U.S. state

[[pl:Podzia%B3 terytorialny Stan%F3w Zjednoczonych]] 

The state¹ is the primary political subdivision of the United States. Some potentially confusing facts concerning U.S. states include:

• Four of the "states" are officially commonwealths: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
• "Delaware" is the name of a state, the name of a county in several states, and a river that runs between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
• "Georgia" is the name of both a U.S. state and an independent nation in Caucasia.
• "New York" is all three: a state, a county in that state, and a city in that state.
• "Washington" is a state, a city in the District of Columbia (and thus not part of any state), and a number of cities and counties in various states.

File:US state abbrev map.gif

The states, with their US postal abbreviations and capitals, are:

AL Alabama - Montgomery AK Alaska - Juneau AZ Arizona - Phoenix AR Arkansas - Little Rock CA California - Sacramento CO Colorado - Denver CT Connecticut - Hartford DE Delaware - Dover FL Florida - Tallahassee GA Georgia -- Atlanta HI Hawaii - Honolulu ID Idaho - Boise IL Illinois - Springfield IN Indiana - Indianapolis IA Iowa - Des Moines KS Kansas - Topeka KY Kentucky - Frankfort LA Louisiana - Baton Rouge ME Maine - Augusta MD Maryland - Annapolis MA Massachusetts - Boston MI Michigan - Lansing MN Minnesota - Saint Paul MS Mississippi - Jackson MO Missouri - Jefferson City

MT Montana - Helena NE Nebraska - Lincoln NV Nevada - Carson City NH New Hampshire - Concord NJ New Jersey - Trenton NM New Mexico - Santa Fe NY New York - Albany NC North Carolina - Raleigh ND North Dakota - Bismarck OH Ohio - Columbus OK Oklahoma - Oklahoma City OR Oregon - Salem PA Pennsylvania - Harrisburg RI Rhode Island - Providence SC South Carolina - Columbia SD South Dakota - Pierre TN Tennessee - Nashville TX Texas - Austin UT Utah - Salt Lake City VT Vermont - Montpelier VA Virginia - Richmond WA Washington - Olympia WV West Virginia - Charleston WI Wisconsin - Madison WY Wyoming - Cheyenne

In addition to its states, the United States also has numerous areas of territory directly under federal control such as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. See United States.

For a similar map with some more detail on the east coast, see http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/graphics/states.gif

For a table with area and population figures, see the Polish ("Polski") version of this page.

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Other State Trivia (for states of the United States)

1. Two states have been independent, sovereign nations in their own right before becoming states of the U.S. These are Texas, once the Republic of Texas, also known as the Lone Star Republic because of the single star on their flag, and Hawai'i, once the Kingdom of Hawai'i. The United States also illegally consumed another entire sovereign nation, one which had been officially recognized by the Supreme Court as a sovereign nation with all the rights pertaining thereto: the Cherokee Nation (also see the Trail of Tears). Utah also was the core of what had been planned to be the Mormon nation of Deseret, but it never came to be.

2. There is one state, and only one state, that has two sections so that a person can travel between the two sections only by going outside the state, whether traveling by land, air, or water. This is Kentucky, due to an accident of history whereby the boundaries were set as the north shore of the Ohio River and a parallel. The second section, known as the Kentucky Bend, is a small area at the very western tip of the state.

3. There is only one state named after a U.S. president (or after a person born within the U.S., for that matter): Washington.

4. Only one state has been directly divided into three states -- or, more accurately, has had two other states split off from it. This is Virginia, and the two segregate states are Kentucky and West Virginia.

5. The first two states added after U.S. independence were Vermont and Kentucky.

6. One state upon joining the United States retained the right to divide itself into up to five separate states. This was a condition of the statehood of Texas.

7. Only two states have state capitals named for the state (however, this is a very common practice with states and provinces in other countries, where the state or province is actually often named after the capital city): Oklahoma, with capital Oklahoma City, and Indiana, with capital Indianapolis (which means Indiana City).

8. The first state to extend suffrage to women was Wyoming. It was felt that this would help to lure more women to the frontier.

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¹ Note that this is somewhat confusing, in that the word state also refers to sovereign politicial entities, such as the United States (see state).

(Other countries with states in this sense include Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Nigeria. The term "state" is also used to translate the German term "Bundesland" in many English language articles about the Federal Republic of Germany.)