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Louisiana Purchase, western half of the Mississippi River basin purchased in 1803 from France by the United States; at less than three cents per acre for 828,000 square miles (2,144,520 square km), it was the greatest land bargain in U.S. history. The purchase doubled the size of the United States, greatly strengthened the country materially and strategically, provided a powerful impetus to westward expansion, and confirmed the doctrine of implied powers of the federal Constitution....