Political divisions of the United States

The primary political entity of the United States is the state. Four states—Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—call themselves "commonwealths." The word commonwealth in this context refers to the common "wealth", or welfare, of the public.[9] The term has no legal impact.[10]

In 1777 the 13 colonies that had declared independence from Great Britain one year earlier (July 1776) agreed to the formation of a confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation, with an extremely limited central government. A new national frame of government came into force in 1789, when the current U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles. This constitution incorporates the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches, as well as concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government.

On numerous occasions the United States Supreme Court has affirmed that the 50 individual states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions under the Constitution.[1] Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside.[11] States, however, are not sovereign in the Westphalian sense in international law which says that each State has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another State's domestic affairs, and that each State (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law.[12] Additionally, the 50 U.S. states do not possess international legal sovereignty, meaning that they are not recognized by other sovereign States such as, for example, France, Germany or the United Kingdom.[12]

The 50 states of the United States of America are as follows (this list includes both the postal code abbreviation and the traditional abbreviation for each state):

Map of United States with state border lines. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.

The 50 states can be divided into regions in many different ways.

• The continental United States typically refers to the main block of 48 states and their off-shore islands with the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Pacific Ocean to the west, Canada to the north, and Mexico to the south. Since this grouping contains 48 states, it is also commonly referred to as "the Lower 48". The designation "coterminous" or "contiguous" United States is also used for this grouping of 48 states, arguably more accurately, since Alaska is also located on the North American continent, and therefore "continental United States" should really refer to the Lower 48, plus Alaska.
• Alaska is an exclave of the United States, physically connected only to Canada.
• Hawaii is located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.

The states are divided into smaller administrative regions, called counties in all but two states. In Alaska, the county equivalents are called boroughs (parts of the state which are not included in any borough are considered part of the Unorganized Borough, which itself is divided into census areas), and in Louisiana, the county equivalents are called parishes. Counties have varying degrees of political and legal significance. In some states, mainly in New England, they are primarily used as judicial districts. In other states, counties have broad powers in housing, education, transportation and recreation.

Counties may contain a number of cities, towns, villages, or hamlets, or sometimes just a part of a city. Some cities are consolidated with, and coterminous with, their counties, including Philadelphia, Honolulu, San Francisco, Nashville, and Denver—that is to say, these counties consist in their entirety of a single municipality the government of which also operates as the county government. Some counties, such as Arlington County, Virginia, do not have any additional subdivisions. Some states contain independent cities that are not part of any county. Each of the five boroughs of New York City is coterminous with a county.

In many states, counties are further divided into townships. In New York, Wisconsin and New England, county subdivisions are called towns. States not having such subdivisions may divide counties into other minor civil divisions. The terms "township" and "town" are closely related (in many historical documents the terms are used interchangeably). However, the powers granted to townships or towns vary considerably from state to state. In New England, towns are a principal form of local government, providing many of the functions of counties in other states. In California, by contrast, the pertinent statutes of the Government Code clarify that "town" is simply another word for "city", especially a general law city as distinct from a charter city. Also, in some states, large areas have no general-purpose local government below the county level.

Some townships or other minor civil divisions have governments and political power; others are simply geographic designations. Townships in many states are generally the product of the Public Land Survey System. For more information, see survey township and civil township.

There are approximately 30,000 incorporated cities in the United States, with varying degrees of self-rule.

A separate federal district, the District of Columbia (DC), which is under the direct authority of Congress, was formed by the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 from land ceded to the Federal Government by the states of Maryland and Virginia; however, the territory ceded by Virginia was returned to that state in 1846. The District does not form part of any state and the United States Congress exercises "exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever", over the city; however, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act provides for limited home rule, including an elected mayor and city council.

•  District of Columbia (DC; D.C.)

U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, showing the location of each U.S. territory

The insular areas of the United States are those U.S. territories that are neither a part of one of the 50 states nor the federal district.[13] They are classified by whether they are incorporated (part of the United States proper) and whether they have an organized government through an Organic Act passed by the U.S. Congress.[14] Insular areas are administered by the Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs.

Since the creation in 1787 of the first territory beyond the existing states, the Northwest Territory, the federal government has established numerous organized incorporated territories, with some political autonomy. These jurisdictions (or portions thereof) subsequently became states. Thirty-one of the current 50 states were organized incorporated territories, or part of one, before their admission to the Union. No incorporated organized territories have existed since 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii joined the Union.

Currently, five territories are self-governing. The current inhabited unincorporated territories of the United States and their ISO 3166-1 codes (in parentheses) are as follows:

•  American Samoa (AS) (unorganized; self-governing)
•  Guam (GU) (organized under Organic Act of 1950)
•  Northern Mariana Islands (MP) (commonwealth, organized under 1977 Covenant)
•  Puerto Rico (PR) (commonwealth, organized under Public Law 600 of 1950)
•  United States Virgin Islands (VI) (organized under Revised Organic Act of 1954)

Guam and Puerto Rico, both gained by the United States in the Spanish–American War, are considered part of the "United States" for purposes of law;[15] on the other hand, the United States Supreme Court declared in a series of opinions known as the Insular Cases that the Constitution extended ex proprio vigore to the territories. However, the Court in these cases also established the doctrine of territorial incorporation. Under the same, the Constitution only applied fully in incorporated territories such as Alaska and Hawaii, whereas it only applied partially in the new unincorporated territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.[16][17]

In a 2016 Supreme Court ruling called Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, the court ruled that territories don't have their own sovereignty.[18]

Since 1959, there has been a single incorporated territory: Palmyra Atoll (formerly part of the Hawaii Territory, but excluded from the Hawaii Admission Act). The following uninhabited territories, all of which are unorganized, form the United States Minor Outlying Islands (UM):

• Baker Island (administered as the Baker Island National Wildlife Refuge)
• Howland Island (administered as the Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge)
• Jarvis Island (administered as the Jarvis Island National Wildlife Refuge)
• Johnston Atoll (administered as the Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge)
• Kingman Reef (administered as the Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge)
• Midway Atoll (administered as the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge; small number of contractors present)
• Navassa Island (administered as the Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge; (disputed with Haiti)
• Palmyra Atoll (administered as the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge; small number of people present)
• Wake Atoll (administered as the Wake Atoll National Wildlife Refuge; small number of contractors present; disputed with the Marshall Islands)

The United States government is part of several international disputes over the disposition of certain maritime and insular areas, which it claims as territories. Bajo Nuevo Bank and Serranilla Bank are two such disputed claims.

American Indian reservations are areas of land managed by an American Indian tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. There are about 310 Indian reservations in the United States. Tribes possess limited tribal sovereignty over the land in their reservation. As a result, laws on tribal lands may vary from the surrounding area.[19] The tribal council, not the county or state government, generally has jurisdiction over reservations. Different reservations have different systems of government, which may or may not replicate the forms of government found outside the reservation. Most Indian reservations were established by the federal government; a limited number, mainly in the East, owe their origin to state recognition.[20]

Residents of a reservation may vote as residents of a state and are required to pay federal taxes. The special status of reservations has created both opportunities (such as gambling in states that normally disallow it) and challenges (such as the unwillingness of some companies to do business in an area where they are not certain what laws will apply to them).

The two former unincorporated U.S. territories are:

• Panama Canal Zone (1903–1979)
• The Philippine Islands (1898–1946)

Additionally, the United States administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands from July 18, 1947 until October 1, 1994. The trust territory was subsequently divided into four political entities. One, the Northern Mariana Islands, listed above, became an unincorporated U.S. territory, while three—Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau—became independent nations. All three have become freely associated with the United States under a Compact of Free Association.

Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution for the United States of America defines the extent of the authority that the U.S. Congress exercises over the territory of the United States:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

The power of Congress over territorial divisions that are not part of one of the states is exclusive and universal. Once a territory becomes a state of the Union, the state must consent to any changes pertaining to the jurisdiction of that state. The only potential violation of this occurred when the legislature of Virginia declared the secession of Virginia from the United States at the start of the American Civil War and a newly formed alternative Virginia legislature, recognized by the federal government, consented to have West Virginia secede from Virginia.

On March 3, 1849, the last day of the 30th Congress, a bill was passed to create the U.S. Department of the Interior to take charge of the internal affairs of United States territory. The Interior Department has a wide range of responsibilities (which include the regulation of territorial governments, the basic responsibilities for public lands, and other various duties).

In contrast to similarly named Departments in other countries, the United States Department of the Interior is not responsible for local government or for civil administration except in the cases of Indian reservations, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and island dependencies, through the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA).