United States Of America Culture

Presented By:- Gaurav

Mittal & Pulkit Pruthi
 Introduction
 The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the
U.S., the USA, or America) comprising of 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.
 Etymology
 In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he
named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer
Amerigo Vespucci.

 The former British colonies first used the country's modern name in the
Declaration of Independence, the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776.

 On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the

Articles of Confederation, which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United
States of America.'" The Franco-American treaties of 1778 used "United States of North
America", but from July 11, 1778, "United States of America" was used on the country's
bills of exchange, and it has been the official name ever since.
 General Introduction
 Capital Washington D.C.
 Largest City New York City
 Demonym American
 Government Federal Presidential Constitutional
republic
 President Barack Obama
 Vice President Joe Biden
 Speaker John Boehner
 Chief Justice John Roberts
 Contd…..
 Legislature Congress
 Independence July 4, 1776 ( from Britain)
 Recognized Sep 3, 1783
 Curr. Constitution June 21, 1788
 Currency USD ( $ )
 Time Zone Utc (- 5 to- 10 )
Geographical Description
 Contd………
 The land area of the United States is approximately 1.9 billion acres (770 million hectares).

Alaska, separated from the United States by Canada, is the largest state at 365 million acres
(150 million hectares). Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of
North America, has just over 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares).

 The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area (land and water),

ranking behind Russia and Canada and just below China.

Contd………
The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south),
and a territorial water border with Russia in the northwest. The contiguous forty-eight states
are otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and
the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast.

Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is
referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United
States, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United
States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada.
The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia, is a federal district located on land
donated by the state of Maryland.
Map Of United States
 Climate Of United States
• The United States includes a wide variety of climate types due to its large size, range of
geographic features, and non-contiguous arrangement. The southern tip of Florida is tropical,
Much of the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Range are alpine. The
climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California,
and oceanic in coastal Oregon and Washington.

• The state of Alaska—on the northwestern corner of the North American continent—is largely
subarctic, with an oceanic climate in its southern edge and a polar climate in the north. The
archipelago state of Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is tropical.

• Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to
hurricanes, and tornadoes regularly occur in the area of the Midwest referred to as
Tornado Alley. The United States has more tornadoes than the rest of the countries of the
world combined
American Culture
 Social Culture
 The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions,
and values The culture held in common by most Americans—mainstream American
culture—is a Western culture largely derived from the
traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as
traditions brought by slaves from Africa.

 More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix
that has been described as both a homogenizing melting pot and a heterogeneous salad bowl in
which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.

 According to Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions analysis, the United States has the highest
individualism score of any country studied, While the mainstream culture holds that the
United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the
country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.
 Contd…
 Women now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of
bachelor's degrees. In 2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6%
were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married.
Same-sex marriage is contentious. Since 2003, several states have permitted gay
marriage as the result of judicial or legislative action.

 The American middle and professional class has initiated many contemporary
social trends such as modern feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism.
Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated
with their occupations to an unusually close degree.
 Food Culture
 Mainstream American cuisine is similar to that in other Western countries. Wheat is the
primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, venison,
potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by
Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab
cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles.

 Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive
from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and
tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.
 Contd….
 Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is
largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast
beverages.

 Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages

account for 9% of the average American's caloric intake.
 Sports Culture
 Since the late 19th century, baseball has been regarded as the national sport
; American football, basketball, and ice hockey are the country's three
other leading professional team sports.

 Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but
they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR,
Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular as well.

 While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices,
basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are
American inventions.
 Musical Culture
 The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African American music have deeply influenced
American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk
idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and
transformed into popular genres with global audiences.

 Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the
20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, and rhythm and blues in the 1940s.

 . Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were among the mid-1950s pioneers of rock and roll. In the
1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's most celebrated
songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations
include hip hop and house music.
Religion Culture
 Religion in the country
 Religion in the United States has both a very wide diversity in religious
beliefs and practices, and a high adherence level.

 The majority of Americans (76%) identify themselves as Christians, mostly

within Protestant and Catholic denominations, accounting for 51% and
25% of the population respectively.

 Non-Christian religions (including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and

Judaism), collectively make up about 3.9% to 5.5% of the adult
population.
Contd….
 Another 15% of the adult population identifies as having no religious
belief or no religious affiliation, When asked, about 5.2% said they did not
know, or refused to reply.

 According to recent surveys, 83 percent of Americans claim to belong to a

religious denomination, 40 percent claim to attend services nearly every
week or more, and 58 percent claim to pray at least weekly.
 Religious Preferences Of Americans
 Christianity: (76% to 82.3%)
 Unaffiliated, including atheist or agnostic (11.6% to 15%)
 Judaism (1.2% to 2.2%)
 Islam (0.6% to 2.6%)
 Buddhism (0.5% to 0.9%)
 Hinduism (0.4%)
 Other (1.4%)
 Language Culture
 English is the de facto national language of the United States, with 82% of the
population claiming it as a mother tongue, and some 96% claiming to speak it
"well" or "very well". However, no official language exists at the Federal level.

 The variety of English spoken in the United States is known as American English;
together with Canadian English it makes up the group of dialects known as
North American English.

 Spanish is the second most common language in the country, and is spoken by over
12% of the population. The United States holds the world's fifth largest Spanish-
speaking population, outnumbered only by Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and
Colombia.
Contd…
 According to the 2000 US census, people of German ancestry make up the largest
single ethnic group in the United States, and the German language ranks fifth.

 Italian, Polish, and Greek are still widely spoken among populations descending
from immigrants from those countries in the early 20th century, but the use of these
languages is decreasing as older generations pass away. Russian is also spoken by
immigrant populations.

 Tagalog and Vietnamese have over one million speakers in the United States,
almost entirely within recent immigrant populations. Both languages, along with
the varieties of the Chinese language, Japanese, and Korean, are now used in
elections in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington.
 Main Languages
 English 82.1%
 Spanish 10.7%
 Indo-European 3.7 %

 Pacific Islands 2.7%

 Other Language 0.7%

 Work Culture
 Depending on the company and your role in the organization this may
vary, but in general people tend to work only 8 hours in US. People go to
work around 8 AM and take off from work at 4:30 PM.

 Some companies have flexible hours option, they allow their employees to
work at their convenient time.

 Some come in late may be around 10 AM and work till 6:30 PM. Some
people like to work early, they come in at 6 AM and leave around 3 PM.
 The goal is to work 8 hours.
 Contd…
 Some  companies are even more flexible, they let you work from home on

few days a week. So, it entirely depends on the organizations.

 If you work more than 8 hours, then you ask for compensation off time, if

you are full time employee or bill the client for extra hours if you are
consultant (contractor).
THANK YOU