The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World.

In the English language, the Americas refers to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, whereas America, in current usage, usually refers to the United States of America.

The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 13.5% of the human population (about 900 million people).

The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.

Utah State University (USU) is a public research university located in Logan, Utah. It is a land-grant and space-grant institution and is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. The university also leads the nation in funding for aerospace research and the number of student experiments actually sent out into space.

Founded in 1888 as Utah's agricultural college, USU focused on agriculture, domestic arts, and mechanic arts. The university now offers programs in liberal arts, engineering, business, economics, natural resource sciences, as well as nationally ranked elementary & secondary education programs. The university has eight colleges and offers a total of 176 bachelor's degrees, 97 master's degrees, and 38 doctoral degrees. USU has grown extensively in the 21st century, which is marked by a $400 million fundraising campaign for the University and record levels of enrollment.

USU's main campus is located in Logan with regional campuses in Brigham City, Tooele, and the Uintah Basin. In 2010, the College of Eastern Utah joined the USU system becoming Utah State University College of Eastern Utah (USU Eastern). USU Eastern is located in Price, UT. Throughout Utah, USU operates more than 20 distance education centers. Regional campuses, USU Eastern, and distance education centers provide degrees to more than 40% of the students enrolled. In total, USU has more than 180,000 alumni in all 50 states and more than 100 countries.

Utah (/ˈjuːtɔː/ or ⁱ/ˈjuːtɑː/) (Arapaho: Wo'tééneihí' ) is a state in the Western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Utah is the 13th-most extensive, the 34th-most populous, and the 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,817,222 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe and means "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico.

Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union. It is home to the Salt Lake Temple, and approximately 60% of Utahns are reported to be members of LDS Church which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life.