A chronological listing of when each state joined the United States

A state is one of the 50 individual entities that make up the United States and share sovereignty with the federal government. Due to the separation of powers that exists in the United States, each individual citizen has dual citizenship: that of the federal republic and the state in which they currently reside. [1]The full official names of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all include the word commonwealth rather than state.

The 50 individual states make up the basic organizational unit of the USA. They have all the authority that is not specifically given to or forbidden to the federal government by the United States Constitution. Concerns such as intrastate commerce, elections, the formation of local governments, public school policy, and non-federal road construction and maintenance fall under the purview of state governments. The government of each state is divided into an executive, legislative, and judicial branch, and it is based on a constitution written in accordance with republican principles. [2]

The United States Congress is a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state has two senators and at least one representative, with the size of each state's delegation in the House of Representatives determined by the state's population as of the most recent decennial census required by the Constitution. In addition, the number of electors a state can choose to represent it in the Electoral College, the body responsible for electing the President and Vice President of the United States, is equal to the sum of the number of its congressional deputies and senators. [4]

According to the Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1 gives Congress the power to Union" target="_blank">admit new states into the Union. There are now fifty states, up from the original thirteen that existed when the United States was founded in 1776. All new states have been granted full voting rights alongside all others. [5]

The table below details the dates of statehood for each of the 50 US states. After signing on to the United States Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the original 13 states entered the Union of States in the years between 1777 and 1781 and ratified the Articles of Confederation. (A separate table with dates of AoC ratification is provided below.) Each of these states is listed in the order in which it ratified the Constitution in 1787 and thus became a part of the fledgling (and now established) United States of America. Each subsequent admission date is a statutory deadline mandated by Congress. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
(approved or permitted) Produced by 1   Delaware 7 December 1787 [8]
(ratified) Delaware [b] Colony. 2   Pennsylvania Monday, December 12th, 1787 [10]
(ratified) State of Pennsylvania as a Private Colony 3   New Jersey Dated: December 18th, 1787 [11]
(ratified) The New Jersey Colony, a Crown Colony 4   Georgia It all began on January 2nd, 1788. [8]
(ratified) Georgia, a British Crown Colony 5   Connecticut Sunday, January 9th, 1788 [12]
(ratified) The State of Connecticut, a Colony of the British Crown 6   Massachusetts Sunday, February 6th, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Crown Colony 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Maryland, a colonial-era colony turned-property province 8   Carolina del Sur May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Colonial South Carolina, a Crown Colony 9   Primarily Used in: New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, a Colony under the Rule of the British Crown 10   Virginia June 25, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Virginia, Royal Colony and Dominated State 11   New York July 26, 1788 [13]
(ratified) New York, a Colony of the Crown 12   The state of North Carolina1. Tuesday, November 21st, 1789 [14]
(ratified) North Carolina, a former British colony 13   The Ocean State: Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a Royal Colony 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) People's Republic of Vermont[c] 15   Kentucky June 1, 1792 [16]
(admitted) (Kentucky is represented by nine counties in Virginia) 16   Tennessee June 1, 1796 [18]
(admitted) South-Western Part of the Country 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Canada's Northwest Territories 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Louisiane's Territories 19   Indiana On this date in 1816:
(admitted) The State of Indiana 20   Mississippi This day in 1817, on the 10th, [22]
(admitted) The Mississippi Delta Region 21   Illinois December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) Area of Illinois 22   Alabama Today in History (December 14th, 819) [24]
(admitted) State of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) The Bay State (Maine(f) District) 24   Missouri Sunday, August 10th, 1821 [26]
(admitted) A Portion of Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) The Arkansas Valley 26   Michigan The 26th of January, 1837 [28]
(admitted) The State of Michigan 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) The State of Florida 28   Texas On this day in 1845, December 29th, [29]
(admitted) Texas Republic 29   Iowa On this day in 1846:
(admitted) A Portion of Iowa Territory 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) A Section of Wisconsin 31   California Date: September 9, 1850 [31]
(admitted) Disordered Lands / The Mexican Cession, Part (g) 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) A section of Minnesota 33   Oregon 14 February 1859
(admitted) A Section of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas Dated: January 29th, 1861 [33]
(admitted) An Area of Kansas 35   Western Virginia June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) The Commonwealth of Virginia (all 50 counties in the Trans-Allegheny area[h]). 36   Nevada Monday, October 31st, 1864
(admitted) The State of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) State of Nebraska 38   Colorado Initially, on August 1st, 1876 [37]
(admitted) The Colorado Region 39   This state is located in the northern part of the United States. The Date Was November 2, 1889 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 40   Dakota (State) Wednesday, November 2nd, 1889 [38][i]
(admitted) Section of Dakota Territory 41   Montana November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) The State of Montana 42   Washington Instance created: November 11th, 1889 [42]
(admitted) Location: Washington State 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) In the Idaho Panhandle 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) This is Wyoming Country. 45   Utah Monday, January 4th, 1896 [43]
(admitted) The State of Utah 46   Oklahoma The date was November 16th, 1907. [44]
(admitted) Native American Lands in Oklahoma 47   New Mexico Sixteen hundred and twelve: January 6th, 1912
(admitted) An Area Now Part of New Mexico 48   Arizona 14 February 1912
(admitted) The State of Arizona 49   Alaska On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Alaskan territory 50   Hawaii Friday, August 21st, 1959
(admitted) Hawaii's Home Islands

Ratification of the Articles of Confederation [ edit ]

On November 15, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were approved for ratification by the states by the Second Continental Congress. After being ratified by all 13 states, the Articles of Confederation took effect on March 1, 1781. The Articles of Confederation, the precursor to the present United States Constitution, were formally abolished on March 4, 1789. [45]

State Date 1 Virginia Yesterday, on the sixteenth of December, 1777 2 Specifically, the state of South Carolina. Day of the Week: February 5, 1778 3 New York On this day in 1778, February 6 4 This is the state of Rhode Island. Dated: February 9th, 1778 5 Connecticut Initially published: 12 February 1778 6 Georgia February 26th, 1778 7 This New Hampshire March 4, 1778 8 Pennsylvania March 5, 1778 9 Massachusetts March 10, 1778 10 The State of North Carolina April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey This day in 1778, November 19 12 Delaware Early on the morning of February 1st, 1779 13 Maryland The date was February 2, 1781.

See also [ edit ]

• The admission of California to the Union was a provision of the Compromise of 1850, a set of legislative acts passed by Congress.
• In the years leading up to Kansas's admission to the Union as a state, from 1854 to 1861, the territory was the site of a series of violent conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery groups known as "Bleeding Kansas."
• The Enabling Act of 1889 gave the people of the Dakota, Montana, and Washington territories the legal authority to organize state governments (with Dakota being split into two states) and apply for admission to the Union.
• The New Mexico and Arizona Admission Acts and the Oklahoma Enabling Act respectively granted permission for the people of New Mexico and the Indian Territory to organize a state government and to seek admission to the Union as a new state. calling for a vote on whether or not the two areas should be combined into one state.
• Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, thanks to the Alaska Statehood Act.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Internet resources [ edit ]

• "Videos of the 50 States" History com
• "Independence Day" 50states com