U.S. territorial sovereignty in the context of "Territories of the United States"

The municipalities of Puerto Rico (Spanish: municipios de Puerto Rico) are second-level administrative divisions defined with geographic boundaries and governmental authority in the archipelago and island of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the U.S. Amounting to 78 incorporated towns and cities equivalent to U.S. counties, two of which are outside the main island, namely the smaller islands of Vieques and Culebra, the municipalities are governed by a popularly elected strong mayor and unicameral legislature. They are subdivided into 902 barrios, third-level divisions controlled by the municipal government. As a jurisdiction under U.S. sovereignty, Puerto Rico does not have first-level administrative units akin to states or provinces.

The municipalities of Puerto Rico operate under the Municipal Code of Puerto Rico (Law. No. 107 of 2020), which superseded the Autonomous Municipalities Act of Puerto Rico (Law No. 81 of 1991), as established by the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the governmental body responsible for their organization under Section 1, Article VI of the Constitution of Puerto Rico. Electorally, the municipalities are grouped into eight senatorial districts and forty representative districts, representing roughly equal populations in the Legislative Assembly.

The legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 (Massachusetts) to all 50 states in 2015 through various court rulings, state legislation, and direct popular vote. States have separate marriage laws, which must adhere to rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States that recognize marriage as a fundamental right guaranteed by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as first established in the 1967 landmark civil rights case of Loving v. Virginia. Same-sex marriages are also licensed in and recognized by Washington, D.C. and all U.S. territories except for American Samoa, but not in some Native American tribal nations.

Civil rights campaigning in support of marriage without distinction as to sex or sexual orientation began in the 1970s. In 1972, the later-overturned Baker v. Nelson saw the Supreme Court of the United States decline to become involved. The issue became prominent from around 1993, when the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled in Baehr v. Lewin that it was unconstitutional under the Constitution of Hawaii for the state to abridge marriage on the basis of sex. That ruling led to federal and state actions to explicitly abridge marriage on the basis of sex in order to prevent the marriages of same-sex couples from being recognized by law, the most prominent of which was the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional under the Constitution of Massachusetts for the state to abridge marriage on the basis of sex. From 2004 through to 2015, as the tide of public opinion continued to move towards support of same-sex marriage, various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes (referendums and initiatives), and federal court rulings established same-sex marriage in thirty-six of the fifty states.

The first university in the United States is a status asserted by more than one university in the United States. Harvard University, founded in 1636, is the oldest operating university in the United States. From 1898 to 1946, however, when the Philippines were a U.S. territory, the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, established in 1611, was considered the oldest university under the American flag.

There is no consensus national definition of what entitles an institution to be considered a university versus a college. Differing definitions are used at the state level, and the common understanding of university has evolved over time. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes the gradual emergence of U.S. universities as follows:

Territories of the United States are subnational geographical and political areas governed as administrative divisions and dependent territories under the sovereignty of the United States. Although all are subject to the constitutional and territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. federal government, territories differ from states and Indian reservations in that they are not inherently sovereign. While states have dual sovereignty and Native American tribes have tribal sovereignty in relation to the federal government, the self-governing powers of territories ultimately derive from the U.S. Congress, as per the Territorial Clause in Article IV of the U.S. Constitution. Territories are classified as "organized" or "unorganized" depending on whether they operate under an organic act, and "incorporated" or "unincorporated" depending on whether the U.S. Constitution applies fully or partially to them. As areas belonging to, but not integral parts of, the U.S., territories are their own distinct nations centered around a collective identity based on their land, history, ethnicity, culture, and language.

All territories of the U.S. are insular areas. The U.S. has sovereignty over three archipelagos or islands in the Caribbean Sea and eleven in the Pacific Ocean. Five territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands) are permanently inhabited, unincorporated territories; the other nine, known as the United States Minor Outlying Islands, are small islands, atolls, and reefs with no native (or permanent) population. Of the 14, only one is classified as an incorporated territory (Palmyra Atoll). Two additional territories (Bajo Nuevo Bank and Serranilla Bank) are claimed by the U.S. but administered by Colombia. Historically, territories were created to administer newly acquired land, and most eventually attained statehood. The most recent territory to become a U.S. state was Hawaii on August 21, 1959.