States in the United States, listed by their official admission to the Union.

A state is one of the 50 individual entities that make up the United States and share sovereignty with the federal government. Americans hold dual citizenship with the federal republic and the state in which they reside due to the separation of powers. Four U.S. states—Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—have commonwealth in their official names instead of state.

The fifty states constitute the most basic administrative divisions of the USA. They have all the authority that is not specifically given to or forbidden to the federal government by the United States Constitution. The federal government does not have jurisdiction over local issues, so it is up to the states to handle things like intrastate commerce, elections, new municipalities, public school policy, and non-federal road building and maintenance. Government in each state is divided into an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary, and is based on a unique set of constitutional safeguards based on republican ideal [2]

The U.S. 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. Two senators and one representative are guaranteed to each state by the Constitution; the number of representatives each state has in the House of Representatives is determined by the population of the state as of the most recent decennial census. Each state has the right to send a number of electors to the Electoral College, the body that votes for President and Vice President, equal to the sum of its congressional deputies. [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. In the 240 years since the United States' founding in 1776, the number of states has increased from its original 13. All newly admitted states have been given full voting rights. [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 in the years between 1777 and 1781 by ratifying the Articles of Confederation. (See the separate table below for the exact dates each AoC was ratified.) The order in which these states are listed reflects the order in which they voted to join the new (and current) federal government after ratifying the Constitution in 1787. Each subsequent state's admission date is a statutory deadline established by Congress. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
admitted; approved Made up of 1   Delaware When: 7 December 1787 [8]
(ratified) Delaware [b] Colony 2   Pennsylvania Dated: 12 December 1787 [10]
(ratified) Colonial Pennsylvania 3   New Jersey Today in 1787, on December 18th, [11]
(ratified) New Jersey, a former British colony. 4   Georgia The date was January 2nd, 1788. [8]
(ratified) Georgia, a British Crown Colony 5   Connecticut 9 January 1788 [12]
(ratified) Connecticut, a former British colony 6   Massachusetts Saturday, February 6th, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Massachusetts Bay Colony, a Crown Colony 7   Maryland April 28, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Colonial Maryland 8   State of South Carolina1 May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Colonial South Carolina, a Crown Colony 9   This New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, a British Crown Colony 10   Virginia June 25, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Commonwealth of Virginia, Dominion of the Crown 11   New York July 26, 1788 [13]
(ratified) The New York Crown Colony 12   Here in good ol' NC On this day in 1789, November 21st, [14]
(ratified) North Carolina, a former British colony 13   A Place Called Rhode Island1 May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) Kingdom of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 14   Vermont March 4, 1791 [15]
(admitted) The Republic of Vermont 15   Kentucky June 1, 1792 [16]
(admitted) A total of nine counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia's District in the state of Kentucky[d]. 16   Tennessee June 1, 1796 [18]
(admitted) Locations to the West 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) The Northwest Territories 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Orleans Territory 19   Indiana On this date in 1816:
(admitted) The State of Indiana 20   Mississippi Dated: 12-10-1817 [22]
(admitted) The Mississippi Valley 21   Illinois The Third of December, 1818 [23]
(admitted) An Area of Illinois 22   Alabama Thursday, December 14, 1819 [24]
(admitted) State of Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) District of Maine (Massachusetts) 24   Missouri Date: August 10, 1821 [26]
(admitted) Part of Missouri Territory 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) Specifically, the Arkansas Valley. 26   Michigan January 26th, 1837 [28]
(admitted) The Michigan Territory1 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) The State of Florida 28   Texas Thursday, December 29, 1845 [29]
(admitted) The State of Texas as a Democratic Republic 29   Iowa Last Updated: 28 December, 1846
(admitted) A Portion of Iowa Territory 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) State of Wisconsin, Inc. 31   California Nine September, 1850 [31]
(admitted) A portion of Mexico's Cession to the United States that is still disorganized. 32   Minnesota May 11, 1858 [32]
(admitted) A Section of Minnesota 33   Oregon Earlier today, on February 14th, 1859
(admitted) A Section of Oregon Territory 34   Kansas Monday, January 29th, 1861 [33]
(admitted) A Portion of Kansas 35   Western Virginia June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) State of Virginia (all fifty counties in the Trans-Allegheny area [h]). 36   Nevada The thirtieth of October, 1864
(admitted) Land of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) The State of Nebraska 38   Colorado A Day in History: August 1st, 1876 [37]
(admitted) The Colorado Region 39   The State of North Dakota1 The date of November 2, 1889 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 40   Dakota (State) On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 41   Montana November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) The State of Montana 42   Washington Adopted: 11 November 1889 [42]
(admitted) Place Name: Washington 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) Geographical ID: The Gem State of Idaho 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) Wyoming, the State 45   Utah On this day in 1896: [43]
(admitted) A Land Named Utah 46   Oklahoma November 16th, 1907 [44]
(admitted) State of Oklahoma and Native American Lands 47   New Mexico 6 January 1912
(admitted) The State of New Mexico 48   Arizona 14 February 1912
(admitted) Location: Arizona 49   Alaska On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Alaskan territory 50   Hawaii Day of the Moon, August 21, 1959
(admitted) Hawaii's Home Islands

Moments in time when the Articles of Confederation were ratified [ edit ]

On this day in 1777, the Second Continental Congress recommended to the states that they ratify the Articles of Confederation. On March 1, 1781, after being ratified by all 13 states, the Articles of Confederation entered into force. The Articles of Confederation, which governed the states, were abolished on March 4, 1789, and the present Constitution, which governs the federal level, was ratified. [45]

State Date 1 Virginia Sunday, December 16th, 1777 2 Carolina del Sur Tuesday, February 5th, 1778 3 New York Sixteen years ago today, on February 6th, 1778 4 This is the state of Rhode Island. Saturday, February 9th, 1778 5 Connecticut February 12th, 1778 6 Georgia A Date in 1778: February 26 7 This New Hampshire March 4, 1778 8 Pennsylvania March 5, 1778 9 Massachusetts March 10, 1778 10 The State of North Carolina April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey When: Tuesday, November 19, 1778 12 Delaware Monday, February 1st, 1779 13 Maryland It all started on February 2nd, 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.
• During the years 1854–1861, when Kansas was still considered part of the territory rather than a state, a series of violent conflicts broke out in the 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 on whether or not the two areas should be combined into one state.
• Article 3 of the Alaska Statehood Act officially recognized Alaska as a state on January 3, 1959.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

To other sites [ edit ]

• "Videos of the 50 States" History com
• Constitutional ratification and statehood formation dates 50states com