About America

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie in central North America 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 the state of Hawaii is in the mid-Pacific. The United States also possesses fourteen territories, or insular areas, that are scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 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 nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. Its national economy is the largest in the world, with a nominal 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$13 trillion.

The nation was founded by the thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. After proclaiming themselves as "states," they issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The rebellious states defeated Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.

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. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments, was ratified in 1791. In the nineteenth century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. The American Civil War ended slavery in the United States and prevented a permanent split of the country. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed its status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The sole remaining superpower in the post–Cold War era, the United States is perceived by many as the dominant economic, political, cultural, and military force in the world

About Missouri

      Missouri (pronounced mɪˈzʊɹi or mɪˈzʊɹə) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States of America bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the eighteenth most populous state and is made up of 114 counties and one independent city. Missouri's capital is Jefferson City and four largest urban areas are, in descending order, St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. Missouri was originally purchased from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase and part of the Missouri Territory was admitted into the union as the 24th state in 1821.

     Missouri mirrors the demographic, economic and political makeup of the nation as a mixture of urban and rural culture and has long been considered a political bellwether state. It is a state with both Midwestern and Southern cultural influences, reflecting its history as a border state between the two regions. It is also a blend between the eastern and western United States as St. Louis is often called the "western-most eastern city" and Kansas City the "eastern-most western city." Missouri's geography is also highly varied, the northern part of the state lies in dissected till plains while the southern part lies in the Ozark Mountains, with the Missouri River dividing the two. The confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers is located near St. Louis.

     Missouri's borders physically touch a total of eight different states, as does its neighbor, Tennessee. No state in the U.S. touches more than eight states. Missouri is bounded on the north by Iowa; on the east, across the Mississippi River, by Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee; on the south by Arkansas; and on the west by Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska (the latter across the Missouri River.) The two largest Missouri rivers are the Mississippi which defines the eastern boundary of the state and the Missouri that flows west to east through the state connecting the two largest cities, Kansas City and St. Louis.

     Although today the state is usually considered part of the Midwest, Missouri is also occasionally historically considered a Southern state, the institution of slavery in the state contributing in no small part to this. Residents of cities farther north and the state's large metropolitan areas, including those where most of the state's population resides (Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia), typically consider themselves Midwestern, while in rural areas and cities farther south (Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Springfield, and Sikeston), people typically consider themselves more Southern.