Ordered list 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. People in the United States are citizens of both the federal republic and the state in which they currently reside. Only four states—Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—have commonwealth in their official names rather than state.

All of the United States can be broken down into its constituent parts, but states are the most basic level. They have all the authority that isn't 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 are generally under the purview of state governments. Republican principles form the basis for each state's constitution and government, which is made up of an executive, legislative, and judicial branch. [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. 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]

The Constitution clearly states that Congress has the power to Union" target="_blank">admit new states into the Union in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1. There are now fifty states, up from the original thirteen that existed when the United States was founded in 1776. New states join the union on an equal footing with the rest. [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 first 13 states formally entered the Union of States between 1777 and 1781 by ratifying the Articles of Confederation. (An additional table detailing the ratification of the Acts of Confederation is provided below.) These states are listed in the order in which they joined the new (and current) federal government upon ratification of the Constitution in 1787. Each subsequent state's admission date is a legally mandated deadline. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
(accepted; confirmed) Developed from 1   Delaware Specifically: 7 December 1787 [8]
(ratified) The State of Delaware as a Colony[b]. 2   Pennsylvania It was on December 12th, 1787, that the Declaration of Independence [10]
(ratified) British Colony of Pennsylvania 3   New Jersey Sunday, December 18th, 1787 [11]
(ratified) Colony of the British Crown in North America 4   Georgia The date was January 2, 1788. [8]
(ratified) Kingdom of Georgia 5   Connecticut January 9th, 1788 [12]
(ratified) Connecticut, the Crown Colony 6   Massachusetts The sixth of February, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Crown Colony 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Maryland, a colonial possession 8   An Acronym for the State of South Carolina1 May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Colony of the Crown of South Carolina 9   The State of New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, Royal Colony 10   Virginia June 25, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Virginia, Dominion of the Crown and Imperial Colony 11   New York July 26, 1788 [13]
(ratified) New York, a Royal Colony 12   A Place Called North Carolina1 On this day in 1789 [14]
(ratified) North Carolina, a former Crown colony 13   The Ocean State: Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) Provost State of Providence Plantations and the State of Rhode Island 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) The [c]Republic of Vermont 15   Kentucky June 1, 1792 [16]
(admitted) (Kentucky is represented by nine counties in Virginia) 16   Tennessee June 1, 1796 [18]
(admitted) Territory to the Southwest 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Territories in the Northwest 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Louisiana (Orleans) 19   Indiana On this date in 1816:
(admitted) The State of Indiana 20   Mississippi When: December 10th, 1817 [22]
(admitted) The Mississippi Valley 21   Illinois Dated: December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) Part of Illinois Territory 22   Alabama As of today, December 14th, 1819 [24]
(admitted) In the State of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Maine(f) District). 24   Missouri Tenth of August, 1821 [26]
(admitted) A Portion of Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) In the Arkansas Territory1 26   Michigan Dated: January 26th, 1837 [28]
(admitted) Province of Michigan 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) The Florida Peninsula 28   Texas Last Updated: 29 December 1845 [29]
(admitted) Confederate States of America 29   Iowa Monday, December 28th, 1846
(admitted) Partial Iowa Territory 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) A Section of Wisconsin 31   California Tuesday, September 9, 1850 [31]
(admitted) Disordered Lands / The Mexican Cession, Part (g) 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) Section of Minnesota Territory 33   Oregon 14 February 1859
(admitted) Segment of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas On this day in 1861: [33]
(admitted) Part of Kansas 35   Mountain State of West Virginia1 June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) Fifty counties in Virginia's Trans-Allegheny area. 36   Nevada Date: October 31, 1864
(admitted) Nevada, the State 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) Its Name for the State of Nebraska 38   Colorado The First of August, 1876 [37]
(admitted) The Colorado Region 39   To the north: North Dakota1 On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) Region of Dakota 40   States of America: South Dakota1 On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) Area Including the State of Dakota 41   Montana Dated: November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) The State of Montana 42   Washington 11 November 1889 [42]
(admitted) Locale of Washington State 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) In the Idaho Panhandle 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) The State of Wyoming 45   Utah Thursday, January 4, 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 A Date: January 6, 1912
(admitted) The State of New Mexico 48   Arizona 14 February 1912
(admitted) Pardon my ignorance, but I wasn't aware that Arizona was 49   Alaska Dated: January 3rd, 1959
(admitted) Anchorage, Alaska 50   Hawaii On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Hawaii's Home Islands

Information about when the Articles of Confederation were ratified [ edit ]

On this day in 1777, the Articles of Confederation were approved by the Second Continental Congress and sent to the individual states for ratification. After being ratified by all 13 states, the Articles of Confederation became effective on March 1, 1781. The current federal government, established under the Constitution, succeeded the general government under the Articles on March 4, 1789. [45]

State Date 1 Virginia On this day in 1777 2 Southeastern United States, Specifically, the State of South Carolina The date was February 5th, 1778. 3 New York Adopted: February 6th, 1778 4 Specifically, the state of Rhode Island 9 February 1778 5 Connecticut As of this date in 1778: February 12 6 Georgia Saturday, February 26th, 1778 7 Specifically, the State of New Hampshire March 4, 1778 8 Pennsylvania March 5, 1778 9 Massachusetts March 10, 1778 10 A Place Called North Carolina April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey November 19th, 1778 12 Delaware The First of February, 1779 13 Maryland On this day in 1781, February 2

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.
• The years 1854–1861, just before Kansas became a state, were marked by a string of violent conflicts in the Kansas Territory between anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups.
• The Enabling Act of 1889 gave the people of the Dakota, Montana, and Washington territories the right to organize their own governments and seek admission to the Union as individual states (the Dakotas were to be split in half).
• The Oklahoma Enabling Act gave the people of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory the right to organize a state government and seek 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 to decide whether or not the two areas should be merged into one state.
• On January 3, 1959, Alaska officially became a state thanks to the Alaska Statehood Act.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Internet resources [ edit ]

• State-specific video content from the United States History com
• "Independence Day" 50states com