Key Takeaways
The United States is the third largest state in the world , just after Russia and Canada . The entire body politic has a total field of 3.8 million solid international mile ( 9.8 million square kilometers),according tothe U.S. Census bureau . Buthow many states are in the U.S.A. ?
Since 1959 , 50 United States Department of State have been part of the United States , not 52 as some might think . But the U.S. also admit the federal District of Columbia ( Washington , D.C. ) , two commonwealths ( Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas Island ) plus several inhabitedterritories(Guam , American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands ) and numerous uninhabited minor territory .
The 50 U.S. States and Capitals
How a Territory Becomes a State
Thirty - two U.S. territories have already become United States Department of State , admit Hawaii . President William McKinley advocate the United States to annex Hawaii in 1898 . Hawaii became a territory in 1900 and eventually a body politic in 1959 . So how do territories become states ? It ’s publish mightily in the Constitution :
But before even that , Congress must establish an constituent act , which is an human action that establishes a dominion of the United States and specifies how it is to be governed . constitutive acts also can make agencies to wield certain Union lands . For example , the Organic Act of 1890 create freestanding Oklahoma and Indian Territories , and the Organic Act of 1916 establish the National Park Service ( NPS ) andNational Park System .
