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| - In fiction, the USA sometimes gets split up into several successor states, while at other times it might get invaded by one or more other powers. And sometimes, it even falls from power. This trope, however, reverses the common factor between the aforementioned two cases (that is, the USA being "weakened"), and instead makes it more... empowered. That is, the USA gains more territory (and more often than not turns those acquisitions into new states). The trope has four distinct flavors: Examples of Expanded States of America include:
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| abstract
| - In fiction, the USA sometimes gets split up into several successor states, while at other times it might get invaded by one or more other powers. And sometimes, it even falls from power. This trope, however, reverses the common factor between the aforementioned two cases (that is, the USA being "weakened"), and instead makes it more... empowered. That is, the USA gains more territory (and more often than not turns those acquisitions into new states). The trope has four distinct flavors:
* The standard Expanded States of America has the USA be more aggressive, and use its military might (or subtle politics/diplomacy, whichever works) to annex at least parts of one or more neighbour countries on the North American continent - meaning Canada, Mexico, Central America, and/or a Caribbean island nation - as additional states, if not take over said countries outright; more extreme examples of this kind have the US evolve into what is essentially United States of North America (depending on one's definition of "North America").
* The more "subdued" brother, Fifty Plus States USA, has one or more of the handful of Real Life non-state subdivisions of the USA (e.g. Puerto Rico) be turned into a full-fledged state. The other two flavors are common results of dialing standard-flavor Expanded States of America Up to Eleven, and can be seen as realizations of Manifest Destiny:
* United Americas, where the USA has united North America and South America (or at least all of the major states and most of the smaller ones) under its banner. The resulting superstate may or may not suffer from recurrent rebellions due to social and economic inequality being imposed by "the rich North/'Anglos'" on "the poor South/'Latinos'".
* Transcontinental American Empire, where the USA annexes countries beyond the American geographic region. An Irony factor can be added by having the British Isles as one subject of annexation, in a sort of role-reversal of the War of American Independence. America Takes Over the World is the Logical Extreme of this and has its very own trope page. Usually, but not always, the resultant superstate would go under a name that is a variation on "United States of America". See also Space Filling Empire. Compare with United Europe and Middle-Eastern Coalition. Contrast with Divided States of America and Invaded States of America, and sometimes with Fallen States of America -- although in the latter case, the US can join Canada or Mexico because it needs to out of weakness (e.g. it became a Vestigial Empire), and thus the two tropes can actually overlap. Notes: This trope does not cover alternate versions of the British Empire that do not lose the American colonies in a War of American Revolution, and which eventually expand to the rest of the American continent(s). That means cases like the Holy Britannian Empire of Code Geass do not count as examples. Examples of Expanded States of America include:
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