Name: アメリカ帝国 (American Empire)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T05:06:02.000Z
Duration: 6 min 24 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

様態の副詞

The United States is, shockingly, a bunch of states that are united.

程度の副詞

but as time marched on, the border marked west,

bringing us to today and the 48 contiguous states plus Alaska and Hawaii.

They're usually drawn in these little boxes, not to to scale because Hawaii is in the middle of a

vast ocean of deadly nothing-ness,  and Alaska is monstrous.

Unlike other unions, where members can leave if they so choose,

Now, how the federal government works  is a story for another time,

but at the moment, all you need know is that Congress, where national laws are written

is made of representatives who are sent  from the states.

Now, there are some non-state gaps not visible on this map.

The first is Washington D.C., the nation's capital.

which is a stateless limbo land between Maryland and Virginia.

As D.C. is a city without a state, it puts her under the control of Congress.

Meaning all the other states get the final say on how D.C. is run,

while she doesn't get a vote in anything.

It didn't matter when the District of Columbia was basically uninhabited,

but since more people live in D.C. now than do in a couple of states

The other gaps on this map are the  American Indian reservations.

The United States kind of administers them while sort of  treating them as foreign nations

which means you could draw the state boundaries to look like this

because the reservations are kind of apart from those states.

But the American Indian reservations are such a full of asterisks

it's also better as a story for another time.

Gaps aside, the continent (and Hawaii) is mostly straight-forward.

But there's more than just these United States.

When the U.S. ran out of lands  to manifest destiny,

she learned from the best and teritorified a whole bunch of islands.

First up: Puerto Rico -  an organized, unincorporated territory

of the U.S. This means she's self-governing(to some extent)

and that all the U.S. constitution doesn't  automatically apply

on the island. Now, 3.7 million people live in Puerto Rico

which is 91% of the people living on U.S. Territorial islands

and more people than live in 21 of the states.

And, the U.S. treats Puerto Rico as a state in almost all but name

bringing the number of stars to a  nice, even, 51?

But Puerto Rico isn't the only organized, unincorporated territory.

There's also Guam, which was acquired in the Spanish-American war,

along with Puerto Rico, there's  the Northern Mariana Islands,

and the U.S. Virgin Islands taken from nobody -- Denmark sold her.

The people in these territories are  American citizens.

In most ways, the territories are just like D.C.

Congress can override their local governments and they don't have

Actually, the territories and D.C. do  get to elect congressional representatives

which is either the worst job in the world or the best job in the world

depending on the kind of person who gets it.

Also, since votes for president are based on state population,

Which as mentioned in a previous video leads to the weird situation that

Americans who live in foreign countries can vote for president in the

While Americans who live in America, just in a territory,

Along with these unincorporated organized territories

there are also unincorporated unorganized territories.

Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Reef,

Most of these were acquired under the  delightfully named Guano Islands Act

when the U.S. decided she wanted a bunch of islands filled with bird poop.

No, really, the U.S. just straight up wrote a law to declare those islands

Unorganized, in this system, means there's no local government on these islands

Some of them are barley above the water line.

Now, the weird category is unorganized  incorporated territories

of which there is one: the Palmyra Atoll.

claimed by the U.S. after the totally peaceful annexation of Hawaii.

They're currently an uninhabited  nature reserve.

But, incorporated means the U.S. constitution applies here.

To who? The Palmyra Atoll is like that  question about a tree falling in the forest.

If there are no people for the constitution to apply to,

This means if a foreigner gives birth on this uninhabited strip

their child would be an American citizen.

It's where territories go before they become states.

When basically the Constitution fully applies

We've gone full circle but there is one territory we've left out --

Uniquely, American Samoans  don't get to be citizens

They can live in the states but can't vote in presidential elections

Unless they go through the immigration process like any foreigner.