Permanently inhabited territories. The U.S. has five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the North Pacific Ocean, and American Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean.

The United States possesses several territories in the Caribbean, though they are technically "unincorporated territories" rather than "owned" in a private sense. The primary islands are Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). Puerto Rico is the largest and most populous, functioning as a Commonwealth with its own constitution but under U.S. sovereignty. The U.S. Virgin Islands consist of three main islands—St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John—along with dozens of smaller cays. Additionally, the U.S. has jurisdiction over Navassa Island, a small, uninhabited island between Haiti and Jamaica that is managed as a National Wildlife Refuge (though it is subject to a long-standing sovereignty dispute with Haiti). For American travelers, these islands are "domestic" destinations, meaning you do not need a passport to fly there from the U.S. mainland. The culture in these territories is a unique blend of Caribbean heritage and American influence, with the USVI notably being the only place in the United States where you drive on the left side of the road, a vestige of the islands' former Danish colonial history before they were purchased by the U.S. in 1917.