The US claims to be the greatest success story of the modern world: a nation made from an incredibly disparate assembly of people who, with little in common apart from a desire to choose their own paths to wealth or heaven, have rallied around the ennobling ideals espoused in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to forge the richest, most inventive and most powerful country on earth.

Despite polemicists who justly cite the destruction of Native American cultures, racism, imperialism and the CIA's shady operations at the top of a long list of wrongdoings, half the world remains in love with the idea of America. This is, after all, the country that gave the world the right to the pursuit of happiness, free speech, electric light, airplanes, refrigerators, the space shuttle, computers, blues, jazz, rock and roll and movies that climax at the high school prom.

On a short trip, it can be hard work dismantling your preconceptions, since mythologizing and self-promotion are such rich American traits. So much of the country has been filmed, photographed, painted and written about that you need to peel back layers of representation to stop it looking like a stage setting.

This can make the country seem strangely familiar when you first encounter novelties like 24-hour shopping, bottomless cups of coffee, have-a-nice-day, drive-thru banks, TV evangelists, cheap gasoline and newspapers tossed onto lawns. But you'd be foolish to read too much into this surface familiarity, since you only have to watch Oprah for half an hour to realize that the rituals and currents of American life are far more complex, seductive and bewildering than the most alien of cultures.

Come prepared to explore this foreignness rather than stay in the comfort-zone of the familiar and you'll find America has several of the world's most exciting cities, some truly mind-blowing landscapes, a strong sense of regionalism, a trenchant mythology, more history than it gives itself credit for and, arguably, the most approachable natives in the world.

Full country name: The United States of America (USA)
Population: 275,000,000
Area: 3,618,000 sq miles (9,370,000 sq km)
Capital city: Washington, DC (pop: 607,000)
People: Caucasian (74%), African American (12%), Latino (9%), Asian (3%), Native American (0.8%)
Languages: English, plus many secondary languages, chiefly Spanish Religion: Protestant (56%), Roman Catholic (28%), Jewish (2%), Muslim (1%)
Government: Federal republic of 50 states

GDP: US$9 trillion
GDP per head: US$25,850
Annual growth: 4.1% Inflation: 2.6%
Major industries: Oil, electronics, computers, automobile manufacturing, aerospace industries, agriculture
Major trading partners: Canada, Japan, the EU