Governments tried new programs to help families and banks. A second big war began in the 1930s and 1940s; the United States joined after a surprise attack in 1941 and worked with other countries to end the fighting by 1945. The wars changed industry, technology, and how the U.S. worked with other nations.

People from Europe began making colonies in parts of this land. Spain had a colony in Florida beginning in the 1500s, and England set up colonies like Jamestown in 1607. By the 1700s, many colonists lived in towns and on farms. During that time many colonies used enslaved people from Africa to work on farms, especially in the south.

Tensions grew between the British government and colonists over taxes and rights. In 1776 leaders declared independence by issuing the Declaration of Independence, saying the colonies would be a new nation. After the war, the United States wrote the Constitution in 1787 to set up a federal government, and the Bill of Rights in 1791 to protect freedoms. George Washington became the first president in 1789.

Louisiana Purchase in 1803 nearly doubled the size of the United States and helped many people move west to start new homes. In the early 1800s the country also fought the War of 1812 with Britain and gained control of Florida from Spain in 1819. As new lands became states, the nation grew across the continent with farms, towns, and new trade routes.

But Americans disagreed about whether new states should allow slavery. These disagreements widened between the North and the South and led to the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, a major conflict between parts of the country; after the war the United States stayed together and slavery was ended. The years that followed began a long process of rebuilding and change.

Cold War describes the long rivalry after 1945 between the United States and the Soviet Union. They mostly competed without direct fighting, trying to spread their ideas and influence. This period included the Space Race, which led to the first Moon landing in 1969.

At home, Americans pushed for civil rights so everyone would be treated more fairly. The 1960s and 1970s brought big social changes, protests, and laws to improve schools, voting, and jobs. Over the last decades the United States saw new technologies, changing jobs, and world events like the end of the Soviet Union that left the U.S. with a large global role.

Reconstruction was the time after the Civil War when the United States tried to rebuild the country and help former enslaved people become full citizens. New amendments to the Constitution promised equal rights, and Southern states were slowly readmitted to the Union. But progress was uneven, and many people faced unfair laws and treatment in some places.

At the same time, the country changed fast. Factories, railroads, and new businesses grew during the Gilded Age. Millions of people came from other countries and cities got bigger. The Progressive Era followed, when reformers worked to fix problems like unsafe workplaces, unfair business practices, and shortages of clean water and housing.