Talk:United States

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Frequently asked questions

1. How did the article get the way it is?

Article Name, Article Introduction, Human Rights, Culture

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be auto-archived by if there are more than 2.

Detailed discussions that led to the current consensus can be found in the archives of Talk:United States. Several topical talk archives are identified in the infobox to the right. A complete list of talk archives can be found at the top of the Talk:United States page.

2. Why is the article's name "United States" and not "United States of America"?

Isn't United States of America the official name of the U.S.? I would think that United States should redirect to United States of America, not vice versa as is the current case.

This has been discussed many times. Please review the summary points below and the discussion archived at the Talk:United States/Name page. The most major discussion showed a lack of consensus to either change the name or leave it as the same, so the name was kept as "United States".

If, after reading the following summary points and all the discussion, you wish to ask a question or contribute your opinion to the discussion, then please do so at Talk:United States. The only way that we can be sure of ongoing consensus is if people contribute.

Reasons and counterpoints for the article title of "United States":

"United States" is in compliance with the Wikipedia "common name" portion of the Wikipedia article titles policy. The policy expresses a general preference for the most commonly used name, and "United States" is the most commonly used name for the country in television programs (particularly news), newspapers, magazines, books, and legal documents, including the Constitution of the United States.
- Exceptions to this policy have been and are allowed on a case-by-case basis.

If we used "United States of America", then to be consistent we would have to rename all similar articles. For example, by renaming "United Kingdom" to "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" or Mexico to "United Mexican States".
- Exceptions to guidelines are allowed. Articles are independent from one another. No rule says articles have to copy each other.
- This argument would be valid only if "United States of America" was a particularly uncommon name for the country. It shows up thrice in the Constitution, including the preamble.

Well-established encyclopedias in the English language appear to generally use a "common name" policy for article titles. More specifically, the following use "United States" for the title of the corresponding article: MSN Encarta, World Book, Encyclopedia Americana, Columbia, Grolier, and the Micropaedia and online versions of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In our effort to make Wikipedia an "encyclopedia of the highest possible quality," (Jimmy Wales, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", March 8, 2005, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>) we would do well to emulate what these well-established encyclopedias do.
- The Macropaedia version of Britannica uses "United States of America" for its article title.

With the reliability, legitimacy, and reputation of all Wikimedia Foundation projects under constant attack, Wikipedia should not hand a weapon to its critics by deviating from the "common name" policy traditionally used by encyclopedias in the English-speaking world.
- Wikipedia is supposed to be more than just another encyclopedia.

Reasons and counterpoints for the article title of "United States of America":

It is the country's official name.
- The country's name is not explicitly defined as such in the Constitution or in the law. The words "United States of America" only appear three times in the Constitution proper, once in the preamble to the Bill of Rights, and never in the body of any of the amendments. "United States" appears 51 times by itself in the original extent of the Constitution, including in the presidential oath or affirmation. The phrase "of America" is arguably just a prepositional phrase that describes the location of the United States and is not actually part of the country's name. In any case, "America" on its own never shows up.
- The Articles of Confederation explicitly name the country "The United States of America" in article one. While this is no longer binding law, the articles provide clear intent of the founders of the nation to use the name "The United States of America," with the definite article the as part of the official name.
The whole purpose of the common naming convention is to ease access to the articles through search engines. For this purpose the article name "United States of America" is advantageous over "United States" because it contains the strings "United States of America" and "United States." In this regard, "The United States of America" would be even better as it contains the strings "United States," "The United States," "United States of America," and "The United States of America."
- The purpose of containing more strings is to increase exposure to Wikipedia articles by increasing search rank for more terms. Although "The United States of America" would give you four times more commonly used terms for the United States, the United States article on Wikipedia is already the first result in queries for United States of America, The United States of America, The United States, and of course United States.

3. The United States is the oldest constitutional republic in the world! Why isn't this the case in the article?

Many American students are told the United States was the first constitutional republic in history. This is not true, however. San Marino adopted basic law on October 8, 1600, and Switzerland adopted its constitution through the Federal Charter of 1291.

Within Wikipedia articles it may be appropriate to add a modifier such as "oldest continuous, federal ..."'; however, it is more useful to explain the strength and influence of the U.S. Constitution and political system both domestically and globally. One must also be careful using the word "democratic" due to the limited franchise in early U.S. history and better explain the pioneering expansion of the democratic system and subsequent influence.

The component states of the Swiss confederation were mostly oligarchies during the 18th century, however, being much more oligarchical than most of the United States, with the exceptions of Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Connecticut.

4. Why are the Speaker of the House and Chief Justice listed as leaders in the infobox? Shouldn't it just be the President and Vice President?

The President, Vice President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are stated within the U.S. Constitution as leaders of the executive branch, two houses of Congress, and Supreme Court respectively. As the three branches of government are equal, all four leaders get mentioned under the "Government" heading in the infobox.

5. What is the motto of the United States?

There was no de jure motto of the United States until 1956, when "In God We Trust" was made such. Various other unofficial mottos existed before that, most notably "E Pluribus Unum". The debate continues on the current status of "E Pluribus Unum" (de facto motto, traditional motto, etc.), but it has been determined that it never was an official motto of the United States.

6. Is the U.S. really the world's largest economy?

The United States was the world's largest national economy from about 1880 and largest by nominal GDP from about 2014, when it surpassed the European Union. China has been larger by purchasing power parity, since about 2016.

7. Isn't it incorrect to refer to it as "America" or its people as "American"?

In English, America (when not preceded by "North", "Central", or "South") almost always refers to the United States, and Americans usually always refers to U.S. citizens. The large supercontinent is called the Americas.

8. Why isn't the treatment of Native Americans given more weight?

The article is written in summary style, and the sections "Indigenous peoples" and "European colonization" summarize the situation.

9. Aren't U.S. territories part of the United States?

The territories under U.S. sovereignty are sometimes described by reliable sources^[1] as part of the United States, and territories are treated as domestic for certain purposes like export controls. For other purposes, some territories are considered to be possessions of the United States under U.S. sovereignty, but not part of the country. As Territories of the United States explains, under the Insular Cases, some territories (e.g., Territory of Hawaii, 1900–1959) have been incorporated and made fully part of the United States. All five currently inhabited territories are legally unincorporated, so provisions of the U.S. Constitution like birthright citizenship do not necessarily apply there. However, all except American Samoa do confer birthright citizenship. Unincorporated U.S. territories field their own teams at the Olympics. Puerto Rico is within the main customs territory of the United States, but all other territories are outside of it. Wikipedia remains neutral on whether U.S. territories are part of the United States, as the claim is disputed. Wikipedia generally avoids the issue by stating that the U.S. asserts sovereignty over the unincorporated territories and explaining the details of the relationship where appropriate. (The U.S. territories are also different from the Freely Associated States, which undisputedly retain their own sovereignty and are not part of the United States, even though they make use of U.S. federal services for mail delivery, disaster relief, telecom and aviation regulations, and defense.)

10. The United States has become a dictatorship/fascist state! Why doesn't the article call it so in the infobox or elsewhere?

Wikipedia is not a political advocacy site or a place to "set the record straight"; its content relies on independent, reliable sources and must correlate in proportion to those sources with a neutral point of view. Though the U.S. government has been accused of democratic backsliding by some, the article will not label the country as a dictatorship or autocratic state until the majority of political scholars agree. Otherwise, calling it so would be original research.

References

^ e.g. NBC News: Puerto Rico Is Part Of the U.S.: Here's A Few Things to Know

Warning: active arbitration remedies

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

United States was one of the Geography and places good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 15, 2005	Good article nominee	Listed
May 7, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
May 8, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
May 18, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
July 3, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
September 21, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
October 19, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
June 19, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 9, 2008	Good article reassessment	Kept
June 27, 2009	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
September 6, 2009	Peer review	Reviewed
January 19, 2011	Peer review	Reviewed
March 18, 2012	Good article reassessment	Delisted
August 10, 2012	Good article nominee	Not listed
January 21, 2015	Good article nominee	Listed
February 22, 2020	Good article reassessment	Delisted
December 19, 2020	Peer review	Reviewed
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 3, 2015. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the United States* accounts for 37% of all global military spending?*
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on July 4, 2008.
Current status: Delisted good article

United States: Government Top‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject U.S. Government.
	This article was a past U.S. Collaboration of the Month.

North America Top‑importance

	North America portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject North America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of North America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.North AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject North AmericaTemplate:WikiProject North AmericaNorth America
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.

Countries

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry

WikiProject Countries to-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy.
Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries
Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region.
Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

"The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008". The Daily Telegraph. August 17, 2009.
"Topics that spark Wikipedia 'edit wars' revealed". BBC News. July 18, 2013. Retrieved July 18, 2013.

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This article has been viewed enough times to make it onto the all-time Top 100 list. It has had 237 million views since December 2007.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 46 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Section sizes

Section size for United States (52 sections)
Section name	Byte count		Prose size (words)
Section name	Header	Total	Header	Total
(Top)	22,490	22,490	579	579
Etymology	6,278	6,278	288	288
History	113	77,162	0	3,119
Indigenous peoples	2,507	2,507	150	150
European exploration, colonization and conflict (1513–1765)	9,875	9,875	389	389
American Revolution and the early republic (1765–1800)	5,995	5,995	493	493
Westward expansion and Civil War (1800–1865)	15,365	15,365	667	667
Reconstruction, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era (1866–1917)	13,659	13,659	651	651
World War I, Great Depression, and World War II (1917–1945)	5,321	5,321	227	227
Cold War and social revolution (1945–1991)	8,132	8,132	315	315
Contemporary (1991–present)	16,195	16,195	227	227
Geography	7,808	20,325	350	806
Climate	5,444	5,444	201	201
Biodiversity and conservation	7,073	7,073	255	255
Government and politics	7,093	54,996	84	1,674
Federal government	12,698	12,698	92	92
Subdivisions	4,951	4,951	251	251
Political parties	2,464	2,464	91	91
Foreign relations	11,673	11,673	332	332
Military	8,681	8,681	417	417
Law enforcement and criminal justice	7,436	7,436	407	407
Economy	22,582	47,986	758	1,805
Science and technology	6,876	11,963	241	454
Spaceflight	5,087	5,087	213	213
Energy	3,286	3,286	113	113
Transportation	10,155	10,155	480	480
Demographics	63	37,310	0	1,506
Population	6,674	6,674	249	249
Language	6,009	6,009	264	264
Immigration	3,219	3,219	141	141
Religion	6,807	6,807	151	151
Urbanization	1,817	1,817	65	65
Health	5,585	5,585	270	270
Education	7,136	7,136	366	366
Culture and society	16,952	80,351	540	3,612
Literature	6,306	6,306	434	434
Mass media	6,371	6,371	350	350
Theater	2,714	2,714	190	190
Visual arts	4,505	4,505	345	345
Music	8,847	8,847	363	363
Fashion	3,940	3,940	171	171
Cinema	8,797	8,797	250	250
Cuisine	11,107	11,107	463	463
Sports	10,812	10,812	506	506
See also	224	224	0	0
Notes	472	472	0	0
References	30	16,252	0	0
Sources	16,222	16,222	0	0
External links	504	2,598	0	44
Government	496	496	0	0
History	272	272	0	0
Maps	1,326	1,326	44	44
Total	366,444	366,444	13,433	13,433

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 November 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change official language of United States to English - de facto. Trumps executive order cannot change laws or federal statute ~2025-34906-53 (talk) 03:46, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: Executive Order still valid Untamed1910 (talk) 03:53, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 December 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Category:Empries ~2025-34061-41 (talk) 18:07, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Please don't create duplicate sections when you're requesting the same thing. Thank you. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 18:10, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: I presume you are asking for Category:Empires to be added to the article. While we do have an article on American imperialism (which is in that category already), the United States is not an empire in any formal sense of the word, so adding the category would not be appropriate. No other contemporary countries are included in the category. Day Creature (talk) 19:34, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 December 2025 (2)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Category:Empires Category:Overseas empires ~2025-34061-41 (talk) 22:06, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: I presume you are asking for Category:Empires to be added to the article. While we do have an article on American imperialism (which is in that category already), the United States is not an empire in any formal sense of the word, so adding the category would not be appropriate. No other contemporary countries are included in the category. Untamed1910 (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[1] .g. NBC News: Puerto Rico Is Part Of the U.S.: Here's A Few Things to Know

[1]