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. 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 the states of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all include the word "commonwealth" rather than "state."

To better understand the United States, it is helpful to break it down into its constituent parts, which are called "state Neither the Constitution of the United States nor any state constitution can restrict the authority of the people. Local matters, 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. Each of the fifty states is governed by a constitution written in a republican style and a three-branch government consisting of an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary. [2]

The United States Congress is a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and it includes representatives from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. There are two senators and at least one representative from every state, 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 choosing the President and Vice President of the United States, is equal to the sum of the number of its congressional deputies and senators. [4]

The 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. New states join the union on an equal footing with the rest. [5]

The table below details the official statehood dates for each of the fifty 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 with dates of AoC ratification 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. In the following sections, each state's admission date is the statutory deadline established by Congress. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
(accepted or approved) Produced by 1   Delaware On this day in 1787: [8]
(ratified) Delaware [b] Colony. 2   Pennsylvania Dated: 12 December 1787 [10]
(ratified) British Colony of Pennsylvania 3   New Jersey Friday, December 18th, 1787 [11]
(ratified) New Jersey, a former British colony. 4   Georgia On this day in 1788 [8]
(ratified) Georgia, a British Crown Colony 5   Connecticut This day in 1788, January 9 [12]
(ratified) The Connecticut Colony, a British Crown Colony 6   Massachusetts This day in 1788, on February 6th, you could say: [8]
(ratified) Royal Colony of Massachusetts Bay 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) The Maryland Colony was a colonial possession. 8   State of South Carolina1 May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Province of South Carolina under the Crown 9   The State of 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) The New York Crown Colony 12   Carolina del Norte This day in 1789, November 21 [14]
(ratified) Colonial North Carolina, a Crown Colony 13   Here in Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a Colony of the British Crown 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) The 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) Southwest Area 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Canada's Northwest Territories 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) District of Orleans 19   Indiana On this date in 1816:
(admitted) Its Location: The Indiana Territory1 20   Mississippi Dated: December 10th, 1817 [22]
(admitted) Geographical Region of Mississippi 21   Illinois December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) A Section of Illinois 22   Alabama Tuesday, December 14, 1819 [24]
(admitted) Alabama State 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) District of Maine (Massachusetts) 24   Missouri Observed on August 10th, 1821 [26]
(admitted) A Portion of Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) The State of Arkansas 26   Michigan Saturday, January 26th, 1837 [28]
(admitted) The State of Michigan, or the Upper Peninsula 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) The State of Florida 28   Texas Instance created: December 29, 1845 [29]
(admitted) Texas Confederate States 29   Iowa Thursday, December 28th, 1846
(admitted) A Portion of Iowa Territory 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) Separate Section of Wisconsin 31   California Nine September, 1850 [31]
(admitted) Partially Organized Lands / Mexican Cession [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 On this day in 1861: [33]
(admitted) Partial Kansas Territory 35   The Mountain State, or West Virginia1 June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) Forty-five counties in the Greater Pittsburgh Area in Virginia. 36   Nevada Date: October 31, 1864
(admitted) This is Nevada Country. 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) States Constituting the Nebraska Territory1 38   Colorado The First of August, 1876 [37]
(admitted) Colorado, The Territorial State 39   State of North Dakota1 On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) Part of Dakota Territory 40   A State in the Midwestern U.S. As of today's date, November 2nd, 1889 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 41   Montana Sunday, November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) The State of Montana 42   Washington Monday, November 11, 1889 [42]
(admitted) Territorial Government of Washington 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) Idaho, the Territorial State 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) State of Wyoming 45   Utah Time: Thursday, January 4, 1896 [43]
(admitted) In the State of Utah 46   Oklahoma November 16th, 1907 [44]
(admitted) The Indian and Oklahoma Territories 47   New Mexico Dated: January 6th, 1912
(admitted) Places in New Mexico that Are Not in Texas 48   Arizona It all started on this date in 1912: February 14
(admitted) The State of Arizona 49   Alaska On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Alaskan territory 50   Hawaii On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Islands of Hawaii

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. When the Articles of Confederation were finally ratified by all 13 states on March 1, 1781, the new government was officially established. The Articles of Confederation were 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 In the state of South Carolina It was on this day in 1778, February 5th, that the Declaration of Independence was 3 New York Sunday, February 6th, 1778 4 The Ocean State: Rhode Island 9 February 1778 5 Connecticut Sunday, February 12th, 1778 6 Georgia February 26th, 1778 7 Primarily Used in: New Hampshire March 4, 1778 8 Pennsylvania March 5, 1778 9 Massachusetts March 10, 1778 10 Asheville, North Carolina April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey November 19th, 1778 12 Delaware The First of February, 1779 13 Maryland The date was February 2, 1781.

See also [ edit ]

• California's inclusion in the Union was made possible by the "Compromise of 1850," a collection of legislative acts passed by Congress.
• The years 1854–1861, just before Kansas became a state, were marked by a string of bloody 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 legal authority to organize state governments (with Dakota being split into two states) 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 areas should be combined into one state.
• Legislation that officially made Alaska a state on January 3, 1959

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

A look at the world outside [ edit ]

• U.S. State Videos History com
• Indicators of Statehood Dates 50states com