Ordered list of when each state joined the United States

For those unfamiliar, a state is one of the 50 individual entities that together make up the United States and share sovereignty with the federal government. Given 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 the word state.

It is the states that serve as the most basic organizational units for the American Federation. They have all the authority that is not specifically given to or prohibited 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 is based on republican principles as outlined in the state's own constitution. [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]

Congress has the power to Union" target="_blank">admit new states into the Union per 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 have been admitted on an equal footing with the rest. [5]

The table below details the official statehood dates 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. (A separate table detailing dates of AoC ratification is provided below.) States are listed in the order in which they ratified the Constitution in 1787 and thus became part of the newly formed (and still existing) federal government. Each succeeding state's admission date is a statutory deadline mandated by federal law. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
(accepted or approved) Shaped by 1   Delaware Seventh of December, 1787 [8]
(ratified) First English-speaking settlement in what is now Delaware. 2   Pennsylvania Dated: 12 December 1787 [10]
(ratified) Pennsylvania, a Crown Colony 3   New Jersey Sunday, December 18th, 1787 [11]
(ratified) The New Jersey Crown Colony 4   Georgia On this day in 1788 [8]
(ratified) The Georgia Colony was a Crown Possession. 5   Connecticut Nineteen Eighty-Eighth Day, January [12]
(ratified) Connecticut, a former British colony 6   Massachusetts Sixteen years ago today, on February 6th, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Royal Colony of Massachusetts Bay 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Maryland, a Crown Colony 8   "South Carolina1" May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Originally, South Carolina was a British colony. 9   New Hampshire1 (state) June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, a Colony under the Rule of the British 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 Royal Colony 12   It's in the Tar Heel State, or North Carolina1 As of the 21st of November, 1789 [14]
(ratified) North Carolina, a former British colony 13   The Ocean State: Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) Province of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) There is a republic in Vermont. 15   Kentucky June 1, 1792 [16]
(admitted) With nine counties in its District of Kentucky[d], Virginia is a large state. 16   Tennessee June 1, 1796 [18]
(admitted) Lands to the West of the Mississippi 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Canada's Northwest Territories 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Province of Orleans 19   Indiana On this day in 1816, December 11
(admitted) The State of Indiana 20   Mississippi Tuesday, December 10, 1817 [22]
(admitted) The Mississippi Valley 21   Illinois On this day, December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) Piece of Illinois Territory 22   Alabama On this day in 1819, December 14 [24]
(admitted) Alabam's Home State of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) District of Maine (Massachusetts) 24   Missouri Tenth of August, 1821 [26]
(admitted) Part of Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) Arkansas State 26   Michigan January 26th, 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) TX Republic 29   Iowa The 28th of December, 1846
(admitted) Part of Iowa was once known as the Iowa Territory. 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) The portion of Wisconsin that was once known as the 31   California Nine September, 1850 [31]
(admitted) In a state of disarray / the Mexican Cession, part 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) Piece of Minnesota Territory 33   Oregon Tuesday, February 14, 1859
(admitted) A Section of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas It all began on this date in 1861: January 29. [33]
(admitted) Section of Kansas Territory 35   "West Virginia1" June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) The Commonwealth of Virginia (all fifty counties in the Trans-Allegheny area[h]). 36   Nevada Sunday, October 31st, 1864
(admitted) Region of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) Territorial Status: Nebraska 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) This day in 1889, November [38][i]
(admitted) Section of Dakota Territory 41   Montana Sunday, November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) Places in Montana 42   Washington On this date in 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 The Fourth of January, 1896 [43]
(admitted) Geographical Utah 46   Oklahoma On this day in 1907 — November 16 [44]
(admitted) Bordering Oklahoma is Indian Territory. 47   New Mexico January 6th, 1912
(admitted) State of New Mexico 48   Arizona The date February 14th, 1912
(admitted) To occupy the territory now known as Arizona 49   Alaska Sunday, January 3rd, 1959
(admitted) The Alaskan Territories 50   Hawaii On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Hawaiian Home Islands

Ratification dates for the Articles of Confederation [ edit ]

On November 15, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were approved by the Second Continental Congress for submission to state legislatures for ratification. After being ratified by the required number of states (13 in this case), the Articles of Confederation took effect 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 The State of South Carolina. 05 Février 1778 3 New York Monday, February 6th, 1778 4 The Ocean State: Rhode Island 9 February 1778 5 Connecticut On this day in 1778, February 12: 6 Georgia Sunday, February 26th, 1778 7 Specifically, the state of 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 This day in 1778, November 19 12 Delaware On this day in 1779: 13 Maryland As of today, February 2, 1781

See also [ edit ]

• The admission of California to the Union was one of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850, a collection of acts passed by Congress.
• When Kansas Territory was still a territory, between 1854 and 1861, a series of violent conflicts broke out between anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups, coming to be known as "Bleeding Kansas."
• This was made possible by the Enabling Act of 1889, which allowed the people of the Dakota, Montana, and Washington territories to organize themselves politically as states (with Dakota being split in half) and apply for admission to the Union.
• The Oklahoma Enabling Act granted 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 on whether or not the two areas should be combined into one state.
• Effective January 3, 1959, Alaska officially became the 49th state in the Union thanks to the Alaska Statehood Act.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Connections outside the text [ edit ]

• Various Videos Relating to Individual States in the USA History com
• Indicators of Statehood Dates 50states com