The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states and the federal district of Washington DC, its capital. Measuring 9.85 million square kilometers, it is the fourth largest country in the world by total area and has more than 6 million kilometres of roads to take you from beaches to mountain peaks, busy cities to empty scrubland.
Of the 50 states, 48 are contiguous and lie between Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south). Alaska is the largest state and is located in the north west; the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific.
A massive player on the world stage, both politically and economically, the US has an abundance of natural resources.