Is sacking wenger they way?
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SWLGooner
- Posts: 10483
- Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:58 pm
- Location: Islington Town Hall, applauding the fourth place trophy.
The game of curling is thought to have been invented in late medieval Scotland, with the first written reference to a contest using stones on ice coming from the records of Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, in February 1541. Two paintings (both dated 1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder depict Dutch peasants curling—Scotland and the Low Countries had strong trading and cultural links during this period, which is also evident in the history of golf.
Purpose-built curling pond at Colzium, Kilsyth
The game of curling was already in existence in Scotland in the early sixteenth century as evidenced by a curling stone inscribed with the date 1511, uncovered along with another bearing the date 1551, when an old pond was drained at Dunblane, Scotland. Kilsyth Curling Club claims to be the first club in the world, having been formally constituted in 1716 and is still in existence today [1]. Kilsyth also claims the oldest purpose-built curling pond in the world at Colzium – in the form of a low dam creating a shallow pool some 100 x 250 metres in size, though this is now very seldom in condition for curling due to warmer winters.
The word curling first appears in print in 1620 in Perth, in the preface and the verses of a poem by Henry Adamson. The game was (and still is, in Scotland and Scottish-settled regions like southern New Zealand) also known as "the roaring game" because of the sound the stones make while traveling over the pebble (droplets of water applied to the playing surface). The word derives[citation needed] from the Scots language verb curr [2], which describes a low rumble (a cognate of the English language verb purr). The word does not take its name from the motion of the stones, although today a stone deviating from a straight-line trajectory is said to curl.
Group of people curling on a lake in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, ca. 1897
In the early history of curling, the rocks were simply flat-bottomed river stones that were sometimes notched or shaped; the thrower had little control over the rock, and relied more on luck than skill to win, unlike today's reliance on skill and strategy.
It is recorded that in Darvel, East Ayrshire the weavers relaxed by playing curling matches. The stones they used were the heavy stone weights from the weavers 'warp beams', fitted with a detachable handle for the purpose. The wives kept their husbands brass curling stone handle on the mantelpiece, brightly polished until the next time it was needed.[2]
Outdoor curling was very popular in Scotland between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries as the climate provided good ice conditions every winter. Scotland is home to the international governing body for curling, the World Curling Federation, Perth, which originated as a committee of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, the mother club of curling. Today the game is most firmly established in Canada, having been taken there by Scottish emigrants. The Royal Montreal Curling Club, the oldest active athletic club of any kind in North America[citation needed] was established in 1807. The first curling club in the United States began in 1830, and the game was introduced to Switzerland and Sweden before the end of the nineteenth century, also by Scots. Today, curling is played all over Europe and has spread to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China and Korea.
A curling match at Eglinton Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland in 1860. The Curling House is located to the left of the picture.
The first world curling championship in the sport was limited to men and was known as the "Scotch Cup" held in Falkirk and Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1959. The first world title was won by the Canadian team from Regina, Saskatchewan, skipped by Ernie Richardson. (The skip is the team member who calls the shots, see below.)
Purpose-built curling pond at Colzium, Kilsyth
The game of curling was already in existence in Scotland in the early sixteenth century as evidenced by a curling stone inscribed with the date 1511, uncovered along with another bearing the date 1551, when an old pond was drained at Dunblane, Scotland. Kilsyth Curling Club claims to be the first club in the world, having been formally constituted in 1716 and is still in existence today [1]. Kilsyth also claims the oldest purpose-built curling pond in the world at Colzium – in the form of a low dam creating a shallow pool some 100 x 250 metres in size, though this is now very seldom in condition for curling due to warmer winters.
The word curling first appears in print in 1620 in Perth, in the preface and the verses of a poem by Henry Adamson. The game was (and still is, in Scotland and Scottish-settled regions like southern New Zealand) also known as "the roaring game" because of the sound the stones make while traveling over the pebble (droplets of water applied to the playing surface). The word derives[citation needed] from the Scots language verb curr [2], which describes a low rumble (a cognate of the English language verb purr). The word does not take its name from the motion of the stones, although today a stone deviating from a straight-line trajectory is said to curl.
Group of people curling on a lake in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, ca. 1897
In the early history of curling, the rocks were simply flat-bottomed river stones that were sometimes notched or shaped; the thrower had little control over the rock, and relied more on luck than skill to win, unlike today's reliance on skill and strategy.
It is recorded that in Darvel, East Ayrshire the weavers relaxed by playing curling matches. The stones they used were the heavy stone weights from the weavers 'warp beams', fitted with a detachable handle for the purpose. The wives kept their husbands brass curling stone handle on the mantelpiece, brightly polished until the next time it was needed.[2]
Outdoor curling was very popular in Scotland between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries as the climate provided good ice conditions every winter. Scotland is home to the international governing body for curling, the World Curling Federation, Perth, which originated as a committee of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, the mother club of curling. Today the game is most firmly established in Canada, having been taken there by Scottish emigrants. The Royal Montreal Curling Club, the oldest active athletic club of any kind in North America[citation needed] was established in 1807. The first curling club in the United States began in 1830, and the game was introduced to Switzerland and Sweden before the end of the nineteenth century, also by Scots. Today, curling is played all over Europe and has spread to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China and Korea.
A curling match at Eglinton Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland in 1860. The Curling House is located to the left of the picture.
The first world curling championship in the sport was limited to men and was known as the "Scotch Cup" held in Falkirk and Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1959. The first world title was won by the Canadian team from Regina, Saskatchewan, skipped by Ernie Richardson. (The skip is the team member who calls the shots, see below.)
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SPUDMASHER
- Posts: 10739
- Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:07 am
- Location: London Euston
- Contact:
Endangered, hunted, smuggled and now abandoned, 5,000 of the world's rarest animals have been found drifting in a deserted boat near the coast of China.
The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong. Most were alive, though the cargo also contained 21 bear paws wrapped in newspaper.
According to conservation groups, the haul was discovered on one of the world's most lucrative and destructive smuggling routes: from the threatened jungles of south-east Asia to the restaurant tables of southern China.
The animals were found when local fishermen noticed a strange smell emanating from the vessel, which did not have any registration plates, on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
When coastguard officials boarded the 25-metre craft, it was reportedly deserted and stripped of identification papers. They found more than 200 crates full of animals, many so dehydrated in the tropical sun that they were close to death.
The animals - which weighed 13 tonnes - were taken to port, doused with water and sent to an animal welfare centre. "We have received some animals," said an office worker at the Guangdong Wild Animal Protection Centre. "We are waiting to hear from the authorities what we should do with them."
According to the local media, the cargo included 31 pangolins, 44 leatherback turtles, 2,720 monitor lizards, 1,130 Brazilian turtles as well as the bear paws. Photographs showed other animals, including an Asian giant turtle.
All of these south-east Asian species are critically endangered, banned from international trade and yet openly sold in restaurants and markets in China's southern province of Guangdong, which is famous for its exotic cuisine.
The accidental discovery highlights the negative impact that the growing power of Chinese consumption is having on global conservation efforts.
According to wildlife groups, China is the main market for illegally traded exotic species, which are eaten or used in traditional medicine. Pangolins are in great demand because their meat is consider a delicacy and their scales are thought to help mothers breastfeed their babies.
As a result of demand, the pangolin populations of China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been wiped out. With traders moving further and further south, the animal is declining even in its last habitats in Java, Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula. It is a similar story for many species of turtle, tortoise, frog and snake.
Despite China's international commitments to get to grips with this illicit activity, the trade is booming. Border controls are lax, and smugglers know that fines are usually far lower than the potential rewards. As a result, raids and seizures of banned products occur regularly. One recent raid on a restaurant in Guanghzou turned up 118 pangolins, 60kg of snakes and 400kg of toads.
Traffic - an organisation that monitors and tries to prevent the smuggling of endangered species - welcomed the fact that China's authorities had reacted swiftly to rescue the animals but said much more needs to be done to prevent similar cases.
"Unfortunately, this is all too common. This trade is a far bigger threat to these species than habitat destruction," said Chris Shepherd, senior program officer with Traffic Southeast Asia. "The vigilance on the border has to be improved, cooperation with source countries needs to be strengthened, there should be better monitoring of dealers, and the people violating the laws must be penalised severely."
Despite the ban on pangolins, many restaurants offer their meat. The Chaoxing restaurant in Shenzhen said yesterday that pangolin was available but was only suitable for large dining parties.
"The animal is very big - about 10kg," said a waitress contacted by telephone. "We serve it in hotpot. That is the tastiest way."
According to recent reports in the Chinese media, the price of 1kg of pangolin served in Guangdong or Yunnan is between 600 and 800 yuan per kilogram (between £43 and £50).
A Guangdong chef interviewed last year in the Beijing Science and Technology Daily described how to cook a pangolin.
"We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards."
The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong. Most were alive, though the cargo also contained 21 bear paws wrapped in newspaper.
According to conservation groups, the haul was discovered on one of the world's most lucrative and destructive smuggling routes: from the threatened jungles of south-east Asia to the restaurant tables of southern China.
The animals were found when local fishermen noticed a strange smell emanating from the vessel, which did not have any registration plates, on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
When coastguard officials boarded the 25-metre craft, it was reportedly deserted and stripped of identification papers. They found more than 200 crates full of animals, many so dehydrated in the tropical sun that they were close to death.
The animals - which weighed 13 tonnes - were taken to port, doused with water and sent to an animal welfare centre. "We have received some animals," said an office worker at the Guangdong Wild Animal Protection Centre. "We are waiting to hear from the authorities what we should do with them."
According to the local media, the cargo included 31 pangolins, 44 leatherback turtles, 2,720 monitor lizards, 1,130 Brazilian turtles as well as the bear paws. Photographs showed other animals, including an Asian giant turtle.
All of these south-east Asian species are critically endangered, banned from international trade and yet openly sold in restaurants and markets in China's southern province of Guangdong, which is famous for its exotic cuisine.
The accidental discovery highlights the negative impact that the growing power of Chinese consumption is having on global conservation efforts.
According to wildlife groups, China is the main market for illegally traded exotic species, which are eaten or used in traditional medicine. Pangolins are in great demand because their meat is consider a delicacy and their scales are thought to help mothers breastfeed their babies.
As a result of demand, the pangolin populations of China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been wiped out. With traders moving further and further south, the animal is declining even in its last habitats in Java, Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula. It is a similar story for many species of turtle, tortoise, frog and snake.
Despite China's international commitments to get to grips with this illicit activity, the trade is booming. Border controls are lax, and smugglers know that fines are usually far lower than the potential rewards. As a result, raids and seizures of banned products occur regularly. One recent raid on a restaurant in Guanghzou turned up 118 pangolins, 60kg of snakes and 400kg of toads.
Traffic - an organisation that monitors and tries to prevent the smuggling of endangered species - welcomed the fact that China's authorities had reacted swiftly to rescue the animals but said much more needs to be done to prevent similar cases.
"Unfortunately, this is all too common. This trade is a far bigger threat to these species than habitat destruction," said Chris Shepherd, senior program officer with Traffic Southeast Asia. "The vigilance on the border has to be improved, cooperation with source countries needs to be strengthened, there should be better monitoring of dealers, and the people violating the laws must be penalised severely."
Despite the ban on pangolins, many restaurants offer their meat. The Chaoxing restaurant in Shenzhen said yesterday that pangolin was available but was only suitable for large dining parties.
"The animal is very big - about 10kg," said a waitress contacted by telephone. "We serve it in hotpot. That is the tastiest way."
According to recent reports in the Chinese media, the price of 1kg of pangolin served in Guangdong or Yunnan is between 600 and 800 yuan per kilogram (between £43 and £50).
A Guangdong chef interviewed last year in the Beijing Science and Technology Daily described how to cook a pangolin.
"We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards."
Shit is one of the most functionally diverse words in the English language, and is also one of the most frequently used nouns.[dubious – discuss] In its literal meaning, it is usually considered a vulgar word (swear word) in Modern English. As a noun it refers to fecal matter (excrement) and as a verb it means to defecate or defecate in; in the plural ("the shits") it means diarrhea. As a slang term, it can mean nonsense, foolishness or something of little value; trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk, or a contemptible person. To shit, in slang, is to talk nonsense to, or to attempt to deceive.sunnyp wrote:what on earth is this crap?
Etymology
Scholars trace the word back to Old Norse origin (skīta, to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate Germanic tribes at the time of the Roman Empire. It was originally adopted into Old English as the nouns scite (dung, attested only in place names) and scitte (diarrhoea), and the verb scītan (to defecate, attested only in bescītan, to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English schītte (excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and shiten (to defecate). The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *skit-, and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *skheid-. Ancient Greek language had 'skor' (root 'skat-' from which modern Greek 'skatá'). The words 'skÃtur' (noun) and 'skÃta' (verb), still exist in the Icelandic language today, and in other Scandinavian languages variations of 'skit' are also often used.[1][2]
Usage
The word shit (or sometimes shite in Scotland, Ireland, Northern England and Wales) is used by English speakers, but it is usually avoided in formal speech. Substitutes for the word shit in English include sugar and shoot.
In the word's literal sense, it has a rather small range of common usages. An unspecified or collective occurrence of feces is generally shit or some shit; a single deposit of feces is sometimes a shit or a piece of shit, and to defecate is to shit, or to take a shit. While it is common to speak of shit as existing in a pile, a load, a hunk and other quantities and configurations, such expressions flourish most strongly in the figurative. For practical purposes, when actual defecation and excreta are spoken of in English, it is either through creative euphemism or with a vague and fairly rigid literalism.
"Shit" can also be combined with other words to denote the type of feces one has. For instance, "Snake shit" describes feces that are long and slender in shape, thus reminiscent of a snake's appearance. "Shapeepee" or "Shit pee pee" is another word for diarrhea, or can be used to describe feces that are almost entirely of liquid composition.
Shit carries an encompassing variety of figurative meanings, explained in the following sections.
Vague noun
Shit can be used as a generic mass noun similar to stuff; for instance, This show is funny shit or This test is hard shit, or That was stupid shit. These three usages (with funny, hard, and stupid or another synonym of stupid) are heard most commonly in the United States. Note that shit is both a positive and negative thing in these examples, shit being apparently very funny (a positive thing) and in the second and third examples very hard (as in, difficult - a negative thing to be) or very stupid. Note also that in a phrase like this, the speaker doesn't include the term as; saying that something is as funny as shit would be taken as a negative statment (shit not being a very funny thing to be).
In Get your shit together! the word shit may refer to some set of personal belongings or tools, or to one's wits, composure, or attention to the task at hand. He doesn't have his shit together suggests he is failing rather broadly, with the onus laid to multiple personal shortcomings, rather than bad luck or outside forces.
To shoot the shit is to have a friendly but pointless conversation, as in "Come by my place some time and we'll shoot the shit."
Surprise
To shit oneself, or to shit bricks can be used to refer to surprise. The latter form can be commonly seen in a form of internet meme which goes by the phrase when you see it, you will shit bricks, used in connection with an image of a busy scene with an often unnoticed laughing face or disturbing object which is hard to see until you study the picture.
The word can also be used to represent anger, as in Jim is totally going to flip his shit when he sees that we wrecked his marriage.
Trouble
Shit can be used to denote trouble, by saying one is in a lot of shit or deep shit. It's common for someone to refer to an unpleasant thing as hard shit (You got a speeding ticket? Man, that's some hard shit), but the phrase tough shit is used as an unsympathetic way of saying too bad to whomever is having problems (You got arrested? Tough shit, man!) or as a way of expressing to someone that they need to stop complaining about something and just deal with it (Billy: I got arrested because of you! Tommy: Tough shit, dude, you knew you might get arrested when you chose to come with me.) Note that in this case, as in many cases with the term, tough shit is often said as a way of pointing out someone's fault in his/her own current problem.
When the shit hits the fan is usually used to refer to a specific time of confrontation or trouble, which requires decisive action. This is often used in reference to combat situations and the action scenes in movies, but can also be used for everyday instances that one might be apprehensive about. I don't want to be here when the shit hits the fan! indicates that the speaker is dreading this moment (which can be anything from an enemy attack to confronting an angry parent or friend). He's the one to turn to when the shit hits the fan is an indication that the person being talked about is dependable and will not run from trouble or abandon their allies in tough situations. The concept of this phrase is simple enough, as the actual substance striking the rotating blades of a fan would cause a messy and unpleasant situation (much like being in the presence of a manure spreader). Whether or not this has actually happened, or if the concept is simply feasible enough for most people to imagine the result without needing it to be demonstrated, is unknown. Another example might be the saying shit rolls down hill which is particularly illustrating, the consequences of putting your superiors in a bad position at work. There are a number of anecdotes and jokes about such situations, as the imagery of these situations is considered to be funny. This is generally tied-in with the concept that disgusting and messy substances spilled onto someone else are humorous.
Displeasure
Shit can comfortably stand in for the terms bad and anything in many instances (Dinner was good, but the movie was shit. You're all mad at me, but I didn't do shit!). A comparison can also be used, as in Those pants look like shit, or This stuff tastes like shit. Many usages are idiomatic. The phrase, I don't give a shit denotes indifference. I'm shit out of luck usually refers to someone who is at the end of their wits or who has no remaining viable options. That little shit shot me in the ass, suggests a mischievous or contemptuous person. Euphemisms such as crap are not used in this context.
The term piece of shit is generally used to classify a product or service as being sufficiently below the writer's understanding of generally accepted quality standards to be of negligible and perhaps even negative value.The term piece of shit has greater precision than shit or shitty in that piece of shit identifies the low quality of a specific component or output of a process without applying a derogatory slant to the entire process. For example, if one said "The inner city youth orchestra has been a remarkably successful initiative in that it has kept young people off the streets after school and exposed them to culture and discipline, thereby improving their self esteem and future prospects. The fact that the orchestra's recent rendition of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of shit should not in any way detract from this." The substitution of shit or shitty for pretty much a piece of shit would imply irony and would therefore undermine the strength of the statement.
Dominance
Shit can also be used to establish superiority over another being. The most common phrase is eat shit! symbolizing the hatred toward the recipient. Some other personal word may be added such as eat my shit implying truly personal connotations. As an aside, the above is actually a contraction of the phrase eat shit and die!. It is often said without commas as a curse; they with the other party to perform exactly those actions in that order. However, the term was originally Eat, Shit, and Die naming the three most basic things humans have to do, and it is common among soldiers.
Positive attitude
Interestingly, in slang, prefixing the article the to shit gives it a completely opposite definition, meaning the best, as in Altered Beast is the shit, or The Medic Droid is the shit. Again, other slang words of the same meaning, crap for example, are not used in such locutions.
Shortening of bullshit
The expression no shit? (a contraction of no bullshit?) is used in response to a statement that is extraordinary or hard to believe. Alternatively the maker of the hard-to-believe statement may add no shit to reinforce the sincerity or truthfulness of their statement, particularly in response to someone expressing disbelief at their statement. No shit is also used sarcastically in response to a statement of the obvious, as in no shit, Sherlock.
In this form the word can also be used in phrases such as don't give me that shit or you're full of shit. The term full of shit is often used as an exclamation to charge someone who is believed to be prone to dishonesty, exaggeration or is thought to be "phoney" with an accusation. For example:
1. "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to invite you to the party, it was a complete accident... But you really didn't miss anything anyway.
2. "You're full of shit! You had dozens of opportunities you could've invited me. If you have a problem with me, why not grow a pair[3] and say it!"
The word bullshit also denotes false or insincere discourse. (Horseshit is roughly equivalent, while chickenshit means cowardly, batshit indicates a person is crazy, and going apeshit indicates a person is entering a state of high excitement or unbridled rage.). Are you shitting me!? is a question sometimes given in response to an incredible assertion. An answer that reasserts the veracity of the claim is, I shit you not.
Emphasis
Perhaps the only constant connotation that shit reliably carries is that its referent holds some degree of emotional intensity for the speaker. Whether offense is taken at hearing the word varies greatly according to listener and situation, and is related to age and social class: elderly speakers and those of (or aspiring to) higher socioeconomic strata tend to use it more privately and selectively than younger and more blue-collar speakers.
Like the word fuck, shit is often used to add emphasis more than to add meaning, for example, shit! I was so shit-scared of that shithead that I shit-talked him into dropping out of the karate match! The term to shit-talk connotes bragging or exaggeration (whereas to talk shit primarily means to gossip [about someone in a damaging way] or to talk in a boastful way about things which are erroneous in nature), but in such constructions as the above, the word shit often functions as an interjection.
Unlike the word fuck, shit is not used emphatically with -ing or as an infix. For example; I lost the shitting karate match would be replaced with ...the fucking karate match. Similarly, while in-fucking-credible is generally acceptable, in-shitting-credible is not.
Drug usage
Shit itself can be a dysphemism or quasi-euphemism, with many intoxicating or narcotic drugs (notably hashish and heroin) being referred to as shit. To be shitfaced is to be extremely drunk. A shitshow denotes a party or gathering during which multiple people become intoxicated to the point of incapacitation.
The verb “to shitâ€
So arsenal lost to Stoke....they are definitely out of the championship race ( according to the wise sages of this idiotic world). The theory was that the Big 4 or 5 will not lose points to the bottom teams. Spurs go on to beat Liverpool and no top analyst says Liverpool's season is over because they have lost one game, they also happened to draw with Stoke which is 2 points dropped according to the title winning theory. Man U drew with Newcastle and Everton teams that Arsenal soundly beat but they are still considered strong title favorites and that is after 10 games. Given Arsenal lost a few games but they still have a chance to win the league if they win a lot of the games left ( not all ) . Man U, Chelsea will all drop points to some teams in the league and Arsenal can still win the league. Arsenal dont have a defensive midfielder according to most people but in a tournament including Yaya Toure, Alex Song of Arsenal was considered the best defensive midfielder in The African Nations cup making the team of the tournament. Man U and Chelsea could not win at Fenerbache and Arsenal did that and their season is still considered pear shaped. There is a reason why most of these commentators and other so called experts are not coaches...as we like to say in South Africa >>They dont know fokol. Arsene Wenger is a top coach, Almunia is a great goalkeeper, Denilson is an excellent player and Song is a defensive midfielder.
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Radford149
- Posts: 3295
- Joined: Sat Aug 09, 2008 8:47 pm
Shit is one of the most functionally diverse words in the English language, and is also one of the most frequently used nouns.[dubious – discuss] In its literal meaning, it is usually considered a vulgar word (swear word) in Modern English. As a noun it refers to fecal matter (excrement) and as a verb it means to defecate or defecate in; in the plural ("the shits") it means diarrhea. As a slang term, it can mean nonsense, foolishness or something of little value; trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk, or a contemptible person. To shit, in slang, is to talk nonsense to, or to attempt to deceive.digger wrote:sunnyp wrote:what on earth is this crap?
Etymology
Scholars trace the word back to Old Norse origin (skīta, to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate Germanic tribes at the time of the Roman Empire. It was originally adopted into Old English as the nouns scite (dung, attested only in place names) and scitte (diarrhoea), and the verb scītan (to defecate, attested only in bescītan, to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English schītte (excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and shiten (to defecate). The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *skit-, and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *skheid-. Ancient Greek language had 'skor' (root 'skat-' from which modern Greek 'skatá'). The words 'skÃtur' (noun) and 'skÃta' (verb), still exist in the Icelandic language today, and in other Scandinavian languages variations of 'skit' are also often used.[1][2]
Usage
The word shit (or sometimes shite in Scotland, Ireland, Northern England and Wales) is used by English speakers, but it is usually avoided in formal speech. Substitutes for the word shit in English include sugar and shoot.
In the word's literal sense, it has a rather small range of common usages. An unspecified or collective occurrence of feces is generally shit or some shit; a single deposit of feces is sometimes a shit or a piece of shit, and to defecate is to shit, or to take a shit. While it is common to speak of shit as existing in a pile, a load, a hunk and other quantities and configurations, such expressions flourish most strongly in the figurative. For practical purposes, when actual defecation and excreta are spoken of in English, it is either through creative euphemism or with a vague and fairly rigid literalism.
"Shit" can also be combined with other words to denote the type of feces one has. For instance, "Snake shit" describes feces that are long and slender in shape, thus reminiscent of a snake's appearance. "Shapeepee" or "Shit pee pee" is another word for diarrhea, or can be used to describe feces that are almost entirely of liquid composition.
Shit carries an encompassing variety of figurative meanings, explained in the following sections.
Vague noun
Shit can be used as a generic mass noun similar to stuff; for instance, This show is funny shit or This test is hard shit, or That was stupid shit. These three usages (with funny, hard, and stupid or another synonym of stupid) are heard most commonly in the United States. Note that shit is both a positive and negative thing in these examples, shit being apparently very funny (a positive thing) and in the second and third examples very hard (as in, difficult - a negative thing to be) or very stupid. Note also that in a phrase like this, the speaker doesn't include the term as; saying that something is as funny as shit would be taken as a negative statment (shit not being a very funny thing to be).
In Get your shit together! the word shit may refer to some set of personal belongings or tools, or to one's wits, composure, or attention to the task at hand. He doesn't have his shit together suggests he is failing rather broadly, with the onus laid to multiple personal shortcomings, rather than bad luck or outside forces.
To shoot the shit is to have a friendly but pointless conversation, as in "Come by my place some time and we'll shoot the shit."
Surprise
To shit oneself, or to shit bricks can be used to refer to surprise. The latter form can be commonly seen in a form of internet meme which goes by the phrase when you see it, you will shit bricks, used in connection with an image of a busy scene with an often unnoticed laughing face or disturbing object which is hard to see until you study the picture.
The word can also be used to represent anger, as in Jim is totally going to flip his shit when he sees that we wrecked his marriage.
Trouble
Shit can be used to denote trouble, by saying one is in a lot of shit or deep shit. It's common for someone to refer to an unpleasant thing as hard shit (You got a speeding ticket? Man, that's some hard shit), but the phrase tough shit is used as an unsympathetic way of saying too bad to whomever is having problems (You got arrested? Tough shit, man!) or as a way of expressing to someone that they need to stop complaining about something and just deal with it (Billy: I got arrested because of you! Tommy: Tough shit, dude, you knew you might get arrested when you chose to come with me.) Note that in this case, as in many cases with the term, tough shit is often said as a way of pointing out someone's fault in his/her own current problem.
When the shit hits the fan is usually used to refer to a specific time of confrontation or trouble, which requires decisive action. This is often used in reference to combat situations and the action scenes in movies, but can also be used for everyday instances that one might be apprehensive about. I don't want to be here when the shit hits the fan! indicates that the speaker is dreading this moment (which can be anything from an enemy attack to confronting an angry parent or friend). He's the one to turn to when the shit hits the fan is an indication that the person being talked about is dependable and will not run from trouble or abandon their allies in tough situations. The concept of this phrase is simple enough, as the actual substance striking the rotating blades of a fan would cause a messy and unpleasant situation (much like being in the presence of a manure spreader). Whether or not this has actually happened, or if the concept is simply feasible enough for most people to imagine the result without needing it to be demonstrated, is unknown. Another example might be the saying shit rolls down hill which is particularly illustrating, the consequences of putting your superiors in a bad position at work. There are a number of anecdotes and jokes about such situations, as the imagery of these situations is considered to be funny. This is generally tied-in with the concept that disgusting and messy substances spilled onto someone else are humorous.
Displeasure
Shit can comfortably stand in for the terms bad and anything in many instances (Dinner was good, but the movie was shit. You're all mad at me, but I didn't do shit!). A comparison can also be used, as in Those pants look like shit, or This stuff tastes like shit. Many usages are idiomatic. The phrase, I don't give a shit denotes indifference. I'm shit out of luck usually refers to someone who is at the end of their wits or who has no remaining viable options. That little shit shot me in the ass, suggests a mischievous or contemptuous person. Euphemisms such as crap are not used in this context.
The term piece of shit is generally used to classify a product or service as being sufficiently below the writer's understanding of generally accepted quality standards to be of negligible and perhaps even negative value.The term piece of shit has greater precision than shit or shitty in that piece of shit identifies the low quality of a specific component or output of a process without applying a derogatory slant to the entire process. For example, if one said "The inner city youth orchestra has been a remarkably successful initiative in that it has kept young people off the streets after school and exposed them to culture and discipline, thereby improving their self esteem and future prospects. The fact that the orchestra's recent rendition of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of shit should not in any way detract from this." The substitution of shit or shitty for pretty much a piece of shit would imply irony and would therefore undermine the strength of the statement.
Dominance
Shit can also be used to establish superiority over another being. The most common phrase is eat shit! symbolizing the hatred toward the recipient. Some other personal word may be added such as eat my shit implying truly personal connotations. As an aside, the above is actually a contraction of the phrase eat shit and die!. It is often said without commas as a curse; they with the other party to perform exactly those actions in that order. However, the term was originally Eat, Shit, and Die naming the three most basic things humans have to do, and it is common among soldiers.
Positive attitude
Interestingly, in slang, prefixing the article the to shit gives it a completely opposite definition, meaning the best, as in Altered Beast is the shit, or The Medic Droid is the shit. Again, other slang words of the same meaning, crap for example, are not used in such locutions.
Shortening of bullshit
The expression no shit? (a contraction of no bullshit?) is used in response to a statement that is extraordinary or hard to believe. Alternatively the maker of the hard-to-believe statement may add no shit to reinforce the sincerity or truthfulness of their statement, particularly in response to someone expressing disbelief at their statement. No shit is also used sarcastically in response to a statement of the obvious, as in no shit, Sherlock.
In this form the word can also be used in phrases such as don't give me that shit or you're full of shit. The term full of shit is often used as an exclamation to charge someone who is believed to be prone to dishonesty, exaggeration or is thought to be "phoney" with an accusation. For example:
1. "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to invite you to the party, it was a complete accident... But you really didn't miss anything anyway.
2. "You're full of shit! You had dozens of opportunities you could've invited me. If you have a problem with me, why not grow a pair[3] and say it!"
The word bullshit also denotes false or insincere discourse. (Horseshit is roughly equivalent, while chickenshit means cowardly, batshit indicates a person is crazy, and going apeshit indicates a person is entering a state of high excitement or unbridled rage.). Are you shitting me!? is a question sometimes given in response to an incredible assertion. An answer that reasserts the veracity of the claim is, I shit you not.
Emphasis
Perhaps the only constant connotation that shit reliably carries is that its referent holds some degree of emotional intensity for the speaker. Whether offense is taken at hearing the word varies greatly according to listener and situation, and is related to age and social class: elderly speakers and those of (or aspiring to) higher socioeconomic strata tend to use it more privately and selectively than younger and more blue-collar speakers.
Like the word fuck, shit is often used to add emphasis more than to add meaning, for example, shit! I was so shit-scared of that shithead that I shit-talked him into dropping out of the karate match! The term to shit-talk connotes bragging or exaggeration (whereas to talk shit primarily means to gossip [about someone in a damaging way] or to talk in a boastful way about things which are erroneous in nature), but in such constructions as the above, the word shit often functions as an interjection.
Unlike the word fuck, shit is not used emphatically with -ing or as an infix. For example; I lost the shitting karate match would be replaced with ...the fucking karate match. Similarly, while in-fucking-credible is generally acceptable, in-shitting-credible is not.
Drug usage
Shit itself can be a dysphemism or quasi-euphemism, with many intoxicating or narcotic drugs (notably hashish and heroin) being referred to as shit. To be shitfaced is to be extremely drunk. A shitshow denotes a party or gathering during which multiple people become intoxicated to the point of incapacitation.
The verb “to shitâ€
Shit is one of the most functionally diverse words in the English language, and is also one of the most frequently used nouns.[dubious – discuss] In its literal meaning, it is usually considered a vulgar word (swear word) in Modern English. As a noun it refers to fecal matter (excrement) and as a verb it means to defecate or defecate in; in the plural ("the shits") it means diarrhea. As a slang term, it can mean nonsense, foolishness or something of little value; trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk, or a contemptible person. To shit, in slang, is to talk nonsense to, or to attempt to deceive.Radford149 wrote:digger wrote:sunnyp wrote:what on earth is this crap?
Etymology
Scholars trace the word back to Old Norse origin (skīta, to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form by preliterate Germanic tribes at the time of the Roman Empire. It was originally adopted into Old English as the nouns scite (dung, attested only in place names) and scitte (diarrhoea), and the verb scītan (to defecate, attested only in bescītan, to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English schītte (excrement), schyt (diarrhoea) and shiten (to defecate). The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *skit-, and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *skheid-. Ancient Greek language had 'skor' (root 'skat-' from which modern Greek 'skatá'). The words 'skÃtur' (noun) and 'skÃta' (verb), still exist in the Icelandic language today, and in other Scandinavian languages variations of 'skit' are also often used.[1][2]
Usage
The word shit (or sometimes shite in Scotland, Ireland, Northern England and Wales) is used by English speakers, but it is usually avoided in formal speech. Substitutes for the word shit in English include sugar and shoot.
In the word's literal sense, it has a rather small range of common usages. An unspecified or collective occurrence of feces is generally shit or some shit; a single deposit of feces is sometimes a shit or a piece of shit, and to defecate is to shit, or to take a shit. While it is common to speak of shit as existing in a pile, a load, a hunk and other quantities and configurations, such expressions flourish most strongly in the figurative. For practical purposes, when actual defecation and excreta are spoken of in English, it is either through creative euphemism or with a vague and fairly rigid literalism.
"Shit" can also be combined with other words to denote the type of feces one has. For instance, "Snake shit" describes feces that are long and slender in shape, thus reminiscent of a snake's appearance. "Shapeepee" or "Shit pee pee" is another word for diarrhea, or can be used to describe feces that are almost entirely of liquid composition.
Shit carries an encompassing variety of figurative meanings, explained in the following sections.
Vague noun
Shit can be used as a generic mass noun similar to stuff; for instance, This show is funny shit or This test is hard shit, or That was stupid shit. These three usages (with funny, hard, and stupid or another synonym of stupid) are heard most commonly in the United States. Note that shit is both a positive and negative thing in these examples, shit being apparently very funny (a positive thing) and in the second and third examples very hard (as in, difficult - a negative thing to be) or very stupid. Note also that in a phrase like this, the speaker doesn't include the term as; saying that something is as funny as shit would be taken as a negative statment (shit not being a very funny thing to be).
In Get your shit together! the word shit may refer to some set of personal belongings or tools, or to one's wits, composure, or attention to the task at hand. He doesn't have his shit together suggests he is failing rather broadly, with the onus laid to multiple personal shortcomings, rather than bad luck or outside forces.
To shoot the shit is to have a friendly but pointless conversation, as in "Come by my place some time and we'll shoot the shit."
Surprise
To shit oneself, or to shit bricks can be used to refer to surprise. The latter form can be commonly seen in a form of internet meme which goes by the phrase when you see it, you will shit bricks, used in connection with an image of a busy scene with an often unnoticed laughing face or disturbing object which is hard to see until you study the picture.
The word can also be used to represent anger, as in Jim is totally going to flip his shit when he sees that we wrecked his marriage.
Trouble
Shit can be used to denote trouble, by saying one is in a lot of shit or deep shit. It's common for someone to refer to an unpleasant thing as hard shit (You got a speeding ticket? Man, that's some hard shit), but the phrase tough shit is used as an unsympathetic way of saying too bad to whomever is having problems (You got arrested? Tough shit, man!) or as a way of expressing to someone that they need to stop complaining about something and just deal with it (Billy: I got arrested because of you! Tommy: Tough shit, dude, you knew you might get arrested when you chose to come with me.) Note that in this case, as in many cases with the term, tough shit is often said as a way of pointing out someone's fault in his/her own current problem.
When the shit hits the fan is usually used to refer to a specific time of confrontation or trouble, which requires decisive action. This is often used in reference to combat situations and the action scenes in movies, but can also be used for everyday instances that one might be apprehensive about. I don't want to be here when the shit hits the fan! indicates that the speaker is dreading this moment (which can be anything from an enemy attack to confronting an angry parent or friend). He's the one to turn to when the shit hits the fan is an indication that the person being talked about is dependable and will not run from trouble or abandon their allies in tough situations. The concept of this phrase is simple enough, as the actual substance striking the rotating blades of a fan would cause a messy and unpleasant situation (much like being in the presence of a manure spreader). Whether or not this has actually happened, or if the concept is simply feasible enough for most people to imagine the result without needing it to be demonstrated, is unknown. Another example might be the saying shit rolls down hill which is particularly illustrating, the consequences of putting your superiors in a bad position at work. There are a number of anecdotes and jokes about such situations, as the imagery of these situations is considered to be funny. This is generally tied-in with the concept that disgusting and messy substances spilled onto someone else are humorous.
Displeasure
Shit can comfortably stand in for the terms bad and anything in many instances (Dinner was good, but the movie was shit. You're all mad at me, but I didn't do shit!). A comparison can also be used, as in Those pants look like shit, or This stuff tastes like shit. Many usages are idiomatic. The phrase, I don't give a shit denotes indifference. I'm shit out of luck usually refers to someone who is at the end of their wits or who has no remaining viable options. That little shit shot me in the ass, suggests a mischievous or contemptuous person. Euphemisms such as crap are not used in this context.
The term piece of shit is generally used to classify a product or service as being sufficiently below the writer's understanding of generally accepted quality standards to be of negligible and perhaps even negative value.The term piece of shit has greater precision than shit or shitty in that piece of shit identifies the low quality of a specific component or output of a process without applying a derogatory slant to the entire process. For example, if one said "The inner city youth orchestra has been a remarkably successful initiative in that it has kept young people off the streets after school and exposed them to culture and discipline, thereby improving their self esteem and future prospects. The fact that the orchestra's recent rendition of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony in B minor was pretty much a piece of shit should not in any way detract from this." The substitution of shit or shitty for pretty much a piece of shit would imply irony and would therefore undermine the strength of the statement.
Dominance
Shit can also be used to establish superiority over another being. The most common phrase is eat shit! symbolizing the hatred toward the recipient. Some other personal word may be added such as eat my shit implying truly personal connotations. As an aside, the above is actually a contraction of the phrase eat shit and die!. It is often said without commas as a curse; they with the other party to perform exactly those actions in that order. However, the term was originally Eat, Shit, and Die naming the three most basic things humans have to do, and it is common among soldiers.
Positive attitude
Interestingly, in slang, prefixing the article the to shit gives it a completely opposite definition, meaning the best, as in Altered Beast is the shit, or The Medic Droid is the shit. Again, other slang words of the same meaning, crap for example, are not used in such locutions.
Shortening of bullshit
The expression no shit? (a contraction of no bullshit?) is used in response to a statement that is extraordinary or hard to believe. Alternatively the maker of the hard-to-believe statement may add no shit to reinforce the sincerity or truthfulness of their statement, particularly in response to someone expressing disbelief at their statement. No shit is also used sarcastically in response to a statement of the obvious, as in no shit, Sherlock.
In this form the word can also be used in phrases such as don't give me that shit or you're full of shit. The term full of shit is often used as an exclamation to charge someone who is believed to be prone to dishonesty, exaggeration or is thought to be "phoney" with an accusation. For example:
1. "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to invite you to the party, it was a complete accident... But you really didn't miss anything anyway.
2. "You're full of shit! You had dozens of opportunities you could've invited me. If you have a problem with me, why not grow a pair[3] and say it!"
The word bullshit also denotes false or insincere discourse. (Horseshit is roughly equivalent, while chickenshit means cowardly, batshit indicates a person is crazy, and going apeshit indicates a person is entering a state of high excitement or unbridled rage.). Are you shitting me!? is a question sometimes given in response to an incredible assertion. An answer that reasserts the veracity of the claim is, I shit you not.
Emphasis
Perhaps the only constant connotation that shit reliably carries is that its referent holds some degree of emotional intensity for the speaker. Whether offense is taken at hearing the word varies greatly according to listener and situation, and is related to age and social class: elderly speakers and those of (or aspiring to) higher socioeconomic strata tend to use it more privately and selectively than younger and more blue-collar speakers.
Like the word fuck, shit is often used to add emphasis more than to add meaning, for example, shit! I was so shit-scared of that shithead that I shit-talked him into dropping out of the karate match! The term to shit-talk connotes bragging or exaggeration (whereas to talk shit primarily means to gossip [about someone in a damaging way] or to talk in a boastful way about things which are erroneous in nature), but in such constructions as the above, the word shit often functions as an interjection.
Unlike the word fuck, shit is not used emphatically with -ing or as an infix. For example; I lost the shitting karate match would be replaced with ...the fucking karate match. Similarly, while in-fucking-credible is generally acceptable, in-shitting-credible is not.
Drug usage
Shit itself can be a dysphemism or quasi-euphemism, with many intoxicating or narcotic drugs (notably hashish and heroin) being referred to as shit. To be shitfaced is to be extremely drunk. A shitshow denotes a party or gathering during which multiple people become intoxicated to the point of incapacitation.
The verb “to shitâ€
Bread, in one form or another, has been one of the principal forms of food for man from earliest times.
The trade of the baker, then, is one of the oldest crafts in the world. Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. In the British Museum's Egyptian galleries you can see actual loaves which were made and baked over 5,000 years ago. Also on display are grains of wheat which ripened in those ancient summers under the Pharaohs. Wheat has been found in pits where human settlements flourished 8,000 years ago. Bread, both leavened and unleavened, is mentioned in the Bible many times. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew bread for a staple food even in those days people argued whether white or brown bread was best.
Further back, in the Stone Age, people made solid cakes from stone-crushed barley and wheat. A millstone used for grinding corn has been found, that is thought to be 7,500 years old. The ability to sow and reap cereals may be one of the chief causes which led man to dwell in communities, rather than to live a wandering life hunting and herding cattle.
According to botanists, wheat, oats, barley and other grains belong to the order of Grasses; nobody has yet found the wild form of grass from which wheat, as we know it, has developed. Like most of the wild grasses, cereal blossoms bear both male and female elements. The young plants are provided with a store of food to ensure their support during the period of germination, and it is in this store of reserve substance that man finds an abundant supply of food.
The trade of the baker, then, is one of the oldest crafts in the world. Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. In the British Museum's Egyptian galleries you can see actual loaves which were made and baked over 5,000 years ago. Also on display are grains of wheat which ripened in those ancient summers under the Pharaohs. Wheat has been found in pits where human settlements flourished 8,000 years ago. Bread, both leavened and unleavened, is mentioned in the Bible many times. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew bread for a staple food even in those days people argued whether white or brown bread was best.
Further back, in the Stone Age, people made solid cakes from stone-crushed barley and wheat. A millstone used for grinding corn has been found, that is thought to be 7,500 years old. The ability to sow and reap cereals may be one of the chief causes which led man to dwell in communities, rather than to live a wandering life hunting and herding cattle.
According to botanists, wheat, oats, barley and other grains belong to the order of Grasses; nobody has yet found the wild form of grass from which wheat, as we know it, has developed. Like most of the wild grasses, cereal blossoms bear both male and female elements. The young plants are provided with a store of food to ensure their support during the period of germination, and it is in this store of reserve substance that man finds an abundant supply of food.
Like the thousands of other supporters that were there, I gave up a whole Saturday to stand in the freezing cold and watch quite possibly the most disinterested bunch of players I have ever seen pull on the Arsenal shirt.
The sad part was, I expected to lose because I had no confidence whatsoever in the defence to deal with the Rory Delap throw-ins. And lo and behold what happened on the first throw? Defensive ineptitude and incompetence. After that, we never got close.
I do not for one moment accept Wenger’s excuse that we were tired because he made so many changes from the Spurs game!! So now he’s either lost the plot or he’s just blatantly lying. From the moment I worked out the midfield I could sense it was going to be a disaster. Denilson, as I’ve said before is quite simply not up to it. The first time I realised he was playing was when he got substituted. Song and Diaby ran around like two classless plonkers contributing absolutely nothing to the game. Walcott and Nasri, superb against Tottenham paid the price by being dropped. Genius. Not. What did Adebayor and Bendtner do? Nothing. What did Van Persie do? Like a p***k get himself sent off. I don’t care about Adebayor’s injury right now. He was a useless t*sser in the time he was on the pitch.
What gets me the most is that quite clearly Wenger and the players had learnt absolutely f**k all from Wednesday night and it showed. And make no bones about it, we will get hammered by Man Utd if we play like that on Saturday. I hope we don’t but it could be embarrassing. The fans gave the players some pretty forceful feedback at both half-time and full-time and it was thoroughly deserved. The team need a new goalkeeper, centre half, battling central midfielder and a striker. The warning now is pretty obvious, carry on like this and we won’t finish in the top four. And that would be a real disaster.
This page lists the information on file for: KKTK 1400 AM. Click Radio Station Search to browse all of the commercial and noncommercial radio stations in your area, read descriptions of each station's music format or genre, and find phone numbers and/or website address links for your all favorite radio stations. Searches for radio stations can be performed by location and/or format.
On The Radio.Net was created to help people find phone numbers and websites for commercials they heard on the radio. Maybe you heard a great commercial for a new product. You were excited about it but forgot the name of the advertiser or the name of the product. You did, however, know the category the product fell in because it was something you were interested in. Previously, there was no way you would be able to contact the advertiser about the product. Now everything is different. With the launch of On The Radio.Net it is now very easy to find any phone number for any commercial you heard on the radio.
If you did not find what you were looking for, or for more detailed information about each radio station please visit our friends at Radio-Locator.
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The sad part was, I expected to lose because I had no confidence whatsoever in the defence to deal with the Rory Delap throw-ins. And lo and behold what happened on the first throw? Defensive ineptitude and incompetence. After that, we never got close.
I do not for one moment accept Wenger’s excuse that we were tired because he made so many changes from the Spurs game!! So now he’s either lost the plot or he’s just blatantly lying. From the moment I worked out the midfield I could sense it was going to be a disaster. Denilson, as I’ve said before is quite simply not up to it. The first time I realised he was playing was when he got substituted. Song and Diaby ran around like two classless plonkers contributing absolutely nothing to the game. Walcott and Nasri, superb against Tottenham paid the price by being dropped. Genius. Not. What did Adebayor and Bendtner do? Nothing. What did Van Persie do? Like a p***k get himself sent off. I don’t care about Adebayor’s injury right now. He was a useless t*sser in the time he was on the pitch.
What gets me the most is that quite clearly Wenger and the players had learnt absolutely f**k all from Wednesday night and it showed. And make no bones about it, we will get hammered by Man Utd if we play like that on Saturday. I hope we don’t but it could be embarrassing. The fans gave the players some pretty forceful feedback at both half-time and full-time and it was thoroughly deserved. The team need a new goalkeeper, centre half, battling central midfielder and a striker. The warning now is pretty obvious, carry on like this and we won’t finish in the top four. And that would be a real disaster.
This page lists the information on file for: KKTK 1400 AM. Click Radio Station Search to browse all of the commercial and noncommercial radio stations in your area, read descriptions of each station's music format or genre, and find phone numbers and/or website address links for your all favorite radio stations. Searches for radio stations can be performed by location and/or format.
On The Radio.Net was created to help people find phone numbers and websites for commercials they heard on the radio. Maybe you heard a great commercial for a new product. You were excited about it but forgot the name of the advertiser or the name of the product. You did, however, know the category the product fell in because it was something you were interested in. Previously, there was no way you would be able to contact the advertiser about the product. Now everything is different. With the launch of On The Radio.Net it is now very easy to find any phone number for any commercial you heard on the radio.
If you did not find what you were looking for, or for more detailed information about each radio station please visit our friends at Radio-Locator.
If you are looking for Casino Poker Tournament Information in the Texarkana TX area, check out the Bossier City LA Poker Tournament Schedule. That is the nearest town in the area with casino poker tournaments.
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United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation)
United States of America
Flag of the United States Great Seal of the United States
Flag Great Seal
Motto: In God We Trust (official)
E Pluribus Unum
(Out of Many, One; Latin, traditional)
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Location of the United States
Capital Washington, D.C.
[show location on an interactive map] 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883, -77.017
Largest city New York City
Official languages None at federal level1
National language English (de facto)2
Demonym American
Government Federal constitutional republic
- President George W. Bush (R)
- Vice President Dick Cheney (R)
- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D)
- Chief Justice John Roberts
Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain
- Declared July 4, 1776
- Recognized September 3, 1783
- Current constitution June 21, 1788
Area
- Total 9,826,630 km² [1](3rd/4th3)
3,794,066 sq mi
- Water (%) 6.76
Population
- 2008 estimate 305,571,000[2] (3rd4)
- 2000 census 281,421,906[3]
- Density 31/km² (180th)
80/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2007 estimate
- Total $13.807 trillion[4] (1st)
- Per capita $45,725[4] (6th)
GDP (nominal) 2007 estimate
- Total $13.807 trillion[4] (1st)
- Per capita $45,725[4] (17th)
Gini (2006) 47.0[5]
HDI (2005) 0.951 (high[6]) (12th)
Currency United States dollar ($) (USD "$")
Time zone (UTC-5 to -10)
- Summer (DST) (UTC-4 to -10)
Internet TLD .us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code +1
1 English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official." English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii.
2 English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 82% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language.
3 Whether the United States or the People's Republic of China is larger is disputed. The figure given is per the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the fifty states and the District of Columbia, not the territories.
4 The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than four million U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States.
The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, the States or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with more than 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[7] The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with an estimated 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) of US$14.3 trillion (23% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 21% at purchasing power parity).[4][8]
The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.[9] A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the nation's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The end of the Cold War left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for approximately 50% of global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.[10]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Etymology
* 2 Geography and environment
* 3 History
o 3.1 Native Americans and European settlers
o 3.2 Independence and expansion
o 3.3 Civil War and industrialization
o 3.4 World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
o 3.5 Cold War and civil rights
o 3.6 Contemporary era
* 4 Government and elections
o 4.1 Parties, ideology, and politics
* 5 Geographic divisions
* 6 Foreign relations and military
* 7 Economy
o 7.1 Income and human development
o 7.2 Science and technology
o 7.3 Transportation
o 7.4 Energy
* 8 Demographics
o 8.1 Language
o 8.2 Religion
o 8.3 Education
o 8.4 Health
o 8.5 Crime and punishment
* 9 Culture
o 9.1 Popular media
o 9.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts
o 9.3 Food
o 9.4 Sports
* 10 See also
* 11 References
* 12 External links
Etymology
The term America, for the lands of the western hemisphere, is believed to have been coined in 1507 after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and cartographer.[11] The full name of the country was first used officially in the Declaration of Independence, which was the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776.[12] The current name was finalized on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The short form United States is also standard. Other common forms include the U.S., the USA, and America. Colloquial names include the U.S. of A. and the States. Columbia, a once popular name for the United States, was derived from Christopher Columbus. It appears in the name "District of Columbia".
The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States.[13]
The phrase "the United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States."[14]
Geography and environment
Main articles: Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States, and Environment of the United States
Topographic map of the contiguous United States
The United States is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: the contiguous U.S. stretches from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast; it is bordered by Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. Alaska is the largest state in area; separated from the contiguous U.S. by Canada, it touches the Pacific on the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north. Hawaii occupies an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America. After Russia and Canada, the U.S. is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area, ranking just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the U.S. is calculated: the CIA World Factbook gives 3,794,083 sq mi (9,826,630 km2),[1] the United Nations Statistics Division gives 3,717,813 sq mi (9,629,091 km2),[15] and the Encyclopedia Britannica gives 3,676,486 sq mi (9,522,055 km2).[16] Including only land area, the U.S. is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[17] The U.S. also possesses several insular territories scattered around the West Indies (e.g., the commonwealth of Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (e.g., Guam).
View of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado
The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave. The ****** Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the country's tallest peak. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.[18]
The bald eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782
The U.S., with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.[19]
The U.S. ecology is very diverse: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous U.S. and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.[20] The U.S. is home to more than 400 mammal, 700 bird, 500 reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 insect species.[21] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.[22] Altogether, the government regulates 28.8% of the country's land area.[23] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling,[24] mining, or cattle ranching.
History
Main article: History of the United States
Native Americans and European settlers
Main articles: Native Americans in the United States, European colonization of the Americas, and Thirteen Colonies
The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, migrated from Asia. They began arriving at least 12,000 and as many as 40,000 years ago.[25] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making first contact with the indigenous people. Millions of indigenous Americans subsequently died from epidemics of Eurasian diseases.[26]
The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as depicted in William Halsall's The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, 1882
On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida"—the first documented European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland. Of Spain's settlements in the region, only St. Augustine, founded in 1565, remains. Later Spanish settlements in the present-day southwestern United States drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies.[27] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680.[28] By the turn of the century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans (popularly known as "American Indians"), who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black slaves.[29] Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion
Main articles: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, and Manifest Destiny
Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 1817–18
Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak federal government that operated until 1789.
After the British defeat by American forces who were assisted by the French, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those wishing to establish a strong national government, with powers of taxation. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.
Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the African slave trade only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.
Territorial acquisitions by date
Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars and an Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time.[30] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.
Civil War and industrialization
Main articles: American Civil War, Reconstruction era of the United States, and Spanish-American War
Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863
Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation committed the Union to ending slavery. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,[31] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.[32]
Immigrants landing at Ellis Island, New York, 1902
After the war, the assassination of Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture. High tariff protections, national infrastructure building, and new banking regulations encouraged growth. The 1867 Alaska purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the U.S. annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish-American War the same year demonstrated that the U.S. was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
Main articles: American Expeditionary Force, Great Depression in the United States, and Military history of the United States during World War II
An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention.[33] In 1917, the U.S. joined the Allies, turning the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism.[34] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.
The U.S., effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the U.S. joined the Allies against the Axis powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan. World War II cost far more money than any other war in American history,[35] but it boosted the economy by providing capital investment and jobs. Among the major combatants, the U.S. was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.[36] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the U.S. and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. With victory won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[37] The U.S., having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.[38]
Cold War and civil rights
Main articles: Cold War, African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968), and Vietnam War
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963
The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The U.S. promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy. Both supported dictatorships and engaged in proxy wars. American troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.
The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the U.S. to be first to land "a man on the moon," achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the U.S. experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., fought segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women.
As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, rather than be impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a significant rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse brought the Cold War to a close.
Contemporary era
The World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001
Main articles: September 11 attacks, Iraq War, and Economic crisis of 2008
The leadership role taken by the United States and its allies in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War, under President George H. W. Bush, and the Yugoslav wars, under President Bill Clinton, helped to preserve its position as a superpower. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble.[39] A civil lawsuit and sexual scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the closest in U.S. history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, President Bush launched the War on Terrorism. In late 2001, U.S. forces led an invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.[40] Lacking the support of NATO or an explicit UN mandate for military intervention, Bush organized a Coalition of the Willing; coalition forces preemptively invaded Iraq in 2003, removing President Saddam Hussein. The Iraq War, now opposed by most Americans, continues.[41] Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. for human rights violations in its pursuit of the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War.[42] In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans. On November 4, 2008, amid a major economic crisis, the country will hold a presidential election: Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war, faces Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the first African American to head a major political party's presidential ticket.
Government and elections
Main articles: Federal government of the United States and Elections in the United States
The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses the United States Congress
The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law."[43] It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though U.S. citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials.[44] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document and as a social contract for the American people. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels. Federal and state judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the executive branch and approved by the legislature, although some state judges and officials are elected by popular vote.
The South Portico of the White House, home and work place of the U.S. president
The federal government is composed of three branches:
* Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
* Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
* Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.
The House of Representatives has 435 members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.
The front of the United States Supreme Court building
All laws and procedures of both state and federal governments are subject to review, and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution by the judiciary is voided. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights.
Parties, ideology, and politics
Main articles: Politics of the United States and Political ideologies in the United States
The United States has operated under a two-party system for much of its history. For elective offices at all levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.
Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered "center-right" or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered "center-left" or liberal. The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and much of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative. A plurality of Americans identify as Democrats, yet significantly more Americans identify as conservative than liberal.[45]
The incumbent president, Republican George W. Bush, is the 43rd U.S. president. All presidents to date have been white men. If Democrat Barack Obama wins the 2008 election, he will be the first African American president; if Republican John McCain wins, he will be the oldest man to take the office, and his running mate, Sarah Palin, will be the first female vice president. Following the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party controls both the House and the Senate. Every member of the U.S. Congress is a Democrat or a Republican except two independent members of the Senate. An overwhelming majority of state and local officials are also Democrats or Republicans.
Geographic divisions
Main articles: U.S. state, Territorial evolution of the United States, and Territorial acquisitions of the United States
The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Most of the rest have been carved from territory obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. The exceptions are Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii; each was an independent republic before joining the union. Early in the country's history, three states were created out of the territory of existing ones: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The states do not have the right to secede from the union.
The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in the territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S. citizenship.
About this image
Foreign relations and military
Main articles: Foreign policy of the United States and Military of the United States
President George W. Bush (right) with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many host consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, Sudan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.
The U.S. enjoys a special relationship with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and fellow NATO members. It also works closely with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2005, the U.S. spent $27 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. However, as a share of gross national income (GNI), the U.S. contribution of 0.22% ranked twentieth of twenty-two donor states. Nongovernmental sources such as private foundations, corporations, and educational and religious institutions donated $96 billion. The combined total of $123 billion is also the most in the world and seventh as a percentage of GNI.[46]
The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier
The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2005, the military had 1.38 million personnel on active duty,[47] along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard for a total of 2.3 million troops. The Department of Defense also employs about 700,000 civilians, disregarding contractors. Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System. American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers, the Navy's fleet of eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea in the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Outside of the U.S., the military is deployed to 770 bases and facilities, on every continent except Antarctica.[48] The extent of this global military presence has prompted scholars to describe the U.S. as maintaining an "empire of bases."[49]
Total U.S. military spending in 2006, over $528 billion, was 46% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. (In purchasing power parity terms, it was larger than the next six such expenditures combined.) The per capita spending of $1,756 was about ten times the world average.[50] At 4.06% of GDP, U.S. military spending is ranked 27th out of 172 nations.[51] The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2009, $515.4 billion, is a 7% increase over 2008 and a nearly 74% increase over 2001.[52] The estimated cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. through 2016 is $2.267 trillion.[53] As of November 1, 2008, the U.S. had suffered 4,189 military fatalities during the war and over 30,000 wounded.[54]
Economy
Main article: Economy of the United States
Economic indicators
Unemployment 6.1%September 2008[55]
GDP growth -0.3%3Q 2008[56] [2.2%2007[1]]
CPI inflation 4.9%September 2007–September 2008[57]
National debt $10.524 trillionOctober 27, 2008[58]
Poverty 12.5%2007[59]
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $14.3 trillion constitutes 23% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and almost 21% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).[4] The largest national GDP in the world, it was about 4% less than the combined GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2007.[60] The country ranks eighth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and fourth in GDP per capita at PPP.[4] The U.S. is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.[61] The leading export commodity is electrical machinery, while vehicles constitute the leading import.[62]
The private sector constitutes the bulk of the economy, with government activity accounting for 12.4% of GDP. The economy is postindustrial, with the service sector contributing 67.8% of GDP.[63] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is finance and insurance.[64] The U.S. remains an industrial power, with chemical products the leading manufacturing field.[65] The U.S. is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.[66] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,[63] the U.S. is the world's top producer of corn[67] and soybeans.[68] The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest by dollar volume.[69] Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.[70]
Wall Street is home to the New York Stock Exchange
In 2005, 155 million persons were employed with earnings, of whom 80% had full-time jobs.[71] The majority, 79%, were employed in the service sector.[1] With about 15.5 million people, health care and social assistance is the leading field of employment.[72] About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.[73] The World Bank ranks the U.S. first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.[74] Between 1973 and 2003, a year's work for the average American grew by 199 hours.[75] Partly as a result, the U.S. maintains the highest labor productivity in the world. However, it no longer leads in productivity per hour as it did from the 1950s through the early 1990s; workers in Norway, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg are now more productive per hour.[76] The U.S. ranks third in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index.[74] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption tax rates are lower.[77]
Income and human development
Main articles: Income in the United States, Income inequality in the United States, Poverty in the United States, and Affluence in the United States
Inflation adjusted percentage increase in after-tax household income for the top 1% and four quintiles, between 1979 and 2005 (gains by top 1% are reflected by bottom bar; bottom quintile by top bar)[78]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the pretax median household income in 2007 was $50,233. The median ranged from $68,080 in Maryland to $36,338 in Mississippi.[59] Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, the overall median is similar to the most affluent cluster of developed nations. After declining sharply during the middle of the 20th century, poverty rates have plateaued since the early 1970s, with 11–15% of Americans below the poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.[5][79] In 2007, 37.3 million Americans lived in poverty.[59] The U.S. welfare state is now among the most austere in the developed world, reducing both relative poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations.[80][81] While the American welfare state does well in reducing poverty among the elderly,[82] the young receive relatively little assistance.[83] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the U.S. next to last.[84]
Despite strong increases in productivity, low unemployment, and low inflation, income gains since 1980 have been slower than in previous decades, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic insecurity. Between 1947 and 1979, real median income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor Americans rising faster than those of the rich.[85][86] Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980,[87] largely owing to more dual-earner households, the closing of the gender gap, and longer work hours, but growth has been slower and strongly tilted toward the very top (see graph).[80][85][88] Consequently, the share of income of the top 1%—21.8% of total reported income in 2005—has more than doubled since 1980,[89] leaving the U.S. with the greatest income inequality among developed nations.[80][90] The top 1% pays 27.6% of all federal taxes; the top 10% pays 54.7%.[91] Wealth, like income, is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share among developed nations.[92] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.[93]
Science and technology
Main articles: Science and technology in the United States and Technological and industrial history of the United States
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first human landing on the Moon, 1969
The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.[94] The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to immigrate to the U.S. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers. The U.S. largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, the bulk of research and development funding, 64%, comes from the private sector.[95] The U.S. leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.[96] Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods,[97] and almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet access.[98] The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food; more than half of the world's land planted with biotech crops is in the U.S.[99]
Transportation
Main article: Transportation in the United States
Interstate 80, the second-longest U.S. Interstate highway, runs from California to New Jersey
As of 2003, there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 Americans, compared to 472 per 1,000 inhabitants of the European Union the following year.[100] About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.[101] The average American adult (drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving/being driven every day, travelling 29 miles (47 km).[102] The U.S. intercity passenger rail system is relatively weak.[103] Only 9% of total U.S. work trips use mass transit, compared to 38.8% in Europe.[104] Bicycle usage is minimal, well below European levels.[105] The civil airline industry is entirely privatized, while most major airports are publicly owned. The five largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are American; American Airlines is number one.[106] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the U.S., including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).[107]
Energy
Main articles: Energy use in the United States and Energy policy of the United States
The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, compared to Germany's 4.2 tons and Canada's 8.3 tons. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources.[108] The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.[109] For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries. Recently, applications for new nuclear plants have been filed.[110]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of the United States and Immigration to the United States
Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000
The United States population is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 305,571,000,[2] including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants.[111] The U.S. is the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India. Its population growth rate is 0.89%,[1] compared to the European Union's 0.16%.[112] The birth rate of 14.16 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, is higher than any European country's except Albania and Ireland.[113] In fiscal year 2007, 1.05 million immigrants were granted legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.[114] The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.[115]
The U.S. has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members.[116] White Americans are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.[116] African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group.[117][116] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ancestry groups are Chinese and Filipino.[116] In 2007, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 million people with some American Indian or Alaskan native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and over 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).[117][118]
Race/Ethnicity (2007)[117]
White 80.0%
African American 12.8%
Asian 4.4%
Native American and Alaskan Native 1.0%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 0.2%
Multiracial 1.6%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 15.1%
The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 45.4 million Americans of Hispanic descent are identified as sharing a distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.[119] Between 2000 and 2007, the country's Hispanic population increased 27% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 3.6%.[117] Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2006, 12.1% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America.[120] Fertility is also a factor; the average Hispanic woman gives birth to three children in her lifetime. The comparable fertility rate is 2.2 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).[115]
Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau, all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constitute 34% of the population; they are projected to be the majority by 2042.[121] However, White Americans overall (non-Hispanic Whites together with White Hispanics) are projected to remain the racial majority at 73.1% (or 303 million out of 420 million) in 2050.[122][123]
About 79% of Americans live in urban areas (as defined by the Census Bureau, such areas include the suburbs); about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.[124] In 2006, 254 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).[125] There are fifty metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.[126] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, twenty-three are in the West and twenty-five in the South. The metro areas of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and Riverside all grew by more than three-quarters of a million people between 2000 and 2006.[127]
Leading population centers
Rank Core city State Pop.[125][128] Metro area rank Metro area pop.[126] Region[129]
New York City
New York City
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
1 New York City New York 8,250,567 1 18,818,536 Northeast
2 Los Angeles California 3,849,378 2 12,950,129 West
3 Chicago Illinois 2,833,321 3 9,505,748 Midwest
4 Houston Texas 2,169,248 6 5,539,949 South
5 Phoenix Arizona 1,512,986 13 4,039,182 West
6 Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1,448,394 5 5,826,742 Northeast
7 San Antonio Texas 1,296,682 29 1,942,217 South
8 San Diego California 1,256,951 17 2,941,454 West
9 Dallas Texas 1,232,940 4 6,003,967 South
10 San Jose California 929,936 30 1,787,123 West
2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates
Language
Main articles: Languages of the United States and Language Spoken at Home (U.S. Census)
Languages (2005)[130]
English (only) 216.2 million
Spanish, incl. Creole 32.2 million
Chinese 2.3 million
French, incl. Creole 1.9 million
Tagalog 1.4 million
Vietnamese 1.1 million
German 1.1 million
English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2005, about 216 million, or 81% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language.[130][131] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.[132] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.[133] While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[134] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[135] Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.
Religion
Main articles: Religion in the United States, History of religion in the United States, Freedom of religion in the United States, Separation of church and state in the United States, and List of religious movements that began in the United States
A church in the largely Protestant Bible Belt
The United States is an officially secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance. In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives," a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.[136] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian,[137] down from 86.4% in 1990.[138] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;[137] another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%.[139] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990.[138] The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).[137] From 8.2% in 1990,[138] 16.1% in 2007 described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion,[137] still significantly less than in other postindustrial countries such as Britain (2005: 44%) and Sweden (2005: 85%).[140]
Education
Main articles: Education in the United States, Educational attainment in the United States, and Higher education in the United States
The University of Virginia, designed by Thomas Jefferson, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through 12th grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.[141] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.[142] The U.S. has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.[143] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.[1][144] The United Nations assigns the U.S. an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.[145]
Health
Main articles: Health care in the United States, Health care reform in the United States, and Health insurance in the United States
The United States life expectancy of 77.8 years at birth[146] is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.[147] Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has dropped from 11th to 42nd in the world.[148] The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand likewise places the U.S. 42nd out of 221 countries, behind all of Western Europe.[149] U.S. cancer survival rates are the highest in the world.[150] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[151] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[152] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[153] The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is nearly four times that of France and five times that of Germany.[154] Abortion, legal on demand, is highly controversial. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.[155]
The Texas Medical Center in Houston, the world's largest medical center[156]
The U.S. health care system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[157] The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health care system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance. The U.S. is a leader in medical innovation. In 2004, the nonindustrial sector spent three times as much as Europe per capita on biomedical research.[158] Unlike most developed countries, health care coverage is not universal, and largely relies on private funding. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.[159] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The main cause of this decline is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.[160] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans—estimates of which vary widely—is a major political issue.[161] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[162]
Crime and punishment
Main articles: Policing in the United States, Law of the United States, Crime in the United States, Prisons in the United States, and Capital punishment in the United States
Homicide rates in selected countries, 2004
Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as appeals from state systems.
Among developed nations, the U.S. has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[163] In 2007, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons,[164] three times the rate in neighboring Canada.[165] The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 42% between 1991 and 1999, has been roughly steady since.[164] This high rate of homicide may be related to the country's high rate of gun ownership, in turn associated with gun laws that are permissive compared to those of other developed countries.[166]
The U.S. has the highest documented incarceration rate[167] and total prison population[168] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[169] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure.[170] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[167] In 2006, the U.S. incarceration rate was over three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.[171] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to sentencing and drug policies.[167][172] Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the U.S. for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-seven states. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been over 1,000 executions.[173] In 2006, the country had the sixth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan.[174] In December 2007, New Jersey became the first state to abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision.
Culture
Main articles: Culture of the United States and Social class in the United States
American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flag
The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.[7][175] There is no "American" ethnicity; aside from the now small Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.[176] The culture held in common by most Americans is referred to as mainstream American culture, a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Western European migrants, beginning with the early English and Dutch settlers. German, Irish, and Scottish cultures have also been very influential.[7] Certain cultural attributes of Mandé and Wolof slaves from West Africa were adopted by the American mainstream; based more on the traditions of Central African Bantu slaves, a distinct African American culture developed that would also deeply affect the mainstream.[177] Westward expansion integrated the Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the Southwest and brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. Large-scale immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Southern and Eastern Europe introduced many new cultural elements. More
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses of terms redirecting here, see US (disambiguation), USA (disambiguation), and United States (disambiguation)
United States of America
Flag of the United States Great Seal of the United States
Flag Great Seal
Motto: In God We Trust (official)
E Pluribus Unum
(Out of Many, One; Latin, traditional)
Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Location of the United States
Capital Washington, D.C.
[show location on an interactive map] 38°53′N 77°01′W / 38.883, -77.017
Largest city New York City
Official languages None at federal level1
National language English (de facto)2
Demonym American
Government Federal constitutional republic
- President George W. Bush (R)
- Vice President Dick Cheney (R)
- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D)
- Chief Justice John Roberts
Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain
- Declared July 4, 1776
- Recognized September 3, 1783
- Current constitution June 21, 1788
Area
- Total 9,826,630 km² [1](3rd/4th3)
3,794,066 sq mi
- Water (%) 6.76
Population
- 2008 estimate 305,571,000[2] (3rd4)
- 2000 census 281,421,906[3]
- Density 31/km² (180th)
80/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2007 estimate
- Total $13.807 trillion[4] (1st)
- Per capita $45,725[4] (6th)
GDP (nominal) 2007 estimate
- Total $13.807 trillion[4] (1st)
- Per capita $45,725[4] (17th)
Gini (2006) 47.0[5]
HDI (2005) 0.951 (high[6]) (12th)
Currency United States dollar ($) (USD "$")
Time zone (UTC-5 to -10)
- Summer (DST) (UTC-4 to -10)
Internet TLD .us .gov .mil .edu
Calling code +1
1 English is the official language of at least 28 states—some sources give a higher figure, based on differing definitions of "official." English and Hawaiian are both official languages in the state of Hawaii.
2 English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 82% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language.
3 Whether the United States or the People's Republic of China is larger is disputed. The figure given is per the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Other sources give smaller figures. All authoritative calculations of the country's size include only the fifty states and the District of Columbia, not the territories.
4 The population estimate includes people whose usual residence is in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including noncitizens. It does not include either those living in the territories, amounting to more than four million U.S. citizens (most in Puerto Rico), or U.S. citizens living outside the United States.
The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, the States or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with more than 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[7] The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with an estimated 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) of US$14.3 trillion (23% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 21% at purchasing power parity).[4][8]
The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.[9] A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the nation's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The end of the Cold War left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for approximately 50% of global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.[10]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Etymology
* 2 Geography and environment
* 3 History
o 3.1 Native Americans and European settlers
o 3.2 Independence and expansion
o 3.3 Civil War and industrialization
o 3.4 World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
o 3.5 Cold War and civil rights
o 3.6 Contemporary era
* 4 Government and elections
o 4.1 Parties, ideology, and politics
* 5 Geographic divisions
* 6 Foreign relations and military
* 7 Economy
o 7.1 Income and human development
o 7.2 Science and technology
o 7.3 Transportation
o 7.4 Energy
* 8 Demographics
o 8.1 Language
o 8.2 Religion
o 8.3 Education
o 8.4 Health
o 8.5 Crime and punishment
* 9 Culture
o 9.1 Popular media
o 9.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts
o 9.3 Food
o 9.4 Sports
* 10 See also
* 11 References
* 12 External links
Etymology
The term America, for the lands of the western hemisphere, is believed to have been coined in 1507 after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and cartographer.[11] The full name of the country was first used officially in the Declaration of Independence, which was the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776.[12] The current name was finalized on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The short form United States is also standard. Other common forms include the U.S., the USA, and America. Colloquial names include the U.S. of A. and the States. Columbia, a once popular name for the United States, was derived from Christopher Columbus. It appears in the name "District of Columbia".
The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States.[13]
The phrase "the United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States."[14]
Geography and environment
Main articles: Geography of the United States, Climate of the United States, and Environment of the United States
Topographic map of the contiguous United States
The United States is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: the contiguous U.S. stretches from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast; it is bordered by Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. Alaska is the largest state in area; separated from the contiguous U.S. by Canada, it touches the Pacific on the south and the Arctic Ocean on the north. Hawaii occupies an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America. After Russia and Canada, the U.S. is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area, ranking just above or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the U.S. is calculated: the CIA World Factbook gives 3,794,083 sq mi (9,826,630 km2),[1] the United Nations Statistics Division gives 3,717,813 sq mi (9,629,091 km2),[15] and the Encyclopedia Britannica gives 3,676,486 sq mi (9,522,055 km2).[16] Including only land area, the U.S. is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[17] The U.S. also possesses several insular territories scattered around the West Indies (e.g., the commonwealth of Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (e.g., Guam).
View of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado
The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave. The ****** Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the country's tallest peak. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.[18]
The bald eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782
The U.S., with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types. To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the 100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine. The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.[19]
The U.S. ecology is very diverse: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous U.S. and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.[20] The U.S. is home to more than 400 mammal, 700 bird, 500 reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 insect species.[21] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.[22] Altogether, the government regulates 28.8% of the country's land area.[23] Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling,[24] mining, or cattle ranching.
History
Main article: History of the United States
Native Americans and European settlers
Main articles: Native Americans in the United States, European colonization of the Americas, and Thirteen Colonies
The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska Natives, migrated from Asia. They began arriving at least 12,000 and as many as 40,000 years ago.[25] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. In 1492, Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, under contract to the Spanish crown, reached several Caribbean islands, making first contact with the indigenous people. Millions of indigenous Americans subsequently died from epidemics of Eurasian diseases.[26]
The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as depicted in William Halsall's The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, 1882
On April 2, 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed on what he called "La Florida"—the first documented European arrival on what would become the U.S. mainland. Of Spain's settlements in the region, only St. Augustine, founded in 1565, remains. Later Spanish settlements in the present-day southwestern United States drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful English settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, about 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain's American colonies.[27] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia immigrants between 1630 and 1680.[28] By the turn of the century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans (popularly known as "American Indians"), who were being displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain; nearly one in five Americans were black slaves.[29] Though subject to British taxation, the American colonials had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion
Main articles: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, and Manifest Destiny
Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 1817–18
Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak federal government that operated until 1789.
After the British defeat by American forces who were assisted by the French, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the states' sovereignty over American territory west to the Mississippi River. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those wishing to establish a strong national government, with powers of taxation. The United States Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the new republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president—George Washington—took office in 1789. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.
Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the African slave trade only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." The Second Great Awakening, beginning about 1800, made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements, including abolitionism.
Territorial acquisitions by date
Americans' eagerness to expand westward prompted a long series of Indian Wars and an Indian removal policy that stripped the native peoples of their land. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 almost doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened U.S. nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time.[30] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–49 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation easier for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, or buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the buffalo, a primary resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.
Civil War and industrialization
Main articles: American Civil War, Reconstruction era of the United States, and Spanish-American War
Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863
Tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments over the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession—which the federal government maintained was illegal—and formed the Confederate States of America. With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation committed the Union to ending slavery. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,[31] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.[32]
Immigrants landing at Ellis Island, New York, 1902
After the war, the assassination of Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, lasting until 1929, provided labor and transformed American culture. High tariff protections, national infrastructure building, and new banking regulations encouraged growth. The 1867 Alaska purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the U.S. annexed the archipelago in 1898. Victory in the Spanish-American War the same year demonstrated that the U.S. was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories.
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
Main articles: American Expeditionary Force, Great Depression in the United States, and Military history of the United States during World War II
An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Most Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many opposed intervention.[33] In 1917, the U.S. joined the Allies, turning the tide against the Central Powers. After the war, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism.[34] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.
The U.S., effectively neutral during World War II's early stages after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the U.S. joined the Allies against the Axis powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan. World War II cost far more money than any other war in American history,[35] but it boosted the economy by providing capital investment and jobs. Among the major combatants, the U.S. was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer because of the war.[36] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the U.S. and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. With victory won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[37] The U.S., having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.[38]
Cold War and civil rights
Main articles: Cold War, African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968), and Vietnam War
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963
The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The U.S. promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy. Both supported dictatorships and engaged in proxy wars. American troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.
The 1961 Soviet launch of the first manned spaceflight prompted President John F. Kennedy's call for the U.S. to be first to land "a man on the moon," achieved in 1969. Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, the U.S. experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement, led by African Americans such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., fought segregation and discrimination. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. A widespread countercultural movement grew, fueled by opposition to the war, black nationalism, and the sexual revolution. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and others led a new wave of feminism that sought political, social, and economic equality for women.
As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, rather than be impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford. The Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s was marked by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 heralded a significant rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities. His second term in office brought both the Iran-Contra scandal and significant diplomatic progress with the Soviet Union. The subsequent Soviet collapse brought the Cold War to a close.
Contemporary era
The World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001
Main articles: September 11 attacks, Iraq War, and Economic crisis of 2008
The leadership role taken by the United States and its allies in the UN–sanctioned Gulf War, under President George H. W. Bush, and the Yugoslav wars, under President Bill Clinton, helped to preserve its position as a superpower. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble.[39] A civil lawsuit and sexual scandal led to Clinton's impeachment in 1998, but he remained in office. The 2000 presidential election, one of the closest in U.S. history, was resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision—George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, became president.
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In response, President Bush launched the War on Terrorism. In late 2001, U.S. forces led an invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds.[40] Lacking the support of NATO or an explicit UN mandate for military intervention, Bush organized a Coalition of the Willing; coalition forces preemptively invaded Iraq in 2003, removing President Saddam Hussein. The Iraq War, now opposed by most Americans, continues.[41] Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. for human rights violations in its pursuit of the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War.[42] In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused severe destruction along much of the Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans. On November 4, 2008, amid a major economic crisis, the country will hold a presidential election: Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war, faces Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the first African American to head a major political party's presidential ticket.
Government and elections
Main articles: Federal government of the United States and Elections in the United States
The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses the United States Congress
The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law."[43] It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though U.S. citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials.[44] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the U.S. Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document and as a social contract for the American people. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels. Federal and state judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the executive branch and approved by the legislature, although some state judges and officials are elected by popular vote.
The South Portico of the White House, home and work place of the U.S. president
The federal government is composed of three branches:
* Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
* Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
* Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.
The House of Representatives has 435 members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. The Senate has 100 members with each state having two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.
The front of the United States Supreme Court building
All laws and procedures of both state and federal governments are subject to review, and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution by the judiciary is voided. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government and its relationship with the individual states. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of Americans' individual rights.
Parties, ideology, and politics
Main articles: Politics of the United States and Political ideologies in the United States
The United States has operated under a two-party system for much of its history. For elective offices at all levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.
Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered "center-right" or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered "center-left" or liberal. The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states", are relatively liberal. The "red states" of the South and much of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains are relatively conservative. A plurality of Americans identify as Democrats, yet significantly more Americans identify as conservative than liberal.[45]
The incumbent president, Republican George W. Bush, is the 43rd U.S. president. All presidents to date have been white men. If Democrat Barack Obama wins the 2008 election, he will be the first African American president; if Republican John McCain wins, he will be the oldest man to take the office, and his running mate, Sarah Palin, will be the first female vice president. Following the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party controls both the House and the Senate. Every member of the U.S. Congress is a Democrat or a Republican except two independent members of the Senate. An overwhelming majority of state and local officials are also Democrats or Republicans.
Geographic divisions
Main articles: U.S. state, Territorial evolution of the United States, and Territorial acquisitions of the United States
The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Most of the rest have been carved from territory obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. The exceptions are Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii; each was an independent republic before joining the union. Early in the country's history, three states were created out of the territory of existing ones: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The states do not have the right to secede from the union.
The states compose the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in the territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S. citizenship.
About this image
Foreign relations and military
Main articles: Foreign policy of the United States and Military of the United States
President George W. Bush (right) with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
The United States exercises global economic, political, and military influence. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many host consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, Sudan, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.
The U.S. enjoys a special relationship with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and fellow NATO members. It also works closely with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2005, the U.S. spent $27 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world. However, as a share of gross national income (GNI), the U.S. contribution of 0.22% ranked twentieth of twenty-two donor states. Nongovernmental sources such as private foundations, corporations, and educational and religious institutions donated $96 billion. The combined total of $123 billion is also the most in the world and seventh as a percentage of GNI.[46]
The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier
The president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war. In 2005, the military had 1.38 million personnel on active duty,[47] along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard for a total of 2.3 million troops. The Department of Defense also employs about 700,000 civilians, disregarding contractors. Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System. American forces can be rapidly deployed by the Air Force's large fleet of transport aircraft and aerial refueling tankers, the Navy's fleet of eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea in the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Outside of the U.S., the military is deployed to 770 bases and facilities, on every continent except Antarctica.[48] The extent of this global military presence has prompted scholars to describe the U.S. as maintaining an "empire of bases."[49]
Total U.S. military spending in 2006, over $528 billion, was 46% of global military spending and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. (In purchasing power parity terms, it was larger than the next six such expenditures combined.) The per capita spending of $1,756 was about ten times the world average.[50] At 4.06% of GDP, U.S. military spending is ranked 27th out of 172 nations.[51] The proposed base Department of Defense budget for 2009, $515.4 billion, is a 7% increase over 2008 and a nearly 74% increase over 2001.[52] The estimated cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. through 2016 is $2.267 trillion.[53] As of November 1, 2008, the U.S. had suffered 4,189 military fatalities during the war and over 30,000 wounded.[54]
Economy
Main article: Economy of the United States
Economic indicators
Unemployment 6.1%September 2008[55]
GDP growth -0.3%3Q 2008[56] [2.2%2007[1]]
CPI inflation 4.9%September 2007–September 2008[57]
National debt $10.524 trillionOctober 27, 2008[58]
Poverty 12.5%2007[59]
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. According to the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. GDP of $14.3 trillion constitutes 23% of the gross world product at market exchange rates and almost 21% of the gross world product at purchasing power parity (PPP).[4] The largest national GDP in the world, it was about 4% less than the combined GDP of the European Union at PPP in 2007.[60] The country ranks eighth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and fourth in GDP per capita at PPP.[4] The U.S. is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.[61] The leading export commodity is electrical machinery, while vehicles constitute the leading import.[62]
The private sector constitutes the bulk of the economy, with government activity accounting for 12.4% of GDP. The economy is postindustrial, with the service sector contributing 67.8% of GDP.[63] The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is finance and insurance.[64] The U.S. remains an industrial power, with chemical products the leading manufacturing field.[65] The U.S. is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer.[66] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP,[63] the U.S. is the world's top producer of corn[67] and soybeans.[68] The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest by dollar volume.[69] Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.[70]
Wall Street is home to the New York Stock Exchange
In 2005, 155 million persons were employed with earnings, of whom 80% had full-time jobs.[71] The majority, 79%, were employed in the service sector.[1] With about 15.5 million people, health care and social assistance is the leading field of employment.[72] About 12% of workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.[73] The World Bank ranks the U.S. first in the ease of hiring and firing workers.[74] Between 1973 and 2003, a year's work for the average American grew by 199 hours.[75] Partly as a result, the U.S. maintains the highest labor productivity in the world. However, it no longer leads in productivity per hour as it did from the 1950s through the early 1990s; workers in Norway, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg are now more productive per hour.[76] The U.S. ranks third in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index.[74] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption tax rates are lower.[77]
Income and human development
Main articles: Income in the United States, Income inequality in the United States, Poverty in the United States, and Affluence in the United States
Inflation adjusted percentage increase in after-tax household income for the top 1% and four quintiles, between 1979 and 2005 (gains by top 1% are reflected by bottom bar; bottom quintile by top bar)[78]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the pretax median household income in 2007 was $50,233. The median ranged from $68,080 in Maryland to $36,338 in Mississippi.[59] Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, the overall median is similar to the most affluent cluster of developed nations. After declining sharply during the middle of the 20th century, poverty rates have plateaued since the early 1970s, with 11–15% of Americans below the poverty line every year, and 58.5% spending at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.[5][79] In 2007, 37.3 million Americans lived in poverty.[59] The U.S. welfare state is now among the most austere in the developed world, reducing both relative poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations.[80][81] While the American welfare state does well in reducing poverty among the elderly,[82] the young receive relatively little assistance.[83] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations ranked the U.S. next to last.[84]
Despite strong increases in productivity, low unemployment, and low inflation, income gains since 1980 have been slower than in previous decades, less widely shared, and accompanied by increased economic insecurity. Between 1947 and 1979, real median income rose by over 80% for all classes, with the incomes of poor Americans rising faster than those of the rich.[85][86] Median household income has increased for all classes since 1980,[87] largely owing to more dual-earner households, the closing of the gender gap, and longer work hours, but growth has been slower and strongly tilted toward the very top (see graph).[80][85][88] Consequently, the share of income of the top 1%—21.8% of total reported income in 2005—has more than doubled since 1980,[89] leaving the U.S. with the greatest income inequality among developed nations.[80][90] The top 1% pays 27.6% of all federal taxes; the top 10% pays 54.7%.[91] Wealth, like income, is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share among developed nations.[92] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth.[93]
Science and technology
Main articles: Science and technology in the United States and Technological and industrial history of the United States
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first human landing on the Moon, 1969
The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late 19th century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's laboratory developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. In the early 20th century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight.[94] The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to immigrate to the U.S. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, and computers. The U.S. largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, the bulk of research and development funding, 64%, comes from the private sector.[95] The U.S. leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.[96] Americans possess high levels of technological consumer goods,[97] and almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet access.[98] The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food; more than half of the world's land planted with biotech crops is in the U.S.[99]
Transportation
Main article: Transportation in the United States
Interstate 80, the second-longest U.S. Interstate highway, runs from California to New Jersey
As of 2003, there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 Americans, compared to 472 per 1,000 inhabitants of the European Union the following year.[100] About 40% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.[101] The average American adult (drivers and non-drivers) spends 55 minutes driving/being driven every day, travelling 29 miles (47 km).[102] The U.S. intercity passenger rail system is relatively weak.[103] Only 9% of total U.S. work trips use mass transit, compared to 38.8% in Europe.[104] Bicycle usage is minimal, well below European levels.[105] The civil airline industry is entirely privatized, while most major airports are publicly owned. The five largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are American; American Airlines is number one.[106] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the U.S., including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).[107]
Energy
Main articles: Energy use in the United States and Energy policy of the United States
The United States energy market is 29,000 terawatt hours per year. Energy consumption per capita is 7.8 tons of oil equivalent per year, compared to Germany's 4.2 tons and Canada's 8.3 tons. In 2005, 40% of this energy came from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 22% from natural gas. The remainder was supplied by nuclear power and renewable energy sources.[108] The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.[109] For decades, nuclear power has played a limited role relative to many other developed countries. Recently, applications for new nuclear plants have been filed.[110]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of the United States and Immigration to the United States
Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000
The United States population is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 305,571,000,[2] including an estimated 11.2 million illegal immigrants.[111] The U.S. is the third most populous nation in the world, after China and India. Its population growth rate is 0.89%,[1] compared to the European Union's 0.16%.[112] The birth rate of 14.16 per 1,000, 30% below the world average, is higher than any European country's except Albania and Ireland.[113] In fiscal year 2007, 1.05 million immigrants were granted legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.[114] The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.[115]
The U.S. has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members.[116] White Americans are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.[116] African Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group.[117][116] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ancestry groups are Chinese and Filipino.[116] In 2007, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 million people with some American Indian or Alaskan native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and over 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).[117][118]
Race/Ethnicity (2007)[117]
White 80.0%
African American 12.8%
Asian 4.4%
Native American and Alaskan Native 1.0%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 0.2%
Multiracial 1.6%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 15.1%
The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend. The 45.4 million Americans of Hispanic descent are identified as sharing a distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.[119] Between 2000 and 2007, the country's Hispanic population increased 27% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 3.6%.[117] Much of this growth is from immigration; as of 2006, 12.1% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin America.[120] Fertility is also a factor; the average Hispanic woman gives birth to three children in her lifetime. The comparable fertility rate is 2.2 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).[115]
Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau, all those beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constitute 34% of the population; they are projected to be the majority by 2042.[121] However, White Americans overall (non-Hispanic Whites together with White Hispanics) are projected to remain the racial majority at 73.1% (or 303 million out of 420 million) in 2050.[122][123]
About 79% of Americans live in urban areas (as defined by the Census Bureau, such areas include the suburbs); about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000.[124] In 2006, 254 incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).[125] There are fifty metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.[126] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, twenty-three are in the West and twenty-five in the South. The metro areas of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and Riverside all grew by more than three-quarters of a million people between 2000 and 2006.[127]
Leading population centers
Rank Core city State Pop.[125][128] Metro area rank Metro area pop.[126] Region[129]
New York City
New York City
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
1 New York City New York 8,250,567 1 18,818,536 Northeast
2 Los Angeles California 3,849,378 2 12,950,129 West
3 Chicago Illinois 2,833,321 3 9,505,748 Midwest
4 Houston Texas 2,169,248 6 5,539,949 South
5 Phoenix Arizona 1,512,986 13 4,039,182 West
6 Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1,448,394 5 5,826,742 Northeast
7 San Antonio Texas 1,296,682 29 1,942,217 South
8 San Diego California 1,256,951 17 2,941,454 West
9 Dallas Texas 1,232,940 4 6,003,967 South
10 San Jose California 929,936 30 1,787,123 West
2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates
Language
Main articles: Languages of the United States and Language Spoken at Home (U.S. Census)
Languages (2005)[130]
English (only) 216.2 million
Spanish, incl. Creole 32.2 million
Chinese 2.3 million
French, incl. Creole 1.9 million
Tagalog 1.4 million
Vietnamese 1.1 million
German 1.1 million
English is the de facto national language. Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2005, about 216 million, or 81% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language.[130][131] Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.[132] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.[133] While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[134] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[135] Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico.
Religion
Main articles: Religion in the United States, History of religion in the United States, Freedom of religion in the United States, Separation of church and state in the United States, and List of religious movements that began in the United States
A church in the largely Protestant Bible Belt
The United States is an officially secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance. In a 2002 study, 59% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives," a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.[136] According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian,[137] down from 86.4% in 1990.[138] Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism, at 23.9%, was the largest individual denomination. The study categorizes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;[137] another study estimates evangelicals of all races at 30–35%.[139] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2007 was 4.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990.[138] The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%).[137] From 8.2% in 1990,[138] 16.1% in 2007 described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion,[137] still significantly less than in other postindustrial countries such as Britain (2005: 44%) and Sweden (2005: 85%).[140]
Education
Main articles: Education in the United States, Educational attainment in the United States, and Higher education in the United States
The University of Virginia, designed by Thomas Jefferson, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through 12th grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.[141] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.[142] The U.S. has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.[143] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.[1][144] The United Nations assigns the U.S. an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.[145]
Health
Main articles: Health care in the United States, Health care reform in the United States, and Health insurance in the United States
The United States life expectancy of 77.8 years at birth[146] is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.[147] Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has dropped from 11th to 42nd in the world.[148] The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand likewise places the U.S. 42nd out of 221 countries, behind all of Western Europe.[149] U.S. cancer survival rates are the highest in the world.[150] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[151] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[152] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[153] The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is nearly four times that of France and five times that of Germany.[154] Abortion, legal on demand, is highly controversial. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period. While the abortion rate is falling, the abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.[155]
The Texas Medical Center in Houston, the world's largest medical center[156]
The U.S. health care system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[157] The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. health care system in 2000 as first in responsiveness, but 37th in overall performance. The U.S. is a leader in medical innovation. In 2004, the nonindustrial sector spent three times as much as Europe per capita on biomedical research.[158] Unlike most developed countries, health care coverage is not universal, and largely relies on private funding. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.[159] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The main cause of this decline is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.[160] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans—estimates of which vary widely—is a major political issue.[161] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[162]
Crime and punishment
Main articles: Policing in the United States, Law of the United States, Crime in the United States, Prisons in the United States, and Capital punishment in the United States
Homicide rates in selected countries, 2004
Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as appeals from state systems.
Among developed nations, the U.S. has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[163] In 2007, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons,[164] three times the rate in neighboring Canada.[165] The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 42% between 1991 and 1999, has been roughly steady since.[164] This high rate of homicide may be related to the country's high rate of gun ownership, in turn associated with gun laws that are permissive compared to those of other developed countries.[166]
The U.S. has the highest documented incarceration rate[167] and total prison population[168] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[169] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure.[170] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[167] In 2006, the U.S. incarceration rate was over three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.[171] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to sentencing and drug policies.[167][172] Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the U.S. for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-seven states. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year moratorium, there have been over 1,000 executions.[173] In 2006, the country had the sixth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan.[174] In December 2007, New Jersey became the first state to abolish the death penalty since the 1976 Supreme Court decision.
Culture
Main articles: Culture of the United States and Social class in the United States
American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flag
The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.[7][175] There is no "American" ethnicity; aside from the now small Native American and Native Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.[176] The culture held in common by most Americans is referred to as mainstream American culture, a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Western European migrants, beginning with the early English and Dutch settlers. German, Irish, and Scottish cultures have also been very influential.[7] Certain cultural attributes of Mandé and Wolof slaves from West Africa were adopted by the American mainstream; based more on the traditions of Central African Bantu slaves, a distinct African American culture developed that would also deeply affect the mainstream.[177] Westward expansion integrated the Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the Southwest and brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. Large-scale immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Southern and Eastern Europe introduced many new cultural elements. More
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Canada
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For a topic outline on this subject, see List of basic Canada topics. For other uses of "Canada" or "Canadian", see Canada (disambiguation) and Canadian (disambiguation).
Featured article
Canada
Flag of Canada Coat of arms of Canada
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: A Mari Usque Ad Mare (Latin)
"From Sea to Sea"
Anthem: "O Canada"
Royal anthem: "God Save the Queen"
Location of Canada
Capital Ottawa
[show location on an interactive map] 45°24′N 75°40′W / 45.4, -75.667
Largest city Toronto
Official languages English, French
Recognised regional languages Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Cree, Dëne Sųłiné, Gwich’in, Inuvialuktun, Slavey, Tłįchǫ Yatiì
Demonym Canadian
Government Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional monarchy
- Monarch HM Queen Elizabeth II
- Governor General Michaëlle Jean
- Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Establishment
- British North America Acts July 1, 1867
- Statute of Westminster December 11, 1931
- Canada Act April 17, 1982
Area
- Total 9,984,670 km² (2nd)
3,854,085 sq mi
- Water (%) 8.92 (891,163 km²/344,080 mi²)
Population
- 2008 estimate 33,419,000[1] (36th)
- 2006 census 31,612,897
- Density 3.2/km² (219th)
8.3/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2007 estimate
- Total $1.269 trillion[2] (13th)
- Per capita $38,613[2] (12th)
GDP (nominal) 2007 estimate
- Total $1.436 trillion[2] (9th)
- Per capita $43,674[2] (14th)
Gini 32.1 (2005)[3]
HDI (2007) ▲ 0.961 (high) (4th)
Currency Dollar ($) (CAD)
Time zone (UTC−3.5 to −8)
- Summer (DST) (UTC−2.5 to −7)
Internet TLD .ca
Calling code +1
Canada portal
Canada (IPA: /ˈkænədə/) is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area,[3] and shares land borders with the United States to the south and northwest.
The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces.[4][5][6] This began an accretion of additional provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and culminating in the Canada Act in 1982 which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.
A federation comprising ten provinces and three territories, Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual and multicultural country, with both English and French as official languages at the federal level. Technologically advanced and industrialized, Canada maintains a diversified economy that is heavily reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G8, NATO, and Commonwealth of Nations.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Etymology
* 2 History
* 3 Government and politics
* 4 Law
* 5 Foreign relations and military
* 6 Provinces and territories
* 7 Geography and climate
* 8 Economy
* 9 Demographics
* 10 Culture
* 11 Language
* 12 International rankings
* 13 See also
* 14 Notes
* 15 References
* 16 External links
Etymology
Main article: Name of Canada
Jacques Cartier
The name Canada comes from a St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement". In 1535, inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct explorer Jacques Cartier toward the village of Stadacona.[7] Cartier used the word 'Canada' to refer to not only that village, but the entire area subject to Donnacona, Chief at Stadacona. By 1545, European books and maps began referring to this region as Canada.[8]
The French colony of Canada referred to the part of New France along the Saint Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes. Later, it was split into two British colonies, called Upper Canada and Lower Canada until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was adopted for the entire country, and Dominion was conferred as the country's title.[9] It was frequently referred to as the Dominion of Canada until the 1950s. As Canada asserted its political autonomy from Britain, the federal government increasingly used Canada on legal state documents and treaties. The Canada Act 1982 refers only to "Canada" and, as such, this is currently the only legal (and bilingual) name. This was reflected in 1982 with the renaming of the national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
History
Main articles: History of Canada, Timeline of Canadian history, and Territorial evolution of Canada
The fur trade was Canada's most important industry until the 19th century
First Nation and Inuit traditions maintain that aboriginal peoples have resided on their lands since the beginning of time. Archaeological studies support a human presence in the northern Yukon from 26,500 years ago, and in southern Ontario from 9,500 years ago.[10][11] Europeans first arrived when the Vikings settled briefly at L'Anse aux Meadows around AD 1000. Canada's Atlantic coast would next be explored by John Cabot in 1497 for England[12] and Jacques Cartier in 1534 for France;[13] seasonal Basque whalers and fishermen subsequently exploited the region between the Grand Banks and Tadoussac for over a century.[14]
French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608. These would become respectively the capitals of Acadia and Canada. Among French colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley, Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while French fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The French and Iroquois Wars broke out over control of the fur trade.
The Death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec in 1759, part of the Seven Years' War
The English established fishing outposts in Newfoundland around 1610 and colonized the Thirteen Colonies to the south. A series of four Intercolonial Wars erupted between 1689 and 1763. Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded Canada and most of New France to Britain following the Seven Years' War.
The Royal Proclamation (1763) carved the Province of Quebec out of New France and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia. It also restricted the language and religious rights of French Canadians. In 1769, St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony. To avert conflict in Quebec, the Quebec Act of 1774 expanded Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley and re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law in Quebec; it angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, helping to fuel the American Revolution.[15] The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. Approximately 50,000 United Empire Loyalists fled the United States to Canada.[16] New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes. To accommodate English-speaking Loyalists in Quebec, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province into French-speaking Lower Canada and English-speaking Upper Canada, granting each their own elected Legislative Assembly.
Canada (Upper and Lower) was the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and the British Empire. The defence of Canada contributed to a sense of unity among British North Americans. Large-scale immigration to Canada began in 1815 from Britain and Ireland. The timber industry surpassed the fur trade in importance in the early nineteenth century.
Fathers of Confederation by Robert Harris, an amalgamation of Charlottetown and Quebec conference scenes
The desire for responsible government resulted in the aborted Rebellions of 1837. The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into British culture.[17] The Act of Union 1840 merged The Canadas into a United Province of Canada. French and English Canadians worked together in the Assembly to reinstate French rights. Responsible government was established for all British North American provinces by 1849.
The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel and paving the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858). Canada launched a series of western exploratory expeditions to claim Rupert's Land and the Arctic region. The Canadian population grew rapidly because of high birth rates; British immigration was offset by emigration to the United States, especially by French Canadians moving to New England.
An animated map, exhibiting the growth and change of Canada's provinces and territories since Confederation
Following several constitutional conferences, the Constitution Act, 1867 brought about Confederation creating "one Dominion under the name of Canada" on July 1, 1867, with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.[18] Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870. British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had united in 1866) and the colony of Prince Edward Island joined Confederation in 1871 and 1873, respectively.
Prime Minister John A. Macdonald's Conservative government established a national policy of tariffs to protect nascent Canadian manufacturing industries. To open the West, the government sponsored construction of three trans-continental railways (most notably the Canadian Pacific Railway), opened the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and established the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory. In 1898, after the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, the Canadian government created the Yukon territory. Under Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, continental European immigrants settled the prairies, and Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.
Canadian soldiers won the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917.
Canada automatically entered World War I in 1914 with Britain's declaration of war, sending volunteers to the Western Front who later became part of the Canadian Corps. The Corps played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major battles of the war. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden brought in compulsory military service over the objection of French-speaking Quebecers. In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain; in 1931 the Statute of Westminster affirmed Canada's independence.
The Great Depression brought economic hardship to all of Canada. In response, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Alberta and Saskatchewan enacted many measures of a welfare state as pioneered by Tommy Douglas in the 1940s and 1950s. Canada declared war on Germany independently during World War II under Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, three days after Britain. The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939.[19] Canadian troops played important roles in the Battle of the Atlantic, the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid in France, the Allied invasion of Italy, the D-Day landings, the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944. Canada is credited by the Netherlands for having provided asylum and protection for its monarchy during the war after the country was occupied and the Netherlands credits Canada for its leadership and major contribution to the liberation of Netherlands from Nazi Germany. The Canadian economy boomed as industry manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec, Canada finished the war with one of the largest armed forces in the world.[19] In 1945, during the war, Canada became one of the first countries to join the United Nations.
In 1949, Newfoundland joined Confederation. Post-war prosperity and economic expansion ignited a baby boom and attracted immigration from war-ravaged European countries.[20]
Under successive Liberal governments of Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, a new Canadian identity emerged. Canada adopted its current Maple Leaf Flag in 1965. In response to a more assertive French-speaking Quebec, the federal government became officially bilingual with the Official Languages Act of 1969. Non-discriminatory Immigration Acts were introduced in 1967 and 1976, and official multiculturalism in 1971; waves of non-European immigration changed the face of the country. Social democratic programs such as universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, Canada Student Loans, the Foreign Investment Review Agency, and the National Energy Program were established in the 1960s and 1970s; provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions. Finally, constitutional conferences led by Prime Minister Trudeau resulted in the patriation of the constitution from Britain, enshrining a Charter of Rights and Freedoms based on individual rights in the Constitution Act of 1982. Canadians continue to take pride in their system of universal health care, their commitment to multiculturalism, and human rights.[21]
Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Quebec nationalists under Jean Lesage began pressing for greater autonomy.[22] The radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis in 1970 with bombings and kidnappings demanding Quebec independence. The more moderate Parti Québécois of René Lévesque came to power in 1976 and held an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Efforts by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney to constitutionally recognize Quebec as a "distinct society" with the Meech Lake Accord collapsed in 1989. Regional tensions ignited by the constitutional debate helped fledgling regional parties, the Bloc Québécois under Lucien Bouchard and the Reform Party under Preston Manning in Western Canada, relegate the Progressive Conservatives to fifth place in the federal election. A second Quebec referendum on sovereignty in 1995 was rejected by a slimmer margin of just 50.6% to 49.4%.[23] In 1997, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession by a province to be unconstitutional, and the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien passed the "Clarity Act" outlining the terms of a negotiated departure.[23] The Reform Party expanded to become the Canadian Alliance and merge with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. The Conservatives were elected as a minority government under Stephen Harper in the 2006 federal election. Later that year, Canada's parliament passed a symbolic motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation within Canada.[24]
Years of neglect and abuse by government agencies prompted aboriginal First Nations in the 1960s to use federal courts to press land claims and initiate negotiations with federal and provincial governments to recognize historical treaty rights. In the 1990s, frustration at the slow pace of negotiations gave way to violent confrontations in Oka, Ipperwash, and Gustafsen Lake. However, in 1999 Canada recognized Inuit self-government with the creation of Nunavut, and settled Nisga'a claims in B.C. In 2008, Canada's government officially apologized for the creation of residential schools set up to culturally assimilate aboriginal peoples which resulted in multiple abuses towards aboriginal people in these schools.
Government and politics
Main articles: Government of Canada, Politics of Canada, and Monarchy of Canada
Parliament Hill, Ottawa
Canada is a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, as head of state and the Prime Minister as the head of the government.[25][26] The country is a parliamentary democracy with a federal system of parliamentary government and strong democratic traditions.
Canada's Parliamentary system has a dual executive [27]: the symbolic or ceremonial executive is called The Crown, and consists of the Queen (legal head of state) and her appointed Governor General (acting head of state); the political executive consists of the Prime Minister (head of government) and his Cabinet. [28] [29] [30] [31]. Executive authority is formally and constitutionally vested in the Crown.[32] However, in accordance with democratic conventions, the Crown acts in a predominantly ceremonial and apolitical role, deferring the exercise of executive power to the political executive. [33] [34] The Cabinet which is made up of ministers generally accountable to the elected House of Commons, and headed by the Prime Minister, who is normally the leader of the party that holds the confidence of the House of Commons. Thus, the Cabinet is typically regarded as the active seat of executive power.[35][32] This arrangement, which stems from the principles of responsible government,[36][33] ensures the stability of government, and makes the Prime Minister's Office one of the most powerful organs of the system, tasked with selecting, besides the other Cabinet members, Senators, federal court judges, heads of Crown corporations and government agencies, and the federal and provincial viceroys for appointment.[37]
The leader of the party with the second most seats usually becomes the Leader of the Opposition and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system that keeps the government in check. Michaëlle Jean has served as Governor General since September 27, 2005; Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party, has been Prime Minister since February 6, 2006; and Stéphane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, has been Leader of the Opposition since December 2, 2006.
The chamber of the House of Commons
The federal parliament is made up of the Queen (represented by the Governor General) and two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed Senate.[38][39] Each member in the House of Commons is elected by simple plurality in a riding or electoral district. General elections are either every four years as determined by fixed election date legislation, or triggered by the government losing the confidence of the House (usually only possible during minority governments). Members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, are chosen by the Prime Minister and formally appointed by the Governor General, and serve until age 75.
Four parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2006 elections: the Conservative Party of Canada (governing party), the Liberal Party of Canada (Official Opposition), the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Québécois. A sitting MP joined the Green Party of Canada a few days before the calling of the 2008 election, giving the party its first federal representative. The list of historical parties with elected representation is substantial.
In line with Canada's federalist structure, the constitution divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the ten provinces, whose unicameral provincial legislatures operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the federal House of Commons. Canada's three territories also have legislatures, but with fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces, and with some structural differences (for example, the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut has no parties and operates on consensus).
Law
Main article: Law of Canada
See also: Court system of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, west of Parliament Hill
The constitution is the supreme law of the country,[40] and consists of written text and unwritten conventions.[41] The Constitution Act, 1867, affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent "similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom" and divided powers between the federal and provincial governments; the Statute of Westminster, 1931, granted full autonomy; and the Constitution Act, 1982, added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually cannot be overridden by any level of government – though a notwithstanding clause allows the federal parliament and provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five years – and added a constitutional amending formula.[42]
Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and is led by the Right Honourable Madam Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, P.C. since 2000. Its nine members are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are appointed after consultation with non-governmental legal bodies. The federal cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts at the provincial and territorial levels. Judicial posts at the lower provincial and territorial levels are filled by their respective governments.
Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada. Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is a provincial responsibility, but in rural areas of all provinces except Ontario and Quebec, policing is contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Foreign relations and military
Main articles: Foreign relations of Canada, Canadian Forces, and Military history of Canada
The Peacekeeping Monument in Ottawa
Canada and the United States share the world's longest undefended border, co-operate on military campaigns and exercises, and are each other's largest trading partners. Canada has nevertheless maintained an independent foreign policy, most notably maintaining full relations with Cuba and declining to participate in the Iraq War. Canada also maintains historic ties to the United Kingdom and France and to other former British and French colonies through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and La Francophonie (French-Speaking Countries). Canada is noted for having a strong and positive relationship with the Netherlands which Canada helped liberate during World War II, and the Dutch government traditionally gives tulips, a symbol of the Netherlands, to Canada each year in remembrance of Canada's contribution to its liberation.
Canada currently employs a professional, volunteer military force of about 64,000 regular and 26,000 reserve personnel.[43] The unified Canadian Forces (CF) comprise the army, navy, and air force. Major CF equipment deployed includes 1,400 armoured fighting vehicles, 34 combat vessels, and 861 aircraft.[44]
Strong attachment to the British Empire and Commonwealth in English Canada led to major participation in British military efforts in the Second Boer War, the First World War, and the Second World War. Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations.[45][46] Canada joined the United Nations in 1945 and became a founding member of NATO in 1949. During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend against aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.
Canada has played a leading role in UN peacekeeping efforts. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force.[47] Canada has since served in 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989[48] and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere.
Canada joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990; Canada hosted the OAS General Assembly in Windsor, Ontario, in June 2000 and the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001. Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).
Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan
Since 2001, Canada has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force. Canada and the U.S. continue to integrate state and provincial agencies to strengthen security long the Canada – United States border through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.[49] Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) has participated in three major relief efforts in recent years; the two-hundred member team has been deployed in relief operations after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake in South Asia, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Kashmir earthquake in October 2005.
In February 2007, Canada, Italy, Britain, Norway, and Russia announced their funding commitments to launch a $1.5 billion project to help develop vaccines they said could save millions of lives in poor nations, and called on others to join them.[50] In August 2007, Canadian sovereignty in Arctic waters was challenged following a Russian expedition that planted a Russian flag at the seabed at the North Pole. Canada has considered that area to be sovereign territory since 1925.[51]
Provinces and territories
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Main articles: Provinces and territories of Canada and Canadian federalism
A geopolitical map of Canada, exhibiting its ten provinces and three territories
Canada is a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories; in turn, these may be grouped into regions. Western Canada consists of British Columbia and the three Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba). Central Canada consists of Quebec and Ontario. Atlantic Canada consists of the three Maritime provinces (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia), along with Newfoundland and Labrador. Eastern Canada refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together. Three territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) make up Northern Canada. Provinces have more autonomy than territories. Each has its own provincial or territorial symbols.
The provinces are responsible for most of Canada's social programs (such as health care, education, and welfare) and together collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure that reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.
All provinces have unicameral, elected legislatures headed by a Premier selected in the same way as the Prime Minister of Canada. Each province also has a Lieutenant-Governor representing the Queen, analogous to the Governor General of Canada. The Lieutenant-Governor is appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada, though with increasing levels of consultation with provincial governments in recent years.
Geography and climate
Main articles: Geography of Canada and Temperature in Canada
A satellite composite image of Canada. Boreal forests prevail on the rocky Canadian Shield. Ice and tundra are prominent in the Arctic. Glaciers are visible in the Canadian Rockies and Coast Mountains. Flat and fertile prairies facilitate agriculture. The Great Lakes feed the Saint Lawrence River (in the southeast) where lowlands host much of Canada's population.
Canada occupies a major northern portion of North America, sharing land borders with the continental United States to the south and with the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean. By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second largest country in the world—after Russia—and largest on the continent.
Rolling hills on Prince Edward Island.
By land area it ranks fourth.[52] Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60°W and 141°W longitude,[53] but this claim is not universally recognized. The northernmost settlement in Canada and in the world is Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—just 817 kilometres (450 nautical miles) from the North Pole.[54] Canada has the longest coastline in the world: 243,000 kilometres.[55]
The population density, 3.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.1/sq mi), is among the lowest in the world.[56] The most densely populated part of the country is the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River in the southeast.[57]
To the north of this region is the broad Canadian Shield, an area of rock scoured clean by the last ice age, thinly soiled, rich in minerals, and dotted with lakes and rivers. Canada by far has more lakes than any other country and has a large amount of the world's freshwater.[58][59]
A Maritime scene at Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, which has long been sustained by the Atlantic fishery
In eastern Canada, most people live in large urban centres on the flat Saint Lawrence Lowlands. The Saint Lawrence River widens into the world's largest estuary before flowing into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The gulf is bounded by Newfoundland to the north and the Maritimes to the south. The Maritimes protrude eastward along the Appalachian Mountain range from northern New England and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are divided by the Bay of Fundy, which experiences the world's largest tidal variations. Ontario and Hudson Bay dominate central Canada. West of Ontario, the broad, flat Canadian Prairies spread toward the Rocky Mountains, which separate them from British Columbia.
In northwestern Canada, the Mackenzie River flows from the Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean. A tributary of a tributary of the Mackenzie is the South Nahanni River, which is home to Virginia Falls, a waterfall about twice as high as Niagara Falls.
Mount Robson, Canadian Rockies in British Columbia.
Northern Canadian vegetation tapers from coniferous forests to tundra and finally to Arctic barrens in the far north. The northern Canadian mainland is ringed with a vast archipelago containing some of the world's largest islands.
Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary depending on the location. Winters can be harsh in many regions of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near −15 °C (5 °F) but can drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) with severe wind chills.[60] In non-coastal regions, snow can cover the ground almost six months of the year (more in the north). Coastal British Columbia is an exception and enjoys a temperate climate with a mild and rainy winter.
On the east and west coast, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts the average summer high temperature ranges from 25 to 30 °C (75 to 85 °F) with occasional extreme heat in some interior locations exceeding 40 °C (104 °F).[61][62] For a more complete description of climate across Canada see Environment Canada's Website.[63]
Canada is also geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.[64] The volcanic eruption of Tseax Cone in 1775 caused a catastrophic disaster, killing 2,000 Nisga'a people and the destruction of their village in the Nass River valley of northern British Columbia; the eruption produced a 22.5 km (14 mi) lava flow and according to legend of the Nisga'a people, it blocked the flow of the Nass River.[65]
Economy
Main articles: Economy of Canada, Economic history of Canada, and Agriculture in Canada
Canadian banknotes depicting, top to bottom, Wilfrid Laurier, John A. Macdonald, Queen Elizabeth II, William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Robert Borden
Canada is one of the world's wealthiest nations, with a high per-capita income, and is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G8. It is one of the world's top 10 trading nations.[66] Canada is a mixed market,[67] ranking lower than the U.S. but higher than most western European nations on the Heritage Foundation's index of economic freedom.[68] Since the early 1990s, the Canadian economy has been growing rapidly with low unemployment and large government surpluses on the federal level. Today Canada closely resembles the U.S. in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and high living standards.[3] As of October 2007, Canada's national unemployment rate of 5.9% is its lowest in 33 years. Provincial unemployment rates vary from a low of 3.6% in Alberta to a high of 14.6% in Newfoundland and Labrador.[69] According to the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's largest companies in 2008, Canada had 69 companies in the list, ranking 5th next to France.[70] As of 2008, the Canada’s total government debt burden is the lowest in the G8. The OECD projects that Canada’s net debt-to-GDP ratio will decline to 19.5% in 2009, less than half of the projected average of 51.9% for all G8 countries. According to these projections, Canada’s debt burden will have fallen over 50 percentage points from the peak in 1995, when it was the second highest in the G8.[71]
In the past century, the growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy into one primarily industrial and urban. As with other first world nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three quarters of Canadians.[72] However, Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of the primary sector, with the logging and oil industries being two of Canada's most important.
Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy.[3] Atlantic Canada has vast offshore deposits of natural gas and large oil and gas resources are centred in Alberta. The vast Athabasca Oil Sands give Canada the world's second largest oil reserves behind Saudi Arabia.[73] In Quebec, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba, hydroelectricity is a cheap and clean source of renewable energy.
Canada is one of the world's most important suppliers of agricultural products, with the Canadian Prairies one of the most important suppliers of wheat, canola and other grains.[74] Canada is the world's largest producer of zinc and uranium and a world leader in many other natural resources such as gold, nickel, aluminium, and lead;[75] many towns in the northern part of the country, where agriculture is difficult, exist because of a nearby mine or source of timber. Canada also has a sizeable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries.
Representatives of the Canadian, Mexican, and United States governments sign NAFTA in 1992.
Economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II. This has prompted Canadian nationalists to worry about cultural and economic autonomy in an age of globalization as American television shows, movies and corporations have become omnipresent.[76] The Automotive Products Trade Agreement in 1965 opened the borders to trade in the auto manufacturing industry. In the 1970s, concerns over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to set up the National Energy Program (NEP) and Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA).[77] In the 1980s, Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to Investment Canada to encourage foreign investment. The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free trade zone to include Mexico in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien began posting annual budgetary surpluses and began steadily paying down the national debt. Since 2001, Canada has successfully avoided economic recession and has maintained the best overall economic performance in the G8.[78]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Canada, List of cities in Canada, Ethnic groups in Canada, and Immigration to Canada
Largest Metropolitan Areas of Canada
Rank Core City Province Pop. Rank Core City Province Pop.
view • talk • edit
Toronto
Toronto
Montreal
Montreal
1 Toronto Ontario 5,113,149 11 Kitchener Ontario 451,235
2 Montreal Quebec 3,635,571 12 St. Catharines Ontario 390,317
3 Vancouver British Columbia 2,116,581 13 Halifax Nova Scotia 372,858
4 Ottawa Ontario 1,130,761 14 Oshawa Ontario 330,594
5 Calgary Alberta 1,079,310 15 Victoria British Columbia 330,088
6 Edmonton Alberta 1,034,945 16 Windsor Ontario 323,342
7 Quebec City Quebec 715,515 17 Saskatoon Saskatchewan 233,923
8 Winnipeg Manitoba 694,668 18 Regina Saskatchewan 194,971
9 Hamilton Ontario 692,911 19 Sherbrooke Quebec 186,952
10 London Ontario 457,720 20 St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador 181,113
Canada 2006 Census
Canada's 2006 census counted a total population of 31,612,897, an increase of 5.4% since 2001.[79] Population growth is from immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. About three-quarters of Canada's population live within 150 kilometres (90 mi) of the US border.[80] A similar proportion live in urban areas concentrated in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor (notably the Greater Golden Horseshoe including Toronto and area, Montreal, and Ottawa), the BC Lower Mainland (consisting of the region surrounding Vancouver), and the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor in Alberta.[81]
According to the 2006 census, there are 43 ethnic origins that at least one hundred thousand people in Canada claim in their background.[82]
The largest ethnic group is English (21%), followed by French (15.8%), Scottish (15.2%), Irish (13.9%), German (10.2%), Italian (5%), Chinese (4%), Ukrainian (3.6%), and First Nations (3.5%); Approximately, one third of respondents identified their ethnicity as "Canadian".[83] Canada's aboriginal population is growing almost twice as fast as the Canadian average, and 3.8% of Canada's population claimed aboriginal identity in 2006. Also, 16.2% of the population belonged to non-aboriginal visible minorities.
In 2001, 49% of the Vancouver population and 42.8% of Toronto's population were visible minorities. In March 2005, Statistics Canada projected that people of non-European origins will constitute a majority in both Toronto and Vancouver by 2012.[84] According to Statistics Canada's forecasts, the number of visible minorities in Canada is expected to double by 2017. A survey released in 2007 reveals that virtually 1 in 5 Canadians (19.8%) are foreign born.[85] Nearly 60% of new immigrants hail from Asia (including the Middle East).[85]
Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world,[86] driven by economic policy and family reunification; Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees. Newcomers settle mostly in the major urban areas of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In the 2006 census, there were 5,068,100 people considered to belong to a visible minority, making up 16.2% of the population. Between 2001 and 2006, the visible minority population rose by 27.2 %.[87][88]
In common with many other developed countries, Canada is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2006, the average age of the civilian population was 39.5 years.[89] The census results also indicate that despite an increase in immigration since 2001 (which gave Canada a higher rate of population growth than in the previous intercensal period) the aging of Canada's population did not slow in the period.
Support for religious pluralism is an important part of Canada's political culture. According to the 2001 census,[90] 77.1% of Canadians identify as being Christians; of this, Catholics make up the largest group (43.6% of Canadians). The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada. About 16.5% of Canadians declare no religious affiliation, and the remaining 6.3% are affiliated with religions other than Christianity, of which the largest is Islam numbering 1.9%, followed by Judaism at 1.1%.
Canadian provinces and territories are responsible for education. Each system is similar, while reflecting regional history, culture and geography.[91] The mandatory school age ranges between 5–7 to 16–18 years,[91] contributing to an adult literacy rate that is 99%.[3] Postsecondary education is also administered by provincial and territorial governments, who provide most of the funding; the federal government administers additional research grants, student loans and scholarships. In 2002, 43% of Canadians aged between 25 and 64 had post-secondary education; for those aged 25 to 34 the post-secondary education rate reaches 51%.[92]
Culture
Main articles: Culture of Canada, National symbols of Canada, Sport in Canada, and Music of Canada
A Kwakwaka'wakw totem pole and traditional "big house" in Victoria, British Columbia
Canadian culture has historically been influenced by British, French, and Aboriginal cultures and traditions. It has also been influenced heavily by American culture because of its proximity and migration between the two countries. The great majority of English speaking immigrants to Canada between 1755-1815 were Americans from the Lower Thirteen Colonies who were drawn there by promises of land or exiled because of their loyalty to Britain during the American War for Independence. American media and entertainment are popular, if not dominant, in English Canada; conversely, many Canadian cultural products and entertainers are successful in the U.S. and worldwide.[93] Many cultural products are marketed toward a unified "North American" or global market.
The creation and preservation of distinctly Canadian culture are supported by federal government programs, laws and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).[94]
Canada is a geographically vast and ethnically diverse country. Canadian culture has also been greatly influenced by immigration from all over the world. Many Canadians value multiculturalism and see Canadian culture as being inherently multicultural.[21] Multicultural heritage is the basis of Section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Hockey game, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec (1901)
National symbols are influenced by natural, historical, and First Nations sources. Particularly, the use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates back to the early 18th century and is depicted on its current and previous flags, the penny, and on the coat of arms.[95] Other prominent symbols include the beaver, Canada Goose, Common Loon, the Crown, the RCMP,[95] and more recently the totem pole and Inukshuk.
Canada's official national sports are ice hockey in the winter and lacrosse in the summer.[96] Ice hockey is a national pastime and the most popular spectator sport in the country. It is the most popular sport Canadians play, with 1.65 million active participants in 2004.[97] Canada's six largest metropolitan areas – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton – have franchises in the National Hockey League (NHL), and there are more Canadian players in the league than from all other countries combined. After hockey, other popular spectator sports include curling and football; the latter is played professionally in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Golf, baseball, skiing, soccer, volleyball, and basketball are widely played at youth and amateur levels,[97] but professional leagues and franchises are not as widespread.
Canada hosted several high-profile international sporting events, including the 1976 Summer Olympics, the 1988 Winter Olympics, and the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Canada will be the host country for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia.[98][99]
Language
Main articles: Spoken languages of Canada, Official bilingualism in Canada, Canadian English, and Canadian French
The population of Montreal, Quebec is mainly French-speaking, with a significant English-speaking community.
Canada's two official languages are English and French. Official bilingualism in Canada is law, defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Official Languages Act, and Official Language Regulations; it is applied by the Commissioner of Official Languages. English and French have equal status in federal courts, Parliament, and in all federal institutions. The public has the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French, and official language minorities are guaranteed their own schools in all provinces and territories.[100]
English and French are the mother tongues of 59.7% and 23.2% of the population respectively,[101] and the languages most spoken at home by 68.3% and 22.3% of the population respectively.[102] 98.5% of Canadians speak English or French (67.5% speak English only, 13.3% speak French only, and 17.7% speak both).[103] English and French Official Language Communities, defined by First Official Language Spoken, constitute 73.0% and 23.6% of the population respectively.[104]
Although 85% of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, there are substantial Francophone populations in Ontario, Alberta and southern Manitoba, with an Acadian population in the northern and southeastern parts of New Brunswick constituting 35% of that province's population, as well as concentrations in southwestern Nova Scotia and on Cape Breton Island. Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec. The Charter of the French Language in Quebec makes French the official language in Quebec, and New Brunswick is the only province to have a statement of official bilingualism in its constitution.[105] Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and for other government services in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status but is not fully co-official. Several aboriginal languages have official status in Northwest Territories. Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut, and one of three official languages in the territory.
Non-official languages are important in Canada, with over five million people listing one as a first language.[101] Some significant non-official first languages include Chinese (853,745 first-language speakers), Italian (469,485), German (438,080), and Punjabi (271,220).[101]
International rankings
Organization Survey Ranking
State of World Liberty Project State of World Liberty Index[106] 3 out of 159
United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index 4 out of 177
A. T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine Globalization Index 2006 6 out of 111
IMD International World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007 10 out of 60
The Economist The World in 2005 - Worldwide quality-of-life index, 2005 14 out of 111
Yale University/Columbia University Environmental Sustainability Index, 2005 (pdf) 6 out of 146
Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007 18 out of 169
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2008 9 out of 180
Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom, 2008 7 out of 157
The Economist Global Peace Index 11 out of 140
Fund for Peace/ForeignPolicy.com Failed States Index, 2007 168 out of 177[107]
See also
Main article: List of basic Canada topics
Notes
1. ^ "Canada's population clock" (source code). Statistics Canada (2007-12-04). Retrieved on 2007-12-21. "StartPop = 32976026; EndPop = 33305836; StartDate = new Date(2007, 6, 1); EndDate = new Date(2008, 6, 1)"
2. ^ a b c d "Canada". International Monetary Fund. Retrieved on 2008-10-09.
3. ^ a b c d e Central Intelligence Agency (2006-05-16). "The World Factbook: Canada". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
4. ^ "Territorial evolution" (html/pdf). Atlas of Canada. Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2007-10-09. "In 1867, the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are united in a federal state, the Dominion of Canada...."
5. ^ "Canada: History" (html/pdf). Country Profiles. Commonwealth Secretariat. Retrieved on 2007-10-09. "The British North America Act of 1867 brought together four British colonies ... in one federal Dominion under the name of Canada."
6. ^ Hillmer, Norman; W. David MacIntyre. "Commonwealth" (html). Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Project. Retrieved on 2007-10-09. "With CONFEDERATION in 1867, Canada became the first federation in the British Empire ..."
7. ^ Trigger, Bruce G.; Pendergast, James F. (1978). "Saint-Lawrence Iroquoians", Handbook of North American Indians Volume 15. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 357–361. OCLC 58762737.
8. ^ Jacques Cartier (1545). "Relation originale de Jacques Cartier". Tross (1863 edition). Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
9. ^ J. E. Hodgetts. 2004. "Dominion". Oxford Companion to Canadian History, Gerald Hallowell, ed. (ISBN 0195415590) Toronto: Oxford University Press; p. 183: "The title conferred on Canada by the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867, whereby the provinces declare 'their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom'."
10. ^ Cinq-Mars, J. (2001). "On the significance of modified mammoth bones from eastern Beringia" (PDF). The World of Elephants – International Congress, Rome. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
11. ^ Wright, J.V (2001-09-27). "A History of the Native People of Canada: Early and Middle Archaic Complexes". Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
12. ^ "John Cabot =". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica.
13. ^ "Cartier, Jacques". World book Encyclopedia. World Book, Inc.. ISBN 071660101X. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
14. ^ "Basques". The Canadian Encyclopedia. (2007). Historica.
15. ^ "Wars on Our Soil, earliest times to 1885". Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
16. ^ Moore, Christopher (1994). The Loyalist: Revolution Exile Settlement. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-6093-9.
17. ^ David Mills. "Durham Report". Historica Foundation of Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-18.
18. ^ Farthing, John (1957). Freedom Wears a Crown. Toronto: Kingswood House. ASIN B0007JC4G2.
19. ^ a b Stacey, C.P. (1948). History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. Queen's Printer.
20. ^ Harold Troper (2000-03). "History of Immigration to Toronto Since the Second World War: From Toronto 'the Good' to Toronto 'the World in a City'". Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Retrieved on 2006-05-19.
21. ^ a b Bickerton, James & Gagnon, Alain-G & Gagnon, Alain (Eds). (2004). Canadian Politics, 4th edition, Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press. ISBN 1-55111-595-6.
22. ^ Bélanger, Claude (2000-08-03). "Quiet Revolution". Quebec History. Marionopolis College, Montreal. Retrieved on 2008.
23. ^ a b Dickinson, John Alexander; Young, Brian (2003). A Short History of Quebec, 3rd edition, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2450-9.
24. ^ "Quebecers form a nation within Canada: PM". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2006-11-22). Retrieved on 2008-07-27.
25. ^ Heritage Canada (2005-04-21). "The Queen and Canada: 53 Years of Growing Together". Heritage Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
26. ^ Governor General of Canada (2005-12-06). "Role and Responsibilities of the Governor General". Governor General of Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
27. ^ Stewart, David (2008-11-02). "Introduction: Principles of the Westminster Model of Parliamentary Democracy". Module on Parliamentary Democracy. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "Parliamentary government is also associated with the presence of a dual executive. There is a ceremonial executive, which possesses some constitutional powers as well as performing symbolic functions, and a political executive, which performs the basic governing functions (see Magstadt and Schotten, 1999; O'Neill, 1999). In the British model, the Crown now serves as the ceremonial executive (or head of state) while the Prime Minister is head of government."
28. ^ Heard, Andrew (2008). "The Executive I: Crown and Cabinet". Canadian Government (Course notes). Simon Fraser University. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "o symbolic executive: Queen (de jure head of state) ... Governor General (de facto head of state); o political executive: Canada: Privy Council, including cabinet; Prime Minister (head of government) primus inter pares; cabinet/ministry membership (32 members including the PM); o permanent executive (bureaucracy): departments, agencies, & civil service"
29. ^ Nelson Education Ltd.. "The Executive". Introduction to Canadian Government and Politics. Nelson Education Ltd.. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "The symbolic executive is composed of the Queen, who is the legal head of state of Canada, and her representatives, who fulfill the monarch's daily duties in Canada."
30. ^ Mahler, Gregory (1985). "Parliament and Congress: Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side?". Canadian Parliamentary Review. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "In Canada (and indeed most parliamentary democracies in the world today), the majority of challenges to legislative power which develop no longer come from the ceremonial executive (the Crown), but from the political executive, the government of the day."
31. ^ Commonwealth Secretariat (1999). "Women in Politics". Commonwealth Secretariat. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "However, the British monarch continues to serve as Canada's symbolic executive, appointing a representative, the Governor-General, on the advice of the Canadian Prime Minister."
32. ^ a b "Canada's System of Justice: The Canadian Constitution". Department of Justice Canada. "The executive power in Canada is vested in the Queen. In this democratic society, this is only a constitutional convention, as the real executive power rests with the Cabinet."
"Constitution Act 1867; III.9". Queen's Printer for Canada. "The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen."
"By Executive Decree: The Governor General". Library and Archives Canada. "The governor general holds formal executive power within the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, and signs orders-in-council."
33. ^ a b "Responsible Government: Clarifying Essentials, Dispelling Myths and Exploring Change". Canada School of Public Service. "Under the constitutional convention of responsible government, the powers of the Crown are exercised by Ministers, both individually and collectively."
34. ^ Ray T. Donahue. "Diplomatic Discourse: International Conflict at the United Nations". Greenwood Publishing Group. "As Head of State ... Elizabeth II has no political power, only symbolic power"
David Stewart. "Introduction: Principles of the Westminster Model of Parliamentary Democracy". Module on Parliamentary Democracy. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Athabasca University. "the Crown now serves as the ceremonial executive"
"By Executive Decree:". Library and Archives Canada. "As Canada is a constitutional monarchy, the symbolic head of the executive is the governor general."
35. ^ McWhinney, Edward (2005). The Governor General and the Prime Ministers. Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 25. ISBN 1-55380-031-1.
"By Executive Decree: The Cabinet". Library and Archives Canada. "The Cabinet as selected and directed by the prime minister constitutes the active seat of executive power in Canada."
Joseph Magnet. "Separation of Powers in Canada". Constitutional Law of Canada. University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. "... democratic principles dictate that the bulk of the Governor General's powers be exercised in accordance with the wishes of the leadership of that government, namely the Cabinet. So the true executive power lies in the Cabinet."
"By Executive Decree: The Cabinet". Library and Archives Canada. "The Cabinet as selected and directed by the prime minister constitutes the active seat of executive power in Canada."
W.A. Matheson. "Prime Minister". The Canadian Encyclopedia. "The prime minister is the chief minister and effective head of the executive in a parliamentary system ..."
"The Prime Minister". By Executive Decree. National Archives of Canada. "While the modern governor general has only a nominal influence on the operation of the Canadian government, the prime minister's influence is decisive."
36. ^ "Canadian Cofederation: Responsible Government". Library and Archives Canada. "The Executive Council would be governed by the leader of the political party that held an elected majority in the Legislative Assembly. That same leader would also appoint the members of the Executive Council. The governor would therefore be forced to accept these "ministers", and if the majority of the members of the Legislative Assembly voted against them, they would have to resign. The governor would also be obliged to ratify laws concerning the internal affairs of the colony once these laws had been passed to the Legislative Assembly."
"The Canadian Encyclopedia: Responsible Government". Historica Foundation of Canada. "This key principle of responsibility, whereby a government needed the confidence of Parliament, originated in established British practice. But its transfer to British N America gave the colonists control of their domestic affairs, since a governor would simply follow the advice (ie, policies) of responsible colonial ministers."
"Responsible Government and Checks and Balances: The Crown". "Responsible government means that the Crown no longer has the prerogative to select or remove Ministers. They are selected and removed by the first Minister—the Prime Minister."
37. ^ "Responsible Government and Checks and Balances: The Crown". Responsible Government: Clarifying Essentials, Dispelling Myths and Exploring Change. Canada School of Public Service. "Ministers are thereby accountable to the Prime Minister who, in the Canadian tradition, has the sole power to appoint and dismiss them."
38. ^ "Constitution Act, 1867; IV". Queen's Printer for Canada. "There shall be One Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons."
39. ^ "Parliament of Canada: About the Governor General of Canada". Queen's Printer for Canada. "Parliament is the legislative branch of Government, composed of the Sovereign (represented by the Governor General), the Senate and the House of Commons."
40. ^ "The Constitution Act, 1982". Department of Justice Canada. ""52.(1) The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada, and any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect."
41. ^ Department of Justice. "Constitution Acts 1867 to 1982". Department of Justice, Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
42. ^ "The Constitution Act, 1982". Department of Justice Canada. ""38.(1)"
43. ^ Assistant Deputy Minister (Public Affairs). "The National Defence family". Department of National Defence. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
44. ^ Assistant Deputy Minister (Public Affairs). "Canadian Forces Equipment". Department of National Defence. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
45. ^ Government of Canada (2005). Canada's international policy statement : a role of pride and influence in the world (PDF), Ottawa: Government of Canada. ISBN 0-662-68608-X.
46. ^ Cooper, Andrew Fenton; Higgot, Richard A.; Nossal, Kim R. (1993). Relocating Middle Powers: Australia and Canada in a Changing World Order. Vancouver: UBC Press. ISBN 0-7748-0450-5.
47. ^ Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2006). "[CBC.ca - The Greatest Canadian - Top Ten Greatest Canadians - Lester B. Pearson at www.cbc.ca Lester B. Pearson]". CBC.ca. Retrieved on 2006-05-22.
48. ^ Morton, Desmond (1999). A Military History of Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, pg. 258. ISBN 0-7710-6514-0.
49. ^ Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative at www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca
50. ^ "Rich Nations Launch Vaccine Pact". Reuters. February 10, 2007.
51. ^ Blomfield, Adrian (2007-08-03). "Russia claims North Pole with Arctic flag stunt". Telegraph. Retrieved on 2007-09-10.
52. ^ "World Factbook: Area Country Comparison Table".
53. ^ National Resources Canada (2004-04-06). "Territorial Evolution, 1927". National Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
54. ^ National Defence Canada (2006-08-15). "Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert". National Defence Canada. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
55. ^ Natural Resources Canada (2006-12-19). "CoastWeb: Facts about Canada's coastline". Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2007-07-13.
56. ^ WorldAtlas.com (2006-02). "Countries of the World (by lowest population density)". WorldAtlas.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-16.
57. ^ railwaypeople.com (2006). "Quebec–Windsor Corridor Jet Train, Canada". railwaypeople.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
58. ^ The Atlas of Canada (2004-04-02). "Drainage patterns". National Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-18.
59. ^ Encarta (2006). "Canada". Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved on 2006-06-12.
60. ^ The Weather Network. "Statis
Canada
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For a topic outline on this subject, see List of basic Canada topics. For other uses of "Canada" or "Canadian", see Canada (disambiguation) and Canadian (disambiguation).
Featured article
Canada
Flag of Canada Coat of arms of Canada
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: A Mari Usque Ad Mare (Latin)
"From Sea to Sea"
Anthem: "O Canada"
Royal anthem: "God Save the Queen"
Location of Canada
Capital Ottawa
[show location on an interactive map] 45°24′N 75°40′W / 45.4, -75.667
Largest city Toronto
Official languages English, French
Recognised regional languages Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Cree, Dëne Sųłiné, Gwich’in, Inuvialuktun, Slavey, Tłįchǫ Yatiì
Demonym Canadian
Government Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional monarchy
- Monarch HM Queen Elizabeth II
- Governor General Michaëlle Jean
- Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Establishment
- British North America Acts July 1, 1867
- Statute of Westminster December 11, 1931
- Canada Act April 17, 1982
Area
- Total 9,984,670 km² (2nd)
3,854,085 sq mi
- Water (%) 8.92 (891,163 km²/344,080 mi²)
Population
- 2008 estimate 33,419,000[1] (36th)
- 2006 census 31,612,897
- Density 3.2/km² (219th)
8.3/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2007 estimate
- Total $1.269 trillion[2] (13th)
- Per capita $38,613[2] (12th)
GDP (nominal) 2007 estimate
- Total $1.436 trillion[2] (9th)
- Per capita $43,674[2] (14th)
Gini 32.1 (2005)[3]
HDI (2007) ▲ 0.961 (high) (4th)
Currency Dollar ($) (CAD)
Time zone (UTC−3.5 to −8)
- Summer (DST) (UTC−2.5 to −7)
Internet TLD .ca
Calling code +1
Canada portal
Canada (IPA: /ˈkænədə/) is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area,[3] and shares land borders with the United States to the south and northwest.
The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces.[4][5][6] This began an accretion of additional provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and culminating in the Canada Act in 1982 which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.
A federation comprising ten provinces and three territories, Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual and multicultural country, with both English and French as official languages at the federal level. Technologically advanced and industrialized, Canada maintains a diversified economy that is heavily reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G8, NATO, and Commonwealth of Nations.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Etymology
* 2 History
* 3 Government and politics
* 4 Law
* 5 Foreign relations and military
* 6 Provinces and territories
* 7 Geography and climate
* 8 Economy
* 9 Demographics
* 10 Culture
* 11 Language
* 12 International rankings
* 13 See also
* 14 Notes
* 15 References
* 16 External links
Etymology
Main article: Name of Canada
Jacques Cartier
The name Canada comes from a St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement". In 1535, inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct explorer Jacques Cartier toward the village of Stadacona.[7] Cartier used the word 'Canada' to refer to not only that village, but the entire area subject to Donnacona, Chief at Stadacona. By 1545, European books and maps began referring to this region as Canada.[8]
The French colony of Canada referred to the part of New France along the Saint Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes. Later, it was split into two British colonies, called Upper Canada and Lower Canada until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was adopted for the entire country, and Dominion was conferred as the country's title.[9] It was frequently referred to as the Dominion of Canada until the 1950s. As Canada asserted its political autonomy from Britain, the federal government increasingly used Canada on legal state documents and treaties. The Canada Act 1982 refers only to "Canada" and, as such, this is currently the only legal (and bilingual) name. This was reflected in 1982 with the renaming of the national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
History
Main articles: History of Canada, Timeline of Canadian history, and Territorial evolution of Canada
The fur trade was Canada's most important industry until the 19th century
First Nation and Inuit traditions maintain that aboriginal peoples have resided on their lands since the beginning of time. Archaeological studies support a human presence in the northern Yukon from 26,500 years ago, and in southern Ontario from 9,500 years ago.[10][11] Europeans first arrived when the Vikings settled briefly at L'Anse aux Meadows around AD 1000. Canada's Atlantic coast would next be explored by John Cabot in 1497 for England[12] and Jacques Cartier in 1534 for France;[13] seasonal Basque whalers and fishermen subsequently exploited the region between the Grand Banks and Tadoussac for over a century.[14]
French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608. These would become respectively the capitals of Acadia and Canada. Among French colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley, Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while French fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The French and Iroquois Wars broke out over control of the fur trade.
The Death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec in 1759, part of the Seven Years' War
The English established fishing outposts in Newfoundland around 1610 and colonized the Thirteen Colonies to the south. A series of four Intercolonial Wars erupted between 1689 and 1763. Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded Canada and most of New France to Britain following the Seven Years' War.
The Royal Proclamation (1763) carved the Province of Quebec out of New France and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia. It also restricted the language and religious rights of French Canadians. In 1769, St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony. To avert conflict in Quebec, the Quebec Act of 1774 expanded Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley and re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law in Quebec; it angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, helping to fuel the American Revolution.[15] The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. Approximately 50,000 United Empire Loyalists fled the United States to Canada.[16] New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes. To accommodate English-speaking Loyalists in Quebec, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province into French-speaking Lower Canada and English-speaking Upper Canada, granting each their own elected Legislative Assembly.
Canada (Upper and Lower) was the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and the British Empire. The defence of Canada contributed to a sense of unity among British North Americans. Large-scale immigration to Canada began in 1815 from Britain and Ireland. The timber industry surpassed the fur trade in importance in the early nineteenth century.
Fathers of Confederation by Robert Harris, an amalgamation of Charlottetown and Quebec conference scenes
The desire for responsible government resulted in the aborted Rebellions of 1837. The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into British culture.[17] The Act of Union 1840 merged The Canadas into a United Province of Canada. French and English Canadians worked together in the Assembly to reinstate French rights. Responsible government was established for all British North American provinces by 1849.
The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel and paving the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858). Canada launched a series of western exploratory expeditions to claim Rupert's Land and the Arctic region. The Canadian population grew rapidly because of high birth rates; British immigration was offset by emigration to the United States, especially by French Canadians moving to New England.
An animated map, exhibiting the growth and change of Canada's provinces and territories since Confederation
Following several constitutional conferences, the Constitution Act, 1867 brought about Confederation creating "one Dominion under the name of Canada" on July 1, 1867, with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.[18] Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870. British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had united in 1866) and the colony of Prince Edward Island joined Confederation in 1871 and 1873, respectively.
Prime Minister John A. Macdonald's Conservative government established a national policy of tariffs to protect nascent Canadian manufacturing industries. To open the West, the government sponsored construction of three trans-continental railways (most notably the Canadian Pacific Railway), opened the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and established the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory. In 1898, after the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, the Canadian government created the Yukon territory. Under Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, continental European immigrants settled the prairies, and Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.
Canadian soldiers won the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917.
Canada automatically entered World War I in 1914 with Britain's declaration of war, sending volunteers to the Western Front who later became part of the Canadian Corps. The Corps played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major battles of the war. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden brought in compulsory military service over the objection of French-speaking Quebecers. In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain; in 1931 the Statute of Westminster affirmed Canada's independence.
The Great Depression brought economic hardship to all of Canada. In response, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Alberta and Saskatchewan enacted many measures of a welfare state as pioneered by Tommy Douglas in the 1940s and 1950s. Canada declared war on Germany independently during World War II under Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, three days after Britain. The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939.[19] Canadian troops played important roles in the Battle of the Atlantic, the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid in France, the Allied invasion of Italy, the D-Day landings, the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944. Canada is credited by the Netherlands for having provided asylum and protection for its monarchy during the war after the country was occupied and the Netherlands credits Canada for its leadership and major contribution to the liberation of Netherlands from Nazi Germany. The Canadian economy boomed as industry manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec, Canada finished the war with one of the largest armed forces in the world.[19] In 1945, during the war, Canada became one of the first countries to join the United Nations.
In 1949, Newfoundland joined Confederation. Post-war prosperity and economic expansion ignited a baby boom and attracted immigration from war-ravaged European countries.[20]
Under successive Liberal governments of Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, a new Canadian identity emerged. Canada adopted its current Maple Leaf Flag in 1965. In response to a more assertive French-speaking Quebec, the federal government became officially bilingual with the Official Languages Act of 1969. Non-discriminatory Immigration Acts were introduced in 1967 and 1976, and official multiculturalism in 1971; waves of non-European immigration changed the face of the country. Social democratic programs such as universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, Canada Student Loans, the Foreign Investment Review Agency, and the National Energy Program were established in the 1960s and 1970s; provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions. Finally, constitutional conferences led by Prime Minister Trudeau resulted in the patriation of the constitution from Britain, enshrining a Charter of Rights and Freedoms based on individual rights in the Constitution Act of 1982. Canadians continue to take pride in their system of universal health care, their commitment to multiculturalism, and human rights.[21]
Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Quebec nationalists under Jean Lesage began pressing for greater autonomy.[22] The radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis in 1970 with bombings and kidnappings demanding Quebec independence. The more moderate Parti Québécois of René Lévesque came to power in 1976 and held an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Efforts by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney to constitutionally recognize Quebec as a "distinct society" with the Meech Lake Accord collapsed in 1989. Regional tensions ignited by the constitutional debate helped fledgling regional parties, the Bloc Québécois under Lucien Bouchard and the Reform Party under Preston Manning in Western Canada, relegate the Progressive Conservatives to fifth place in the federal election. A second Quebec referendum on sovereignty in 1995 was rejected by a slimmer margin of just 50.6% to 49.4%.[23] In 1997, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession by a province to be unconstitutional, and the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien passed the "Clarity Act" outlining the terms of a negotiated departure.[23] The Reform Party expanded to become the Canadian Alliance and merge with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. The Conservatives were elected as a minority government under Stephen Harper in the 2006 federal election. Later that year, Canada's parliament passed a symbolic motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation within Canada.[24]
Years of neglect and abuse by government agencies prompted aboriginal First Nations in the 1960s to use federal courts to press land claims and initiate negotiations with federal and provincial governments to recognize historical treaty rights. In the 1990s, frustration at the slow pace of negotiations gave way to violent confrontations in Oka, Ipperwash, and Gustafsen Lake. However, in 1999 Canada recognized Inuit self-government with the creation of Nunavut, and settled Nisga'a claims in B.C. In 2008, Canada's government officially apologized for the creation of residential schools set up to culturally assimilate aboriginal peoples which resulted in multiple abuses towards aboriginal people in these schools.
Government and politics
Main articles: Government of Canada, Politics of Canada, and Monarchy of Canada
Parliament Hill, Ottawa
Canada is a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, as head of state and the Prime Minister as the head of the government.[25][26] The country is a parliamentary democracy with a federal system of parliamentary government and strong democratic traditions.
Canada's Parliamentary system has a dual executive [27]: the symbolic or ceremonial executive is called The Crown, and consists of the Queen (legal head of state) and her appointed Governor General (acting head of state); the political executive consists of the Prime Minister (head of government) and his Cabinet. [28] [29] [30] [31]. Executive authority is formally and constitutionally vested in the Crown.[32] However, in accordance with democratic conventions, the Crown acts in a predominantly ceremonial and apolitical role, deferring the exercise of executive power to the political executive. [33] [34] The Cabinet which is made up of ministers generally accountable to the elected House of Commons, and headed by the Prime Minister, who is normally the leader of the party that holds the confidence of the House of Commons. Thus, the Cabinet is typically regarded as the active seat of executive power.[35][32] This arrangement, which stems from the principles of responsible government,[36][33] ensures the stability of government, and makes the Prime Minister's Office one of the most powerful organs of the system, tasked with selecting, besides the other Cabinet members, Senators, federal court judges, heads of Crown corporations and government agencies, and the federal and provincial viceroys for appointment.[37]
The leader of the party with the second most seats usually becomes the Leader of the Opposition and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system that keeps the government in check. Michaëlle Jean has served as Governor General since September 27, 2005; Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party, has been Prime Minister since February 6, 2006; and Stéphane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, has been Leader of the Opposition since December 2, 2006.
The chamber of the House of Commons
The federal parliament is made up of the Queen (represented by the Governor General) and two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed Senate.[38][39] Each member in the House of Commons is elected by simple plurality in a riding or electoral district. General elections are either every four years as determined by fixed election date legislation, or triggered by the government losing the confidence of the House (usually only possible during minority governments). Members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, are chosen by the Prime Minister and formally appointed by the Governor General, and serve until age 75.
Four parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2006 elections: the Conservative Party of Canada (governing party), the Liberal Party of Canada (Official Opposition), the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Québécois. A sitting MP joined the Green Party of Canada a few days before the calling of the 2008 election, giving the party its first federal representative. The list of historical parties with elected representation is substantial.
In line with Canada's federalist structure, the constitution divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the ten provinces, whose unicameral provincial legislatures operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the federal House of Commons. Canada's three territories also have legislatures, but with fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces, and with some structural differences (for example, the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut has no parties and operates on consensus).
Law
Main article: Law of Canada
See also: Court system of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, west of Parliament Hill
The constitution is the supreme law of the country,[40] and consists of written text and unwritten conventions.[41] The Constitution Act, 1867, affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent "similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom" and divided powers between the federal and provincial governments; the Statute of Westminster, 1931, granted full autonomy; and the Constitution Act, 1982, added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually cannot be overridden by any level of government – though a notwithstanding clause allows the federal parliament and provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five years – and added a constitutional amending formula.[42]
Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and is led by the Right Honourable Madam Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, P.C. since 2000. Its nine members are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are appointed after consultation with non-governmental legal bodies. The federal cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts at the provincial and territorial levels. Judicial posts at the lower provincial and territorial levels are filled by their respective governments.
Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada. Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is a provincial responsibility, but in rural areas of all provinces except Ontario and Quebec, policing is contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Foreign relations and military
Main articles: Foreign relations of Canada, Canadian Forces, and Military history of Canada
The Peacekeeping Monument in Ottawa
Canada and the United States share the world's longest undefended border, co-operate on military campaigns and exercises, and are each other's largest trading partners. Canada has nevertheless maintained an independent foreign policy, most notably maintaining full relations with Cuba and declining to participate in the Iraq War. Canada also maintains historic ties to the United Kingdom and France and to other former British and French colonies through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and La Francophonie (French-Speaking Countries). Canada is noted for having a strong and positive relationship with the Netherlands which Canada helped liberate during World War II, and the Dutch government traditionally gives tulips, a symbol of the Netherlands, to Canada each year in remembrance of Canada's contribution to its liberation.
Canada currently employs a professional, volunteer military force of about 64,000 regular and 26,000 reserve personnel.[43] The unified Canadian Forces (CF) comprise the army, navy, and air force. Major CF equipment deployed includes 1,400 armoured fighting vehicles, 34 combat vessels, and 861 aircraft.[44]
Strong attachment to the British Empire and Commonwealth in English Canada led to major participation in British military efforts in the Second Boer War, the First World War, and the Second World War. Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations.[45][46] Canada joined the United Nations in 1945 and became a founding member of NATO in 1949. During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend against aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.
Canada has played a leading role in UN peacekeeping efforts. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force.[47] Canada has since served in 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989[48] and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere.
Canada joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990; Canada hosted the OAS General Assembly in Windsor, Ontario, in June 2000 and the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001. Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).
Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan
Since 2001, Canada has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force. Canada and the U.S. continue to integrate state and provincial agencies to strengthen security long the Canada – United States border through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.[49] Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) has participated in three major relief efforts in recent years; the two-hundred member team has been deployed in relief operations after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake in South Asia, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Kashmir earthquake in October 2005.
In February 2007, Canada, Italy, Britain, Norway, and Russia announced their funding commitments to launch a $1.5 billion project to help develop vaccines they said could save millions of lives in poor nations, and called on others to join them.[50] In August 2007, Canadian sovereignty in Arctic waters was challenged following a Russian expedition that planted a Russian flag at the seabed at the North Pole. Canada has considered that area to be sovereign territory since 1925.[51]
Provinces and territories
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Main articles: Provinces and territories of Canada and Canadian federalism
A geopolitical map of Canada, exhibiting its ten provinces and three territories
Canada is a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories; in turn, these may be grouped into regions. Western Canada consists of British Columbia and the three Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba). Central Canada consists of Quebec and Ontario. Atlantic Canada consists of the three Maritime provinces (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia), along with Newfoundland and Labrador. Eastern Canada refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together. Three territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) make up Northern Canada. Provinces have more autonomy than territories. Each has its own provincial or territorial symbols.
The provinces are responsible for most of Canada's social programs (such as health care, education, and welfare) and together collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure that reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.
All provinces have unicameral, elected legislatures headed by a Premier selected in the same way as the Prime Minister of Canada. Each province also has a Lieutenant-Governor representing the Queen, analogous to the Governor General of Canada. The Lieutenant-Governor is appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada, though with increasing levels of consultation with provincial governments in recent years.
Geography and climate
Main articles: Geography of Canada and Temperature in Canada
A satellite composite image of Canada. Boreal forests prevail on the rocky Canadian Shield. Ice and tundra are prominent in the Arctic. Glaciers are visible in the Canadian Rockies and Coast Mountains. Flat and fertile prairies facilitate agriculture. The Great Lakes feed the Saint Lawrence River (in the southeast) where lowlands host much of Canada's population.
Canada occupies a major northern portion of North America, sharing land borders with the continental United States to the south and with the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean. By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second largest country in the world—after Russia—and largest on the continent.
Rolling hills on Prince Edward Island.
By land area it ranks fourth.[52] Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60°W and 141°W longitude,[53] but this claim is not universally recognized. The northernmost settlement in Canada and in the world is Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—just 817 kilometres (450 nautical miles) from the North Pole.[54] Canada has the longest coastline in the world: 243,000 kilometres.[55]
The population density, 3.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.1/sq mi), is among the lowest in the world.[56] The most densely populated part of the country is the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River in the southeast.[57]
To the north of this region is the broad Canadian Shield, an area of rock scoured clean by the last ice age, thinly soiled, rich in minerals, and dotted with lakes and rivers. Canada by far has more lakes than any other country and has a large amount of the world's freshwater.[58][59]
A Maritime scene at Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, which has long been sustained by the Atlantic fishery
In eastern Canada, most people live in large urban centres on the flat Saint Lawrence Lowlands. The Saint Lawrence River widens into the world's largest estuary before flowing into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The gulf is bounded by Newfoundland to the north and the Maritimes to the south. The Maritimes protrude eastward along the Appalachian Mountain range from northern New England and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are divided by the Bay of Fundy, which experiences the world's largest tidal variations. Ontario and Hudson Bay dominate central Canada. West of Ontario, the broad, flat Canadian Prairies spread toward the Rocky Mountains, which separate them from British Columbia.
In northwestern Canada, the Mackenzie River flows from the Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean. A tributary of a tributary of the Mackenzie is the South Nahanni River, which is home to Virginia Falls, a waterfall about twice as high as Niagara Falls.
Mount Robson, Canadian Rockies in British Columbia.
Northern Canadian vegetation tapers from coniferous forests to tundra and finally to Arctic barrens in the far north. The northern Canadian mainland is ringed with a vast archipelago containing some of the world's largest islands.
Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary depending on the location. Winters can be harsh in many regions of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near −15 °C (5 °F) but can drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) with severe wind chills.[60] In non-coastal regions, snow can cover the ground almost six months of the year (more in the north). Coastal British Columbia is an exception and enjoys a temperate climate with a mild and rainy winter.
On the east and west coast, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts the average summer high temperature ranges from 25 to 30 °C (75 to 85 °F) with occasional extreme heat in some interior locations exceeding 40 °C (104 °F).[61][62] For a more complete description of climate across Canada see Environment Canada's Website.[63]
Canada is also geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.[64] The volcanic eruption of Tseax Cone in 1775 caused a catastrophic disaster, killing 2,000 Nisga'a people and the destruction of their village in the Nass River valley of northern British Columbia; the eruption produced a 22.5 km (14 mi) lava flow and according to legend of the Nisga'a people, it blocked the flow of the Nass River.[65]
Economy
Main articles: Economy of Canada, Economic history of Canada, and Agriculture in Canada
Canadian banknotes depicting, top to bottom, Wilfrid Laurier, John A. Macdonald, Queen Elizabeth II, William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Robert Borden
Canada is one of the world's wealthiest nations, with a high per-capita income, and is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G8. It is one of the world's top 10 trading nations.[66] Canada is a mixed market,[67] ranking lower than the U.S. but higher than most western European nations on the Heritage Foundation's index of economic freedom.[68] Since the early 1990s, the Canadian economy has been growing rapidly with low unemployment and large government surpluses on the federal level. Today Canada closely resembles the U.S. in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and high living standards.[3] As of October 2007, Canada's national unemployment rate of 5.9% is its lowest in 33 years. Provincial unemployment rates vary from a low of 3.6% in Alberta to a high of 14.6% in Newfoundland and Labrador.[69] According to the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's largest companies in 2008, Canada had 69 companies in the list, ranking 5th next to France.[70] As of 2008, the Canada’s total government debt burden is the lowest in the G8. The OECD projects that Canada’s net debt-to-GDP ratio will decline to 19.5% in 2009, less than half of the projected average of 51.9% for all G8 countries. According to these projections, Canada’s debt burden will have fallen over 50 percentage points from the peak in 1995, when it was the second highest in the G8.[71]
In the past century, the growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy into one primarily industrial and urban. As with other first world nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three quarters of Canadians.[72] However, Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of the primary sector, with the logging and oil industries being two of Canada's most important.
Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy.[3] Atlantic Canada has vast offshore deposits of natural gas and large oil and gas resources are centred in Alberta. The vast Athabasca Oil Sands give Canada the world's second largest oil reserves behind Saudi Arabia.[73] In Quebec, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba, hydroelectricity is a cheap and clean source of renewable energy.
Canada is one of the world's most important suppliers of agricultural products, with the Canadian Prairies one of the most important suppliers of wheat, canola and other grains.[74] Canada is the world's largest producer of zinc and uranium and a world leader in many other natural resources such as gold, nickel, aluminium, and lead;[75] many towns in the northern part of the country, where agriculture is difficult, exist because of a nearby mine or source of timber. Canada also has a sizeable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries.
Representatives of the Canadian, Mexican, and United States governments sign NAFTA in 1992.
Economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II. This has prompted Canadian nationalists to worry about cultural and economic autonomy in an age of globalization as American television shows, movies and corporations have become omnipresent.[76] The Automotive Products Trade Agreement in 1965 opened the borders to trade in the auto manufacturing industry. In the 1970s, concerns over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to set up the National Energy Program (NEP) and Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA).[77] In the 1980s, Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to Investment Canada to encourage foreign investment. The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free trade zone to include Mexico in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien began posting annual budgetary surpluses and began steadily paying down the national debt. Since 2001, Canada has successfully avoided economic recession and has maintained the best overall economic performance in the G8.[78]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Canada, List of cities in Canada, Ethnic groups in Canada, and Immigration to Canada
Largest Metropolitan Areas of Canada
Rank Core City Province Pop. Rank Core City Province Pop.
view • talk • edit
Toronto
Toronto
Montreal
Montreal
1 Toronto Ontario 5,113,149 11 Kitchener Ontario 451,235
2 Montreal Quebec 3,635,571 12 St. Catharines Ontario 390,317
3 Vancouver British Columbia 2,116,581 13 Halifax Nova Scotia 372,858
4 Ottawa Ontario 1,130,761 14 Oshawa Ontario 330,594
5 Calgary Alberta 1,079,310 15 Victoria British Columbia 330,088
6 Edmonton Alberta 1,034,945 16 Windsor Ontario 323,342
7 Quebec City Quebec 715,515 17 Saskatoon Saskatchewan 233,923
8 Winnipeg Manitoba 694,668 18 Regina Saskatchewan 194,971
9 Hamilton Ontario 692,911 19 Sherbrooke Quebec 186,952
10 London Ontario 457,720 20 St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador 181,113
Canada 2006 Census
Canada's 2006 census counted a total population of 31,612,897, an increase of 5.4% since 2001.[79] Population growth is from immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. About three-quarters of Canada's population live within 150 kilometres (90 mi) of the US border.[80] A similar proportion live in urban areas concentrated in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor (notably the Greater Golden Horseshoe including Toronto and area, Montreal, and Ottawa), the BC Lower Mainland (consisting of the region surrounding Vancouver), and the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor in Alberta.[81]
According to the 2006 census, there are 43 ethnic origins that at least one hundred thousand people in Canada claim in their background.[82]
The largest ethnic group is English (21%), followed by French (15.8%), Scottish (15.2%), Irish (13.9%), German (10.2%), Italian (5%), Chinese (4%), Ukrainian (3.6%), and First Nations (3.5%); Approximately, one third of respondents identified their ethnicity as "Canadian".[83] Canada's aboriginal population is growing almost twice as fast as the Canadian average, and 3.8% of Canada's population claimed aboriginal identity in 2006. Also, 16.2% of the population belonged to non-aboriginal visible minorities.
In 2001, 49% of the Vancouver population and 42.8% of Toronto's population were visible minorities. In March 2005, Statistics Canada projected that people of non-European origins will constitute a majority in both Toronto and Vancouver by 2012.[84] According to Statistics Canada's forecasts, the number of visible minorities in Canada is expected to double by 2017. A survey released in 2007 reveals that virtually 1 in 5 Canadians (19.8%) are foreign born.[85] Nearly 60% of new immigrants hail from Asia (including the Middle East).[85]
Canada has the highest per capita immigration rate in the world,[86] driven by economic policy and family reunification; Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees. Newcomers settle mostly in the major urban areas of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In the 2006 census, there were 5,068,100 people considered to belong to a visible minority, making up 16.2% of the population. Between 2001 and 2006, the visible minority population rose by 27.2 %.[87][88]
In common with many other developed countries, Canada is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2006, the average age of the civilian population was 39.5 years.[89] The census results also indicate that despite an increase in immigration since 2001 (which gave Canada a higher rate of population growth than in the previous intercensal period) the aging of Canada's population did not slow in the period.
Support for religious pluralism is an important part of Canada's political culture. According to the 2001 census,[90] 77.1% of Canadians identify as being Christians; of this, Catholics make up the largest group (43.6% of Canadians). The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada. About 16.5% of Canadians declare no religious affiliation, and the remaining 6.3% are affiliated with religions other than Christianity, of which the largest is Islam numbering 1.9%, followed by Judaism at 1.1%.
Canadian provinces and territories are responsible for education. Each system is similar, while reflecting regional history, culture and geography.[91] The mandatory school age ranges between 5–7 to 16–18 years,[91] contributing to an adult literacy rate that is 99%.[3] Postsecondary education is also administered by provincial and territorial governments, who provide most of the funding; the federal government administers additional research grants, student loans and scholarships. In 2002, 43% of Canadians aged between 25 and 64 had post-secondary education; for those aged 25 to 34 the post-secondary education rate reaches 51%.[92]
Culture
Main articles: Culture of Canada, National symbols of Canada, Sport in Canada, and Music of Canada
A Kwakwaka'wakw totem pole and traditional "big house" in Victoria, British Columbia
Canadian culture has historically been influenced by British, French, and Aboriginal cultures and traditions. It has also been influenced heavily by American culture because of its proximity and migration between the two countries. The great majority of English speaking immigrants to Canada between 1755-1815 were Americans from the Lower Thirteen Colonies who were drawn there by promises of land or exiled because of their loyalty to Britain during the American War for Independence. American media and entertainment are popular, if not dominant, in English Canada; conversely, many Canadian cultural products and entertainers are successful in the U.S. and worldwide.[93] Many cultural products are marketed toward a unified "North American" or global market.
The creation and preservation of distinctly Canadian culture are supported by federal government programs, laws and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).[94]
Canada is a geographically vast and ethnically diverse country. Canadian culture has also been greatly influenced by immigration from all over the world. Many Canadians value multiculturalism and see Canadian culture as being inherently multicultural.[21] Multicultural heritage is the basis of Section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Hockey game, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec (1901)
National symbols are influenced by natural, historical, and First Nations sources. Particularly, the use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates back to the early 18th century and is depicted on its current and previous flags, the penny, and on the coat of arms.[95] Other prominent symbols include the beaver, Canada Goose, Common Loon, the Crown, the RCMP,[95] and more recently the totem pole and Inukshuk.
Canada's official national sports are ice hockey in the winter and lacrosse in the summer.[96] Ice hockey is a national pastime and the most popular spectator sport in the country. It is the most popular sport Canadians play, with 1.65 million active participants in 2004.[97] Canada's six largest metropolitan areas – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton – have franchises in the National Hockey League (NHL), and there are more Canadian players in the league than from all other countries combined. After hockey, other popular spectator sports include curling and football; the latter is played professionally in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Golf, baseball, skiing, soccer, volleyball, and basketball are widely played at youth and amateur levels,[97] but professional leagues and franchises are not as widespread.
Canada hosted several high-profile international sporting events, including the 1976 Summer Olympics, the 1988 Winter Olympics, and the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Canada will be the host country for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia.[98][99]
Language
Main articles: Spoken languages of Canada, Official bilingualism in Canada, Canadian English, and Canadian French
The population of Montreal, Quebec is mainly French-speaking, with a significant English-speaking community.
Canada's two official languages are English and French. Official bilingualism in Canada is law, defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Official Languages Act, and Official Language Regulations; it is applied by the Commissioner of Official Languages. English and French have equal status in federal courts, Parliament, and in all federal institutions. The public has the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French, and official language minorities are guaranteed their own schools in all provinces and territories.[100]
English and French are the mother tongues of 59.7% and 23.2% of the population respectively,[101] and the languages most spoken at home by 68.3% and 22.3% of the population respectively.[102] 98.5% of Canadians speak English or French (67.5% speak English only, 13.3% speak French only, and 17.7% speak both).[103] English and French Official Language Communities, defined by First Official Language Spoken, constitute 73.0% and 23.6% of the population respectively.[104]
Although 85% of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, there are substantial Francophone populations in Ontario, Alberta and southern Manitoba, with an Acadian population in the northern and southeastern parts of New Brunswick constituting 35% of that province's population, as well as concentrations in southwestern Nova Scotia and on Cape Breton Island. Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec. The Charter of the French Language in Quebec makes French the official language in Quebec, and New Brunswick is the only province to have a statement of official bilingualism in its constitution.[105] Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and for other government services in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status but is not fully co-official. Several aboriginal languages have official status in Northwest Territories. Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut, and one of three official languages in the territory.
Non-official languages are important in Canada, with over five million people listing one as a first language.[101] Some significant non-official first languages include Chinese (853,745 first-language speakers), Italian (469,485), German (438,080), and Punjabi (271,220).[101]
International rankings
Organization Survey Ranking
State of World Liberty Project State of World Liberty Index[106] 3 out of 159
United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index 4 out of 177
A. T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine Globalization Index 2006 6 out of 111
IMD International World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007 10 out of 60
The Economist The World in 2005 - Worldwide quality-of-life index, 2005 14 out of 111
Yale University/Columbia University Environmental Sustainability Index, 2005 (pdf) 6 out of 146
Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007 18 out of 169
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2008 9 out of 180
Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom, 2008 7 out of 157
The Economist Global Peace Index 11 out of 140
Fund for Peace/ForeignPolicy.com Failed States Index, 2007 168 out of 177[107]
See also
Main article: List of basic Canada topics
Notes
1. ^ "Canada's population clock" (source code). Statistics Canada (2007-12-04). Retrieved on 2007-12-21. "StartPop = 32976026; EndPop = 33305836; StartDate = new Date(2007, 6, 1); EndDate = new Date(2008, 6, 1)"
2. ^ a b c d "Canada". International Monetary Fund. Retrieved on 2008-10-09.
3. ^ a b c d e Central Intelligence Agency (2006-05-16). "The World Factbook: Canada". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
4. ^ "Territorial evolution" (html/pdf). Atlas of Canada. Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2007-10-09. "In 1867, the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are united in a federal state, the Dominion of Canada...."
5. ^ "Canada: History" (html/pdf). Country Profiles. Commonwealth Secretariat. Retrieved on 2007-10-09. "The British North America Act of 1867 brought together four British colonies ... in one federal Dominion under the name of Canada."
6. ^ Hillmer, Norman; W. David MacIntyre. "Commonwealth" (html). Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Project. Retrieved on 2007-10-09. "With CONFEDERATION in 1867, Canada became the first federation in the British Empire ..."
7. ^ Trigger, Bruce G.; Pendergast, James F. (1978). "Saint-Lawrence Iroquoians", Handbook of North American Indians Volume 15. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 357–361. OCLC 58762737.
8. ^ Jacques Cartier (1545). "Relation originale de Jacques Cartier". Tross (1863 edition). Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
9. ^ J. E. Hodgetts. 2004. "Dominion". Oxford Companion to Canadian History, Gerald Hallowell, ed. (ISBN 0195415590) Toronto: Oxford University Press; p. 183: "The title conferred on Canada by the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867, whereby the provinces declare 'their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom'."
10. ^ Cinq-Mars, J. (2001). "On the significance of modified mammoth bones from eastern Beringia" (PDF). The World of Elephants – International Congress, Rome. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
11. ^ Wright, J.V (2001-09-27). "A History of the Native People of Canada: Early and Middle Archaic Complexes". Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
12. ^ "John Cabot =". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica.
13. ^ "Cartier, Jacques". World book Encyclopedia. World Book, Inc.. ISBN 071660101X. Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
14. ^ "Basques". The Canadian Encyclopedia. (2007). Historica.
15. ^ "Wars on Our Soil, earliest times to 1885". Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
16. ^ Moore, Christopher (1994). The Loyalist: Revolution Exile Settlement. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 0-7710-6093-9.
17. ^ David Mills. "Durham Report". Historica Foundation of Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-18.
18. ^ Farthing, John (1957). Freedom Wears a Crown. Toronto: Kingswood House. ASIN B0007JC4G2.
19. ^ a b Stacey, C.P. (1948). History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. Queen's Printer.
20. ^ Harold Troper (2000-03). "History of Immigration to Toronto Since the Second World War: From Toronto 'the Good' to Toronto 'the World in a City'". Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Retrieved on 2006-05-19.
21. ^ a b Bickerton, James & Gagnon, Alain-G & Gagnon, Alain (Eds). (2004). Canadian Politics, 4th edition, Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press. ISBN 1-55111-595-6.
22. ^ Bélanger, Claude (2000-08-03). "Quiet Revolution". Quebec History. Marionopolis College, Montreal. Retrieved on 2008.
23. ^ a b Dickinson, John Alexander; Young, Brian (2003). A Short History of Quebec, 3rd edition, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2450-9.
24. ^ "Quebecers form a nation within Canada: PM". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2006-11-22). Retrieved on 2008-07-27.
25. ^ Heritage Canada (2005-04-21). "The Queen and Canada: 53 Years of Growing Together". Heritage Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
26. ^ Governor General of Canada (2005-12-06). "Role and Responsibilities of the Governor General". Governor General of Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
27. ^ Stewart, David (2008-11-02). "Introduction: Principles of the Westminster Model of Parliamentary Democracy". Module on Parliamentary Democracy. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "Parliamentary government is also associated with the presence of a dual executive. There is a ceremonial executive, which possesses some constitutional powers as well as performing symbolic functions, and a political executive, which performs the basic governing functions (see Magstadt and Schotten, 1999; O'Neill, 1999). In the British model, the Crown now serves as the ceremonial executive (or head of state) while the Prime Minister is head of government."
28. ^ Heard, Andrew (2008). "The Executive I: Crown and Cabinet". Canadian Government (Course notes). Simon Fraser University. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "o symbolic executive: Queen (de jure head of state) ... Governor General (de facto head of state); o political executive: Canada: Privy Council, including cabinet; Prime Minister (head of government) primus inter pares; cabinet/ministry membership (32 members including the PM); o permanent executive (bureaucracy): departments, agencies, & civil service"
29. ^ Nelson Education Ltd.. "The Executive". Introduction to Canadian Government and Politics. Nelson Education Ltd.. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "The symbolic executive is composed of the Queen, who is the legal head of state of Canada, and her representatives, who fulfill the monarch's daily duties in Canada."
30. ^ Mahler, Gregory (1985). "Parliament and Congress: Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side?". Canadian Parliamentary Review. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "In Canada (and indeed most parliamentary democracies in the world today), the majority of challenges to legislative power which develop no longer come from the ceremonial executive (the Crown), but from the political executive, the government of the day."
31. ^ Commonwealth Secretariat (1999). "Women in Politics". Commonwealth Secretariat. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. "However, the British monarch continues to serve as Canada's symbolic executive, appointing a representative, the Governor-General, on the advice of the Canadian Prime Minister."
32. ^ a b "Canada's System of Justice: The Canadian Constitution". Department of Justice Canada. "The executive power in Canada is vested in the Queen. In this democratic society, this is only a constitutional convention, as the real executive power rests with the Cabinet."
"Constitution Act 1867; III.9". Queen's Printer for Canada. "The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen."
"By Executive Decree: The Governor General". Library and Archives Canada. "The governor general holds formal executive power within the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, and signs orders-in-council."
33. ^ a b "Responsible Government: Clarifying Essentials, Dispelling Myths and Exploring Change". Canada School of Public Service. "Under the constitutional convention of responsible government, the powers of the Crown are exercised by Ministers, both individually and collectively."
34. ^ Ray T. Donahue. "Diplomatic Discourse: International Conflict at the United Nations". Greenwood Publishing Group. "As Head of State ... Elizabeth II has no political power, only symbolic power"
David Stewart. "Introduction: Principles of the Westminster Model of Parliamentary Democracy". Module on Parliamentary Democracy. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Athabasca University. "the Crown now serves as the ceremonial executive"
"By Executive Decree:". Library and Archives Canada. "As Canada is a constitutional monarchy, the symbolic head of the executive is the governor general."
35. ^ McWhinney, Edward (2005). The Governor General and the Prime Ministers. Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 25. ISBN 1-55380-031-1.
"By Executive Decree: The Cabinet". Library and Archives Canada. "The Cabinet as selected and directed by the prime minister constitutes the active seat of executive power in Canada."
Joseph Magnet. "Separation of Powers in Canada". Constitutional Law of Canada. University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. "... democratic principles dictate that the bulk of the Governor General's powers be exercised in accordance with the wishes of the leadership of that government, namely the Cabinet. So the true executive power lies in the Cabinet."
"By Executive Decree: The Cabinet". Library and Archives Canada. "The Cabinet as selected and directed by the prime minister constitutes the active seat of executive power in Canada."
W.A. Matheson. "Prime Minister". The Canadian Encyclopedia. "The prime minister is the chief minister and effective head of the executive in a parliamentary system ..."
"The Prime Minister". By Executive Decree. National Archives of Canada. "While the modern governor general has only a nominal influence on the operation of the Canadian government, the prime minister's influence is decisive."
36. ^ "Canadian Cofederation: Responsible Government". Library and Archives Canada. "The Executive Council would be governed by the leader of the political party that held an elected majority in the Legislative Assembly. That same leader would also appoint the members of the Executive Council. The governor would therefore be forced to accept these "ministers", and if the majority of the members of the Legislative Assembly voted against them, they would have to resign. The governor would also be obliged to ratify laws concerning the internal affairs of the colony once these laws had been passed to the Legislative Assembly."
"The Canadian Encyclopedia: Responsible Government". Historica Foundation of Canada. "This key principle of responsibility, whereby a government needed the confidence of Parliament, originated in established British practice. But its transfer to British N America gave the colonists control of their domestic affairs, since a governor would simply follow the advice (ie, policies) of responsible colonial ministers."
"Responsible Government and Checks and Balances: The Crown". "Responsible government means that the Crown no longer has the prerogative to select or remove Ministers. They are selected and removed by the first Minister—the Prime Minister."
37. ^ "Responsible Government and Checks and Balances: The Crown". Responsible Government: Clarifying Essentials, Dispelling Myths and Exploring Change. Canada School of Public Service. "Ministers are thereby accountable to the Prime Minister who, in the Canadian tradition, has the sole power to appoint and dismiss them."
38. ^ "Constitution Act, 1867; IV". Queen's Printer for Canada. "There shall be One Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons."
39. ^ "Parliament of Canada: About the Governor General of Canada". Queen's Printer for Canada. "Parliament is the legislative branch of Government, composed of the Sovereign (represented by the Governor General), the Senate and the House of Commons."
40. ^ "The Constitution Act, 1982". Department of Justice Canada. ""52.(1) The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada, and any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect."
41. ^ Department of Justice. "Constitution Acts 1867 to 1982". Department of Justice, Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
42. ^ "The Constitution Act, 1982". Department of Justice Canada. ""38.(1)"
43. ^ Assistant Deputy Minister (Public Affairs). "The National Defence family". Department of National Defence. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
44. ^ Assistant Deputy Minister (Public Affairs). "Canadian Forces Equipment". Department of National Defence. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
45. ^ Government of Canada (2005). Canada's international policy statement : a role of pride and influence in the world (PDF), Ottawa: Government of Canada. ISBN 0-662-68608-X.
46. ^ Cooper, Andrew Fenton; Higgot, Richard A.; Nossal, Kim R. (1993). Relocating Middle Powers: Australia and Canada in a Changing World Order. Vancouver: UBC Press. ISBN 0-7748-0450-5.
47. ^ Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2006). "[CBC.ca - The Greatest Canadian - Top Ten Greatest Canadians - Lester B. Pearson at www.cbc.ca Lester B. Pearson]". CBC.ca. Retrieved on 2006-05-22.
48. ^ Morton, Desmond (1999). A Military History of Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, pg. 258. ISBN 0-7710-6514-0.
49. ^ Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative at www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca
50. ^ "Rich Nations Launch Vaccine Pact". Reuters. February 10, 2007.
51. ^ Blomfield, Adrian (2007-08-03). "Russia claims North Pole with Arctic flag stunt". Telegraph. Retrieved on 2007-09-10.
52. ^ "World Factbook: Area Country Comparison Table".
53. ^ National Resources Canada (2004-04-06). "Territorial Evolution, 1927". National Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2006-05-14.
54. ^ National Defence Canada (2006-08-15). "Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert". National Defence Canada. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
55. ^ Natural Resources Canada (2006-12-19). "CoastWeb: Facts about Canada's coastline". Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved on 2007-07-13.
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57. ^ railwaypeople.com (2006). "Quebec–Windsor Corridor Jet Train, Canada". railwaypeople.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-03.
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