Republican Donald Trump will be the next US president - after a decisive victory that will send him back to the White House.
His defeated opponent, Democrat Kamala Harris, urged her supporters to accept Trump's win, and insisted there must be a peaceful transfer of power.
He will be the first former president to return to office in more than 130 years, and - at 78 - the oldest man ever elected to the role.
Trump has already been congratulated by world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the UK's Keir Starmer, but the official presidential election results are not yet confirmed.
There had been fears that extremely close races in some of the key battleground "swing" states might have left the results uncertain.
But earlier-than-expected wins in North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, coupled with victories in solidly Republican states, meant Trump reached the magic 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency.
CBS, the BBC's broadcasting partner in the US, projected Donald Trump as the overall winner just after 05:30 EST (10:30 GMT) on 6 November, the day after the election.
However, it could still take days or even weeks for the detailed election results to be confirmed officially in every state.
No. Trump becomes the president-elect, and his running mate JD Vance becomes the vice-president elect.
Trump will be sworn in at the presidential inauguration on Monday, 20 January 2025, at which point he legally assumes the power and responsibilities of the presidency.
After winning the 2016 election. Trump was sworn in as president in January 2017 and served until 2021.
Once every valid vote has been included in the final results, a process known as the electoral college confirms the election result.
In each state a varying number of electoral college votes are up for grabs. It is securing these – and not the backing of voters themselves – that ultimately wins the presidency.
Generally, states award all of their electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote, and this is confirmed after meetings on 17 December.
The new US Congress then meets on 6 January to count the electoral college votes and confirm the new president. As the outgoing vice-president, Kamala Harris will preside over this process.
It was this meeting of Congress, to certify the election results, that Trump's supporters tried to stop, when they marched on the US Capitol in 2021 after Trump refused to concede defeat to Joe Biden.
