Ordered list of when each state joined the United States

Each of the fifty United States' constituent entities, known collectively as "states," shares 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 Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all include the word commonwealth 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 is not specifically given to or forbidden to the federal government by the United States Constitution. Issues of local concern are typically delegated to the respective state governments, and these include the management of intrastate commerce, the conduct of elections, the formation of local governments, the direction of public schools, and the construction and maintenance of roads that are not funded by the federal government. Constitutions based on republican ideals and governing bodies that include separate branches of government for executive, legislative, and judicial functions are found in each of the fifty states. [2]

The United States Congress is a bicameral legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and it includes representatives from every state and every citizen. 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 the population of that state as determined by 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 power to Union" target="_blank">admit new states into the Union is vested in Congress by Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution. The United States' total number of states has grown from the original 13 in 1776 to the current 50. All new states have been given full voting rights, just like all the others. [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 between 1777 and 1781 by ratifying the Articles of Confederation. (An additional 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
accept(ed) or (approved) Constructed from 1   Delaware The Seventh of December, 1787 [8]
(ratified) The State of Delaware, a British Colony[b] 2   Pennsylvania On this day in 1787 (December 12), [10]
(ratified) Pennsylvania, a Crown Colony 3   New Jersey On this day in 1787: [11]
(ratified) New Jersey, a former British colony. 4   Georgia On this day in 1788 [8]
(ratified) During the time of the British, Georgia was a crown colony. 5   Connecticut 9 January 1788 [12]
(ratified) Connecticut, a former British colony 6   Massachusetts 6 February 1788 [8]
(ratified) Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Crown Colony 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) The Maryland Colony as a Colonial Possession 8   Carolina del Sur May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Carolina was a crown colony at the time. 9   Granite State, New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, a Colony 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) Royal New York's Colony 12   Carolina del Norte On this day in 1789 [14]
(ratified) North Carolina, a former British colony 13   A Place Called 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) (Kentucky is represented by nine counties in Virginia) 16   Tennessee June 1, 1796 [18]
(admitted) Continent's Southwestern Region 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) The Northwest Territories, Fractional 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Orleans Territory 19   Indiana Sunday, December 11th, 1816
(admitted) Its Location: The Indiana Territory1 20   Mississippi Sunday, December 10th, 1817 [22]
(admitted) Specifically, the Mississippi Delta region 21   Illinois Dated: December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) Part of Illinois Territory 22   Alabama Thursday, December 14th, 1819 [24]
(admitted) Region of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) (Maine F District) Massachusetts 24   Missouri On this day in 1821, August 10: [26]
(admitted) Separate Section of Missouri 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) Geographical Region of Arkansas 26   Michigan Today in History (January 26th, 1837) [28]
(admitted) The State of Michigan 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) An Area Including Florida 28   Texas The 29th of December, 1845 [29]
(admitted) United States of America, Texas, Republic 29   Iowa Yesterday, on the 28th of December, 1846
(admitted) An Area of Iowa 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) Section of Wisconsin 31   California Tuesday, September 9, 1850 [31]
(admitted) Partially Organized Lands / Cession to Mexico 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) A Section of Minnesota 33   Oregon On this day in 1859, February 14
(admitted) A Section of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas Dated: January 29th, 1861 [33]
(admitted) A Portion of Kansas 35   Situated in western Virginia June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) Fifty counties in Virginia's Trans-Allegheny area. 36   Nevada Monday, October 31st, 1864
(admitted) The State of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) The State of Nebraska 38   Colorado On this day in 1876: [37]
(admitted) The Colorado Area 39   The State of North Dakota1 On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) A Section of Dakota Territory 40   An Acronym for South Dakota1 The date was November 2nd, 1889. [38][i]
(admitted) Specifically the Dakota Territory. 41   Montana November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) This is Montana Country. 42   Washington On this day in 1889, November 11 [42]
(admitted) State of Washington 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) Boise, Idaho 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) The State of Wyoming 45   Utah Sunday, January 4th, 1896 [43]
(admitted) The State of Utah 46   Oklahoma Sunday, November 16th, 1907 [44]
(admitted) Lands in Oklahoma and Indian Country 47   New Mexico 6 January 1912
(admitted) The State of New Mexico 48   Arizona On this day in 1912, February 14th,
(admitted) State of Arizona 49   Alaska On this date in 1959, January 3
(admitted) Kingdom of Alaska 50   Hawaii On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Hawaiian Home Area

The ratification of the Articles of Confederation at various times [ edit ]

On November 15, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were approved by the Second Continental Congress and sent to the individual states for ratification. On March 1, 1781, after being ratified by all 13 states, the Articles of Confederation entered into force. 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 Carolina del Sur 05 Février 1778 3 New York On this day in 1778, February 6 4 The Ocean State: Rhode Island Earlier today, on February 9th, 1778, 5 Connecticut Sunday, February 12th, 1778 6 Georgia Specifically on: 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 November 19th, 1778 12 Delaware The First of February, 1779 13 Maryland The date was February 2, 1781.

See also [ edit ]

• In the Compromise of 1850, a group of bills was passed by Congress; one of these bills guaranteed California's entry into the Union.
• From 1854 to 1861, Kansas Territory was the site of a series of violent conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery groups known as Bleeding Kansas.
• 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.
• The Oklahoma Enabling Act gave the people of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory the legal 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.
• On January 3, 1959, Alaska officially became a state thanks to the Alaska Statehood Act.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Referring to Resources Outside This Article [ edit ]

• "Videos of the 50 States of the USA" History com
• Definition of Terms: "Date of Statehood" 50states com