I think it's because people in Europe were used to calling it "America" long before there were any independent countries here, and all the other countries took different names... but since we were already being called "America," when the official name became the United States of America people just continued to use the shorter "America" out of habit.
I also think that our government over the past couple hundred years has been rather... arrogant (Manifest Destiny, anyone?)... and has probably encouraged this. Certainly in modern times our media and popular entertainment industries have encouraged it.
|