States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local governmental authority but are not sovereign. All are grounded in republican principles (this being required by the federal constitution), and each provides for a government, consisting of three branches, each with separate and independent powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. are allocated power by the people (of each respective state) through their individual state constitutions. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders (such as paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who share child custody). Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sovereignty with the federal government.

In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50.

What are the 13 commonwealth states