American state membership timeline

A state is one of the 50 individual entities that make up the United States and share sovereignty with the federal government. Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside, due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the federal government [1]The full official names of the states of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all include the word "commonwealth" rather than "state."

The 50 states are the main political divisions 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. Each state has a government that includes an executive, legislative, and judicial branch, and a constitution based on republican principles. [2]

The U.S. Congress is a bicameral legislature, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, that includes representatives from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Two senators and at least one representative represent each state in the Senate, while the size of a state's delegation in the House of Representatives is determined by that state's population as of the most recent decennial census required by the Constitution. There's also the Electoral College, which votes for the President and Vice President of the United States, of which each state gets a certain number of representatives and senators to represent it. [4]

This power to Union" target="_blank">admit new states into the Union is delegated to Congress by Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution. There are now fifty states, up from the original thirteen that existed when the United States was founded in 1776. A new state is admitted to the union on the same terms as the existing ones. [5]

Below is a table with information about when each of the 50 states became independent. After signing on to the United States Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the first 13 states formally entered the Union of States in the years between 1777 and 1781 by ratifying the Articles of Confederation. (See below for a separate table detailing the ratification dates of the AoC.) 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 state's admission date is a statutory deadline established by Congress. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
(accepted; confirmed) Developed from 1   Delaware When: 7 December 1787 [8]
(ratified) Delaware [b] Colony. 2   Pennsylvania Wednesday, December 12th, 1787 [10]
(ratified) State of Pennsylvania as a Private Colony 3   New Jersey On this day in 1787, December 18 [11]
(ratified) New Jersey, a former British colony. 4   Georgia First Day of the Year, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Province of the British Crown in the Americas 5   Connecticut 9 January 1788 [12]
(ratified) Connecticut, the Crown Colony 6   Massachusetts Adopted: 6 February 1788 [8]
(ratified) Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Crown Colony 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Maryland, a colonial possession 8   Carolina del Sur May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) South Carolina, a Crown Colony 9   The state of New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, a Colony under the Crown 10   Virginia June 25, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Virginia, Dominated Colony of the Crown 11   New York July 26, 1788 [13]
(ratified) New York, a Colony Held in the Name of the Crown 12   Carolina del Norte On this day in 1789 [14]
(ratified) The North Carolina Colony was a Crown Colony. 13   The Ocean State: Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, British Colony 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) There is a republic in Vermont. 15   Kentucky June 1, 1792 [16]
(admitted) District of Kentucky[d] (consisting of nine counties) in the Commonwealth of Virginia. 16   Tennessee June 1, 1796 [18]
(admitted) States Constituting the South-Western Region 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Canadian Region of the Northwest 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Orleans Territory 19   Indiana Tuesday, December 11th, 1816
(admitted) Hoosier State 20   Mississippi Dated: 12-10-1817 [22]
(admitted) Places in the Mississippi Valley 21   Illinois December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) Specifically, the area of Illinois that is now known as the territory of 22   Alabama Dated: 12/14/1819 [24]
(admitted) State of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) District of Maine (Massachusetts) 24   Missouri It was August 10th, 1821. [26]
(admitted) Split Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) The Arkansas Valley 26   Michigan Friday, January 26th, 1837 [28]
(admitted) This is Michigan Country. 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) The State of Florida 28   Texas Sunday, December 29th, 1845 [29]
(admitted) The State of Texas as a Democratic Republic 29   Iowa On this day in 1846:
(admitted) Part of Iowa was once known as the Iowa Territory. 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) A Section of Wisconsin 31   California Nine September, 1850 [31]
(admitted) Partially Organized Lands / Mexican Cession [g] 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) Region of Minnesota 33   Oregon A Date: 14 FEBRUARY 1859
(admitted) A Section of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas Dated: January 29th, 1861 [33]
(admitted) The State of Kansas and Adjacent Areas 35   There's no place like West Virginia1 June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) There are fifty counties in Virginia that are included in the Trans-Allegheny statistical area. 36   Nevada This day in 1864, on October 31st,
(admitted) The State of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) Nebraska Territory 38   Colorado The First of August, 1876 [37]
(admitted) The Colorado Region 39   The State of North Dakota1 On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 40   Dakota (State) Tuesday, November 2, 1889 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 41   Montana November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) Territory of Montana 42   Washington Wednesday, November 11th, 1889 [42]
(admitted) Located in Washington State 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) The State of Idaho 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) Wyoming, the Territories 45   Utah On this day in 1896: [43]
(admitted) Land of Utah 46   Oklahoma November 16th, 1907 [44]
(admitted) Locations in Indian Territory and Oklahoma 47   New Mexico January 6th, 1912
(admitted) The State of New Mexico 48   Arizona 14 February 1912
(admitted) This is Arizona State Land 49   Alaska On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Alaskan territory. 50   Hawaii Sunday, 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 by the Second Continental Congress and sent to the individual states for ratification. Following ratification by the required 13 states, the Articles of Confederation entered into force on March 1, 1781. The current federal government, established by the Constitution, succeeded the general government under the Articles on March 4, 1789. [45]

State Date 1 Virginia The date was December 16, 1777. 2 Carolina del Sur 05 Février 1778 3 New York Dated: February 6th, 1778 4 The Ocean State: Rhode Island Tuesday, February 9, 1778 5 Connecticut 12 February 1778 6 Georgia A Date in 1778: February 26 7 Primarily Used in: New Hampshire March 4, 1778 8 Pennsylvania March 5, 1778 9 Massachusetts March 10, 1778 10 Carolina del Norte April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey November 19th, 1778 12 Delaware On this day in 1779: 13 Maryland The date was February 2, 1781.

See also [ edit ]

• The admission of California to the Union was a part of the Compromise of 1850, a set of legislative acts passed by Congress.
• Between 1854 and 1861, when Kansas was still part of the territory, a series of violent conflicts broke out between pro- and anti-slavery groups that came to be known as "Bleeding Kansas."
• Federal legislation passed in 1889 that made it possible for citizens of the Dakota (later split into two states), Montana, and Washington territories to organize state governments and apply for admission to the Union.
• The Oklahoma Enabling Act gave the people of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory the right to organize a state government and gain admission to the Union as a single state. The New Mexico and Arizona Admission Acts did the same for the people of those territories. calling for a vote on whether or not the two jurisdictions should be merged into one state.
• The Alaska Statehood Act, which officially made Alaska a state on January 3, 1959.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Connecting to the Outside World: Some Useful Resources [ edit ]

• The United States of America Video Archive History com
• Timelines of nation-state formation 50states com