List of diplomatic missions of the United States

This is a list of diplomatic missions of the United States of America.

History

Morocco, in December 1777, became the first nation to seek diplomatic relations with the United States and together they maintain the United States' longest unbroken treaty.

Benjamin Franklin established the first overseas mission of the United States in Paris in 1779. On April 19, 1782, John Adams was received by the States-General and the Dutch Republic became the third country, after Morocco and France, to recognize the United States as an independent government. Adams then became the first U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and the house that he had purchased at Fluwelen Burgwal 18 in The Hague, became the first American embassy anywhere in the world.

In the period following the American Revolution, George Washington sent a number of close advisers to the courts of European potentates in order to garner recognition of U.S. independence with mixed results, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Francis Dana, and John Jay. Much of the first fifty years of the Department of State concerned negotiating with imperial European powers over the territorial integrity of the borders of the United States as known today.

US (disambiguation)

US or U.S. usually refers to the United States of America, a country in North America.

US, U.S., Us, us, or u.s. may also refer to:

Language

Geography

Education

Music

Other uses

United States

Coordinates: 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100

The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major territories and various possessions. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.842 million km²) and with over 320 million people, the country is the world's third or fourth-largest by total area and the third most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the United States are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation (such as the United Nations) present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation officially in the receiving state. In practice, a diplomatic mission usually denotes the resident mission, namely the office of a country's diplomatic representatives in the capital city of another country. As well as being a diplomatic mission to the country in which it is situated, it may also be a non-resident permanent mission to one or more other countries. There are thus resident and non-resident embassies.

Naming

A permanent diplomatic mission is typically known as an embassy, and the head of the mission is known as an ambassador, or high commissioner. The term "embassy" is commonly used also as a section of a building in which the work of the diplomatic mission is carried out, but, strictly speaking, it is the diplomatic delegation itself that is the embassy, while the office space and the diplomatic work done is called the Chancery. Therefore, the Embassy is in the Chancery.