51st state

A U.S. 51 star flag has been created in case a 51st state actually joins the United States.

51st state, is sometimes a joke term in American politics, and sometimes a realistic one, that talks about a land that is not a part of USA, but people think about adding to the United States and making it the 51st state. Sometimes "51st state" is said not as a joke (about Puerto Rico or other territories). Usually it is a joke about Canada (even though Canada is an independent country) because Canada is right next to America and both countries are English-speaking. There have been tries by people in the United States to get Canada to join them (like in the Articles of Confederation), Canada has never taken up these offers. Before the year 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii became states, the word "the 49th state" was used. "51st State" sometimes is about countries that seem to be controlled by the United States.

The term is used in Canada and other countries to show that they think there is a bad U.S. influence on the world. In Europe and Australia, people who think their culture has become too much like America's culture sometimes use the term "51st state" about their own countries. In Europe, it can also mean Iceland because the USA is a very important country in Icelandic politics and economy, Finland because American culture is very popular in Finland, or Great Britain, because people speak English language both in the USA and Great Britain.

The term 51st state can also mean non-Americans who like American culture and act like Americans, or a non-American politician who is a supporter of the United States, especially its foreign politics.

Places in the United States that are not states right now that might become the 51st state are Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., Guam, the US Virgin Islands, or the Northern Marianas. The most serious proposals for forming 51 or even 52 states are those for dividing the most-populous state (and third-largest state, geographically)of California into two or even three states, giving that area either four or six seats in the U.S. Senate, rather than just two as is the present situation, plus more-efficient local administrations.

Some regions of the U.S.A. that include land that is now in two different states and might become a new state include the "State of Jefferson" (Northmost California plus the southern counties of Oregon) and the "State of Lincoln" (Eastmost Washington State plus the northern panhandle of Idaho. A move has also been proposed to separate the westmost one-fourth of Nebraska from that state, but to add that to Wyoming (the least-populous state), rather than to create an entirely-new state. This region is actually much closer to Cheyenne, Wyoming, the capital city, than it is to its current capital of Lincoln, Nebraska.