United States territory is the area under thesovereignjurisdiction of thefederal government of the United States,[1] including all of its land andterritorial waters near the mainland and islands. The United States asserts sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing a 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi)exclusive economic zone in neighboring ocean waters.[2]
The land area of the United States includes the50 states, theDistrict of Columbia, and inhabited and uninhabitedinsular areas known as territories. The states have subsidiary sovereignty andconcurrent jurisdiction with the federal government. Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has exclusive sovereignty and Congress has full lawmaking power over theDistrict of Columbia (per theEnumerated powers) and territories (per theTerritorial Clause[3]). Congress has granted each inhabited jurisdiction some degree of home rule.[4] Uninhabited insular areas are administered by theOffice of Insular Affairs, except forPalmyra Atoll, which is administered by theFish and Wildlife Service. Inhabited territories are administered by local governments, with federal policy coordination and oversight by the Office of Insular Affairs, except for Puerto Rico. There is no federal agency with general oversight for Washington, DC or Puerto Rico, but there is program-by-program oversight and general points of contact such as theWhite House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. The territories and district all havenon-voting members of the United States House of Representatives.
ASupreme Court ruling from 1945 stated that the term "United States" can have three different meanings, in different contexts:
The term "United States" may be used in any one of several senses. It may be merely the name of a sovereign occupying the position analogous to that of other sovereigns in the family of nations. It may designate the territory over which the sovereignty of the United States extends, or it may be the collective name of the states which are united by and under the Constitution.
— Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt,324 U.S.652 (1945)
From 1901 to 1905, theU.S. Supreme Court in a series of opinions known as theInsular Cases established the doctrine of territorial incorporation. It said the Constitution applied fully in incorporated territories such asAlaska andHawaii, but only applied partially in the then-new unincorporated territories ofPuerto Rico,Guam and thePhilippines.[5][6]
The United States currently claims 16insular areas as territories:[7][8]
Palmyra Atoll is the onlyincorporated territory remaining, and having no government it is alsounorganized. The remaining areunincorporated territories of the United States. Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands are styled ascommonwealths.
Federal jurisdiction includesfederal enclaves like national parks and domestic military bases, even though these are located in the territory of a state. Host states exerciseconcurrent jurisdiction to some degree. The federal government also exercisesproperty rights in addition to sovereignty, over land not owned by a state, tribe, local government, or private entity.
TheLand Ordinance of 1785 and theNorthwest Ordinance of 1787 provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the originalThirteen Colonies ceded to the federal government after theAmerican Revolution.[9] As additional lands were acquired by the United States fromSpain,France and other countries, theUnited States Congress directed that they be explored, surveyed, and made available for settlement.[9] During the Revolutionary War, military bounty land was promised to soldiers who fought for the colonies.[10] After the war, theTreaty of Paris of 1783, signed by the United States, theUK,France, andSpain, ceded territory to the United States.[11][12] In the 1780s, other states relinquished their own claims to land in modern-dayOhio.[13] By this time, the United States needed revenue to function.[14] Land was sold so that the government would have money to survive.[14] In order to sell the land, surveys needed to be conducted. TheLand Ordinance of 1785 instructed a geographer to oversee this work as undertaken by a group of surveyors.[14] The first years of surveying were completed by trial and error; once the territory of Ohio had been surveyed, a modern public land survey system had been developed.[15] In 1812, Congress established theUnited States General Land Office as part of theDepartment of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these federal lands.[13] By the early 1800s, promised bounty land claims were finally fulfilled.[16]
In the 19th century, other bounty land and homestead laws were enacted to dispose of federal land.[9][16] Several different types of patents existed.[17] These include cash entry, credit, homestead, Indian, military warrants, mineral certificates, private land claims, railroads, state selections, swamps, town sites, and town lots.[17] A system of local land offices spread throughout the territories, patenting land that was surveyed via the correspondingOffice of the Surveyor General of a particular territory.[17] This pattern gradually spread across the entire United States.[15] The laws that spurred this system with the exception of theGeneral Mining Law of 1872 and theDesert Land Act of 1877 have since been repealed or superseded.[18]
In the early 20th century, Congress took additional steps toward recognizing the value of the assets on public lands and directed theExecutive Branch to manage activities on the remaining public lands.[18] TheMineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities, such ascoal,oil,gas, andsodium to take place on public lands.[19] TheTaylor Grazing Act of 1934 established theUnited States Grazing Service tomanage the public rangelands by establishment of advisory boards that set grazing fees.[20][21] TheOregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937, commonly referred as the O&C Act, required sustainedyield management of the timberlands in western Oregon.[22]
Currently,federal lands are about 640 millionacres, about 28% of the total U.S. land area of 2.27 billion acres.[23][24] Federal lands are administered by a variety of departments, agencies, and quasi-governmental corporations.
The federal government of the United States has claims to the oceans in accord with theUnited Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which delineates a zone of territory adjacent to territorial lands and seas. United States protects thismarine environment, though not interfering with other lawfuluses of this zone. The United States' jurisdiction has been established on vessels, ships, andartificial islands (along with other marine structures).
In 1983 PresidentRonald Reagan, through Proclamation No. 5030, claimed a 200-mileexclusive economic zone. In December 1988, President Reagan, through Proclamation No. 5928, extended U.S.territorial waters from three nautical miles to twelve nautical miles for national security purposes. However a legal opinion from the Justice Department questioned the President's constitutional authority to extend sovereignty as Congress has the power to make laws concerning the territory belonging to the United States under the U.S. Constitution. In any event, Congress needs to make laws defining if the extended waters, including oil and mineral rights, are under state or federal control.[25][26]
The primary enforcer of maritime law is theU.S. Coast Guard. Federal and state governments share economic and regulatory jurisdiction over the waters owned by the country. (Seetidelands.)
The United States has international territorial disputes with:
State cessions of land claims from 1780 to 1802 gave the federal government exclusive control of a large unorganized (no local government)[27][28] area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, to the international boundary set by the1783 Treaty of Paris. The 1789Northwest Ordinance passed by theCongress of the Confederation (before the current constitution was adopted) crated the first organized federal territory, theNorthwest Territory.
Over time, moreorganized territories were created, each with a local legislature and a territorial governor and officers, appointed by the President and approved by the Senate of the United States. Unorganized territory was generally either unpopulated or set aside forNative Americans and otherindigenous peoples in the United States by the U.S. federal government, until such time as the growing and restless population encroached into the areas.
As a result of severalSupreme Court cases after theSpanish–American War, the United States had to determine how to deal with its newly acquired territories, such as thePhilippines,[29][30]Puerto Rico,[31]Guam,[32][33]Wake Island, and other areas that were not part of the North American continent and which were not necessarily intended to become a part of the Union of States. As a consequence of the Supreme Court decisions, the United States has since made a distinction betweenincorporated andunincorporated territories.[34][35][36] In essence, an incorporated territory is land that has been irrevocably incorporated within the sovereignty of the United States and to which the full corpus of the U.S. Constitution applies. An unincorporated territory is land held by the United States, and to whichCongress of the United States applies selected parts of the constitution. At the present time, the only incorporated U.S. territory is the unorganized (and unpopulated)Palmyra Atoll.
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From July 8, 1947, until October 1, 1994, the United States administered theTrust Territory of the Pacific Islands, but the Trust ceased to exist when the last member state of Palau gained its independence to become theRepublic of Palau. ThePanama Canal, and theCanal Zone surrounding it, was territory administered by the United States until 1999, when control was relinquished toPanama.
The United States has occupied a number of countries in the Americas throughout its history, a number of European countries and Pacific islands related toWorld War I andWorld War II, and Iraq in the 2000s. The United States Constitution has not been applied to these jurisdictions, insofar as theBill of Rights is not enforced by US courts, and these areas have had no voting rights in the federal government.
The fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico form the main customs territory of the United States. Special rules apply toforeign trade zones in these areas. Separatecustoms territories are formed by American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The United States exercisesextraterritoriality onmilitary installations, Americanembassies andconsulates located in foreign countries, andresearch centers andfield camps inAntarctica. Despite exercise ofextraterritorial jurisdiction, these overseas locations remain under the sovereignty of the host countries (except Antarctica, where there is no host country). Because they are not part of any state, extraterritorial jurisdiction is federal, with Congress'splenary power underArticle IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of theU.S. Constitution.
The United States has made no territorial claim inAntarctica but has reserved the right to do so. Americanresearch stations in Antarctica—Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station,McMurdo Station, andPalmer Station—are under U.S. jurisdiction but are held without sovereignty per theAntarctic Treaty.
TheGuantanamo Bay Naval Base,Guantanamo Bay, notionally under the sovereignty ofCuba, is administered by the United States under a perpetual lease, much as the Panama Canal Zone used to be before the signing of theTorrijos–Carter Treaties. Only mutual agreement or U.S. abandonment of the area can terminate the lease. The legitimacy of this arrangement is disputed by the government of Cuba.
The federal government also exercises property ownership, but not sovereignty over land in various foreign countries. Examples include theJohn F. Kennedy Memorial built atRunnymede in England,[37] and 32 acres (13 hectares) aroundPointe du Hoc inNormandy, France.[38][39][40]
U.S. sovereignty includes theairspace over its land and territorial waters. No international agreement exists on the vertical limit that separates this from outer space, which is international.
The three Freely Associated States ofFederated States of Micronesia,Republic of the Marshall Islands, and theRepublic of Palau are not under U.S. sovereignty, but each participates in federal programs under aCompact of Free Association.
The site, preserved since the war by the French Committee of the Pointe du Hoc, which erected an impressive granite monument at the edge of the cliff, was transferred to American control by formal agreement between the two governments on 11 January 1979 in Paris, with Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman signing for the United States and Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs Maurice Plantier signing for France.
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