Date of admission to the Union is listed for each of the 50 states in the United States.

The 50 individual states that make up the United States are co-sovereign entities with the federal government. Due to the division of powers between the federal government and the individual states, Americans hold dual citizenship. [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 administrative divisions in the USA. Any authority not specifically granted to or denied to the federal government by the United States Constitution is implicitly granted to the states. Concerns such as intrastate commerce, elections, the formation of local governments, public school policy, and non-federal road construction and maintenance are typically left to the jurisdiction of the respective state's government. Each state has a government that includes an executive, legislative, and judicial branch, and a constitution based on republican principles. [2]

The United States Congress is a bicameral legislature made up of senators and representatives from all 50 states. 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. 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]

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

In the table below, you'll find 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 between 1777 and 1781 by ratifying the Articles of Confederation. (A separate table detailing the ratification of the Acts of Confederation is provided below.) The order in which these states are listed indicates the order in which they ratified the Constitution in 1787 and thus became part of the newly formed (and still existing) 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 or confirmed Made up of 1   Delaware Monday, December 7th, 1787 [8]
(ratified) The Province of Delaware[b]. 2   Pennsylvania Tuesday, December 12th, 1787 [10]
(ratified) The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a Crown Colony 3   New Jersey Friday, December 18th, 1787 [11]
(ratified) Jersey, a former British colony now a state 4   Georgia Tuesday, January 2, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Georgia, a British Crown Colony 5   Connecticut Day of the Year: January 9, 1788 [12]
(ratified) Connecticut, a former British colony 6   Massachusetts On this day in 1788, February 6 [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   This New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Kingdom of New Hampshire 10   Virginia June 25, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Virginia, Dominated Colony of the Crown 11   New York July 26, 1788 [13]
(ratified) Originally, New York was a British colony. 12   Asheville, North Carolina1 Tuesday, November 21st, 1789 [14]
(ratified) The North Carolina Colony was a Crown Colony. 13   Providence, Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Royal Colony 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) The Republic of 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) The Southwestern Region 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Northwest Territories (portion of) 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Orleans Territory 19   Indiana On this date in 1816:
(admitted) A Landmark in the History of the United States: Indiana 20   Mississippi Dated: 12-10-1817 [22]
(admitted) The Mississippi Valley 21   Illinois Monday, December 3, 1818 [23]
(admitted) The Illinois Territory, Part 22   Alabama Dated: 12/14/1819 [24]
(admitted) State of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) (Maine F District) Massachusetts 24   Missouri Tenth of August, 1821 [26]
(admitted) A Portion of Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) The Arkansas Valley 26   Michigan Saturday, January 26th, 1837 [28]
(admitted) Land of Michigan 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) Region of Florida 28   Texas Sunday, December 29th, 1845 [29]
(admitted) The State of Texas as a Separate Republic 29   Iowa On this day in 1846, December
(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) Wilderness area / Mexican Cession (section)[g] 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) A Section of Minnesota 33   Oregon The 14th of February, 1859
(admitted) A Section of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas On this day in 1861: [33]
(admitted) A Portion of Kansas 35   There's no place like West Virginia1 June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) Fifty counties in Virginia's Trans-Allegheny area. 36   Nevada Date: October 31, 1864
(admitted) The State of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) State of Nebraska 38   Colorado As of today, August 1, 1876 [37]
(admitted) The Colorado Region 39   There's a lot of room in North Dakota1 The date of November 2, 1889 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 40   It's in the Badlands of South Dakota1. On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 41   Montana November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) Where We Live Is the Greatest Place on Earth 42   Washington When: November 11th, 1889 [42]
(admitted) State of Washington 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) The State of Idaho 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) The State of Wyoming 45   Utah Time: Thursday, January 4, 1896 [43]
(admitted) The State of Utah 46   Oklahoma The Date Was November 16, 1907 [44]
(admitted) Both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory 47   New Mexico January 6th, 1912
(admitted) The State of New Mexico 48   Arizona On this day in 1912, February 14th,
(admitted) This is Arizona State Land 49   Alaska On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Alaskan territory 50   Hawaii Monday, 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. After the 13 states ratified the Articles of Confederation on March 1, 1781, they became law. Government under the Articles was abolished on March 4, 1789, and the present federal government under the Constitution was established. [45]

State Date 1 Virginia On this day in 1777 2 Carolina del Sur Friday, February 5th, 1778 3 New York On this day in 1778, February 6: 4 The Ocean State, Rhode Island It was February 9th, 1778. 5 Connecticut 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 Carolina del Norte April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey On this day in 1778, November 19 12 Delaware One Day in 1779: February 13 Maryland The date was February 2, 1781.

See also [ edit ]

• The admission of California to the Union was one of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850, a set of legislative acts passed by Congress.
• Kansas Territory was the site of a series of bloody conflicts between anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups known as Bleeding Kansas from 1854 to 1861.
• In 1889, Congress passed the Enabling Act, which allowed the people of the Dakota, Montana, and Washington territories to organize themselves politically as states and apply for admission to the Union.
• Authorizing the people of the Indian Territory and the Oklahoma Territory to organize themselves into a single state and to seek admission to the Union as a single state via the Oklahoma Enabling Act; also authorizing the people of the New Mexico and Arizona Territories to organize themselves into a state government and to seek admission to the Union as a single state. calling for a vote on whether or not the two areas should be combined into one state.
• On January 3, 1959, Alaska officially became a state thanks to the Alaska Statehood Act.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Connections outside the text [ edit ]

• Video Clips of the 50 United States History com
• "Independence Day" 50states com