Talk:United States territory

message: Why does typing "United States Territory" in the little search box not lead here, but rather to "United_States_Northwest_Territory" ? Is it a mistaken redirect somewhere ? -- ll
:More likely the search function is placing a high priority on capitalization in the absence of an actual redirect. - Hephaestos 15:51, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  United States Territory misdirected by chance ? 

message: United States territory:
:JDR (It's MOST commonly refered to as "United States territory" than the less general "Political divisions of the United States"; The naming convention is to use the most common name).
::Yes, but that doesn't preclude being correct and specfic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is more common than Gabriel García Márquez, but the latter is correct. jengod 18:55, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)
::: "The United States territory includes any points of extended spatial location under the control of the United States of America federal government.". JDR (Also, Samuel Langhorne Clemens would be correct and specfic.)
Political divisions of the United States:
:Jengod
:Decumanus 
:Tuf-Kat
:Jiang
Moved "United States territory" to "Political divisions of the United States." Vote 4-1. If count changes at later date we can reconsider. jengod 01:20, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
: I mv'eds it back. "United States territory" fits the most wiki standards and is most accurate. JDR 12:54, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I second that. This page is quickly sinking into the mud of ambiguity. -- Decumanus 06:36, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Title Vote

message: Here is an excert from the article:-
Quote:
Land occupied by the United States
Historically, all of the United States of America was originally the territory of a multitude of Native American Indian tribes/nations. However, the source of this situation goes back several centuries, and includes land taken from Native Americans by the Spanish, French, Russians, Dutch, Danish and British.
The current United States government was obviously not responsible for all of these cessions, since many took place under British rule.
Unquote
Questions, from a casual and non-American observer: 
(1) was all of the US originally Native American Indian out of interest ?   This presumably regards Hawaiians as American Indians - is this a "correct" designation, as regarded in the US ?
(2) Whilst the 13 states were British there was certainly land taken from American Indians historical areas, but does this, under US law, mean that the current US government has no responsibility ?   Certainly an argument could be made for "moral responsibility" but more interestingly is there an argument to be made for legal responsibility ?   Most governments taking over areas of land that were previously governed by someone else ( I refer to the US government taking over land from the British crown ) continue to inherit obligations of the past governments of those lands.  The 13 states were never integrally part of the Kingdom of Great Britain at the time, so there is no longer any government of the 13 colonies retaining responsibility, their having ( presumably ) been dissolved at the time of the US revolution.  For example, Russia currently services some of the Soviet Unions debt, even though it is widely understood that the current Russian government is demonstrably a government of a different country to the last Soviet government.  Maybe I am splitting hairs, but I think it is interesting to know whether it is true or not that the US government inherited any legal rights and obligations from the previous colonial governments, related to American Indians land rights or not ?
Another issue is that the original 13 states were based in the north-east. So to claim it seems a bit unfair to claim it all happened under British rule. 
Also by still enforcing the occupancy would the US government not be just as responsible as the European nations which took the land in the first place?
Finally, the use of the word 'obviously' here makes the statement sound very biased, especially as there is no citation to back up the statement.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.167.221.3 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Land occupied by the United States 

message: Shouldn't this article actually address the areas of the territory?  What I'd propose is defining several terms such as:
* land area
* inland water area
* border waters area (e.g. St Lawrence midline)
* coastal water area 
** territorial waters (to 12 nautical mile limit)
** exclusive economic zone
** to continental shelf
* disputed areas
**named
**defined
**amounts of area disputed
I would further suggest that clarity is needed w.r.t. sea level reference used.
The United States article relies on the CIA World Factbook which is very convenient but not really a [[WP:RS] on this matter, principally because it does not address some of the points above.  Comments? LeadSongDog (talk) 18:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Areas 

message: Aren't US Embassies located in foreign countries "part of" the US also? (Also, foreign embassies in the US are "part of" their own native countries) ? If this is true it should be mentioned in the article. I recall reading that an attack on a US Embassy anywhere in the world is an attack on the US itself.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.168.203 (talk) 20:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Embassies located in a foreign country's capital are part of the territory of the receiving state, although the building and people closely tied to it are exempt from most local laws. Check out the embassy article for details. Ngchen (talk) 16:49, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Embassies? 

message: ===What portions are inaccurate or unbalanced?===
Please state the specific parts [perferably with quotes] or the tag will be removed. J. D. Redding 11:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article/section tags 

message: Please state the specific parts [perferably with quotes] or the tag will be removed. J. D. Redding 11:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: What portions are inaccurate or unbalanced?

message: Please state the specific parts [perferably with quotes] or the tag will be removed. J. D. Redding 11:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: What portions requires cleanup?

message: Please state the specific parts [perferably with quotes] or the tag will be removed. J. D. Redding 11:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: What portions need citations for verification?

message: The articel now states that The John F. Kennedy Memorial built at Runnymede in the UK is part of the U.S. territory. 13 Hectares around the Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, France are also U.S. territory.
As I understand it, those areas are owned by the U.S. government, but that doesn't, in itself, mean that they are a part of the United States.  So, can I guess that those two areas follow UK/French law and therefore still are part of UK/France?  Fomalhaut76 (talk) 15:57, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the page on Enclave and exclave backs this up. Fomalhaut76 (talk) 16:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding places in UK and France

message: IF English was the only language the world spoke, this page would be all right...  However, it isn't and therefore this page is somewhat broken.  You see, 'United States' isn't exclusive to the USA..   Believe it or not, Mexico is, in actually, the United States of Mexico...  See where I'm going with this?  What do we do to fix this?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lawstubes (talk • contribs) 03:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is poorly titled. 

message: One of the maps in Section 2.2 contains a boundary line for the “Territory of the Original Thirteen States (Ceded by Great Britain) 1783.” However, the map is inaccurate in this regard.  (One of the adjacent maps is accurate in these details.)
(1) Vermont was not part of the territory of the original 13 states, even though New York and New Hampshire had claims. It was not one of the "13 colonies" and was independent as the Vermont Republic from 1777 (after its own declaration of independence from Britain) to 1791, when it became a state.
(2) The territory of West Florida came under British rule in 1763. Britain enlarged the territory by moving its northern border further north into existing British territory, so as to re-align a large part of the current area of Mississippi and Alabama. Britain ceded West Florida to Spain in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Spain insisted on the British boundary; the U.S. and Georgia claimed the boundary should be the old pre-1763 boundary. With the implementation of Pinckney's Treaty between Spain and the U.S. in 1795, this extended area north of the old 1763 boundary of West Florida became undisputed territory of the U.S. The point is that, at the very least, in 1783 this area was in dispute about whether it was part of the territory of the original 13 states.
(3) The Treaty of Paris in 1783 left the northern boundary of Maine with Quebec/New Brunswick in dispute, with Great Britain claiming the northern part of Maine. Also, the border between New Hampshire and Quebec was imprecisely defined. The New Hampshire ambiguity led to the self-declared independence of the small Republic of Indian Stream in the 1830s. Finally both of these disputes were settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842. The point is that a large area of Maine claimed by the U.S. in 1783 did not end up as Maine, and the disputed area was not a definite part of the territory of the original 13 states in 1783.
In addition, I do not believe that the Kingdom of Hawaii was ever named the Republic of Hawaii. After the Americans overthrew the queen, it was.
Jeff in CA 18:58, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map area, “Territory of the Original Thirteen States (Ceded by Great Britain) 1783,” is inaccurate 

message: The first clause of the article's lead sentence says
The second sentence adds a proviso by implicattion that  territorial status also requires US sovereignty. The second sentence could also be read as saying that the US exercises sovereignty rights wherever it has jurisdiction, but that's not the way I read it. My reading is supported by §374 on p.438 of the cited supporting source, and it squares with the lack of past US territorial status for Cuba in 1898 to 1902 and for components of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands between 1947 and 1986. How about clarifying this by saying
in the first clause of the lead sentence? Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:20, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead sentence and definition of US Territory 

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