The United States of America—commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America—is a constitutional federal 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.

Capital cities
New York
Chicago
Washington D.C.
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Boston

Area
Land and water: 9,629,091 Km2

Population
The USA – approximately 11.2 million.

(New York: 8,250,567; Chicago: 2,833,321; Washington DC: 5,306,565; Los Angeles: 3,849,378; San Francisco: 4,203,898; Boston: 4,482,857).

Languages
The United States does not have an official language; however, the majority of the population speaks English as a native language (about 82%.) The Spanish language is the second-most common language in the country, spoken by almost 30 million people. Both Spanish and English have the status of official language.

Religion
Most people are Christian (71%), although all other religions including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism are freely practiced.

Economic profile
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. The United States is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter. The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer. It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, sulfur, phosphates, and salt.

Currency
The United States dollar (sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$.

Climate
mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the Mississippi River, and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest; low winter temperatures in the northwest are ameliorated occasionally in January and February by warm chinook winds from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.