50 Most Amazing Things About America Today

The U.S. is the third largest country in the world by land mass — nearly as big as the entire continent of Europe.

American athletes have won more Olympic medals than athletes from any other country.

The U.S. is the only country that falls within five different climate zones.

The U.S. attracts more tourists than every country in the world after Spain and France.

Lake Superior is the largest body of freshwater in the world by surface area.

The Pentagon — headquarters of the Department of Defense — is the largest office building by floor area in the world.

The only people to have walked on the moon’s surface are Americans.

The U.S. is home to more than 40 million immigrants — more than any other country in the world.

Much of the music the world listens to — jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, country, folk, R&B, soul, and gospel — came out of the U.S.

The U.S. film industry is the largest, oldest, and most profitable film industry in the world. The film industry generated about $11.4 billion in 2016, nearly double the amount generated in China, the world’s second-largest film industry.

More than nine in every 10 Americans have eaten pizza in the last month. According to some estimates, Americans consume the equivalent of about 100 acres of pizza every day.

Nearly one-third of all land in the U.S. — or 650 million acres — is federally owned.

On any given day in U.S., about 84.8 million adults — 37% of the adult population — consume fast food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Foreign investors own 27.3 million acres of U.S. farmland, an area about the size of Virginia.

The U.S. was the first nation to use the title of “President” for its head of state.

The U.S. is at the center of global invention. Airplanes, computers, cellphones, potato chips, and the light bulb are just a few examples.

There are an estimated 75.8 million dogs in the U.S., more than double the number in Brazil, the country with the second most dogs.

Though the U.S. is home to less than 5% of the world’s population, it is responsible for nearly 25% of global economic output.

The U.S. became the world’s largest petroleum producer in the last 10 years. The U.S. produced 15.6 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2017, 3.5 million more than Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-biggest petroleum producer.

The current iteration of the American flag was designed by a high school student.

There are more guns than people in the United States — about 101 for every 100 people, according to some estimates. The country with the next highest ownership rate is Serbia, where there are 58 guns for every 100 people.

Some 45.2 million Americans identify as ancestrally German, more than any other nationality.

The U.S. is one of only three countries that has not officially switched to the metric system. Liberia and Burma are the other two.

The typical wage or salary worker in the U.S. has been with their current employer for 4.2 years.

The government chose to color U.S. currency green as an anti-counterfeiting strategy. When the color was adopted in the 19th century, cameras could only take black and white photographs, making imitation bills difficult to produce.

Over half of the U.S. population lives in just nine states — California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina.

The number of passports held by Americans leaped to 21.4 million in 2017, the most ever recorded.

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 57% of Americans believe that individuals control their own success in life, the largest share of any country surveyed.

The U.S. is one of most mobile nations on Earth. According to a Gallup poll, 24% of U.S. adults reported moving within the country in the past five years.

Three out of every four tornadoes in the world occur in the United States.

The U.S. has won more Nobel Prizes than any other country.

The U.S. ranks among the top 10 countries in the world for the number of mammal, reptile, fish, and vascular plant species.

The U.S. has over 3.1 million square miles of forest land, more than every country in the world after Canada, Brazil, and Russia.

Super Bowl XLIX was the most watched broadcast in U.S. television history. An estimated 114.4 million people tuned in to watch the big game in 2015 — equal to more than a third of the U.S. population.

New Census Bureau projections predict the U.S. will be “minority white” — 49.7% — by 2045.

An estimated 96% of Americans use the internet, compared with about 54% of the global population.

The U.S. is one of the most generous nations in the world, trailing only Australia, Indonesia, and New Zealand, according to the 2018 World Giving Index – published annually by international nonprofit organization Charities Aid Foundation.

The U.S. has about 12,380 miles of coastline, more than all but eight other countries worldwide.

Founded in Arkansas in 1962, Walmart is the world’s largest private-sector employer, providing 2.2 million jobs.

Manhattan’s Chinatown is home to more Chinese residents than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

The U.S. has the world’s strongest higher education system and draws over a million international students a year, the most of any country.

The U.S. accounts for 21% of energy consumption globally and has the world’s highest per capita energy consumption. America is second in the world in energy production.

Good news for beer lovers. The number of brewers in the U.S. climbed to 6,372 in 2017, from just 89 in 1978, fueled by the craft beer surge.

Eight of the 10 largest companies in the world by market cap are American.

According to the book, “Fast Food Nation,” at some point, one out of eight Americans will work for McDonald’s.

More than half of the states–26–have names with native American origins.

The U.S., with its extensive coastline, has had more tropical cyclone hits, 268, than any other country, according to data from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

Americans bought more than $3 billion worth of hot dogs in supermarkets last year. Los Angeles is top dog for franks, consuming about 31 million pounds a year.

A Pew Research Center study conducted from 2011 to 2013 found that about 54% of Americans said religion was very important in their lives, compared with 24% of people in Canada, 21% in Australia, and 21% in Germany.

While baseball may be America’s favorite pastime, it borrows heavily from the British game of cricket. Similarly, football is based largely on the British sport of rugby. Invented in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, basketball is the most popular uniquely American game.