U.S. States

The United States is a federal state composed of fifty states. The U.S. states share sovereignty with the federal government, delegating to it a number of powers defined by the Constitution of the United States, including national defense, foreign relations, and others. At the same time, the states retain substantial independence in many important areas, such as law enforcement, education, healthcare, and transportation.

Each state is governed according to the same system of separation of powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—as the federal government of the United States. The legislatures of forty-nine states are bicameral, like the United States Congress; the only exception is Nebraska, whose legislature has a single chamber. The head of a state’s executive branch is the governor.

The United States Congress has the authority to admit new states into the Union. The most recent state to join the United States was Hawaii, which became a state in 1959. At present, the most likely candidate for the 51st state is Puerto Rico.

The Constitution of the United States does not explicitly address whether a state has the right to secede from the Union. In 1861, attempts by southern states to secede led to the American Civil War, after which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that unilateral secession is illegal.

In the official names of forty-six U.S. states, the word “state” is included (for example, State of Colorado). Four U.S. states use the designation “Commonwealth”: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. This distinction is historical in nature, and there are no legal differences in status between states with different official designations.

In the United States, states are further divided into counties (or county equivalents), consolidated city-counties (cities that have the status of a county), and independent cities (cities that are not part of any county). A special status is held by the federal district of District of Columbia, which contains the city of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.

Depending on which region of the United States a given state belongs to, states are grouped into the Northeastern states, the Midwestern states, the Southern states и the Western states of the United States.