Country profile: USA

The United States of America is the world's largest energy producer, consumer, and net importer. It also ranks eleventh worldwide in reserves of oil, sixth in natural gas, and first in coal. U.S. oil production has been declining for years. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slashed oil output from the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. is the world’s largest consumer and second-largest producer of natural gas. The U.S. has the world’s largest coal reserves, with the Western U.S. accounting for 55 percent of current U.S. coal production. U.S. electricity demand is increasing, as are prices.

Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country in 1776 and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of America following the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions.

The two most traumatic experiences in the nation's history were the Civil War (1861-65), in which a northern Union of states defeated a secessionist Confederacy of 11 southern slave states, and the Great Depression of the 1930s, an economic downturn during which about a quarter of the labor force lost its jobs. Buoyed by victories in World Wars I and II and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the US remains the world's most powerful nation state. The economy is marked by steady growth, low unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in technology.