The order in which the states joined the United States

The 50 individual states that make up the United States are co-sovereign entities with the central government. In light of the division of powers between the federal government and the individual states, all U.S. citizens hold dual citizenship. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are the only states whose full official names do not include the word "state," opting instead for the term "commonwealth."

All of the United States can be broken down into its constituent parts, but states are the most basic level. It gives them authority over everything the federal government doesn't have, including everything the Constitution expressly forbids them from doing. For the most part, matters of local concern are left to the jurisdiction of individual states, such as the management of intrastate trade, the conduct of elections, the formation of municipal governments, the direction of public education, and the building and maintenance of roads not funded by the federal government. 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, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives, from which citizens of all 50 states and the District of Columbia can elect their own representatives. 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 Constitution specifically vests the power to Union" target="_blank">admit new states into the Union in Congress through 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. All newly admitted states have been given full voting rights. [5]

Here's a handy table with all 50 states and the days they 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 with dates of AoC ratification is provided below.) The order in which these states are listed reflects 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 legally mandated deadline. [a]

List of U S states [ edit ]

State Date
"(accepted or confirmed)" Originating from 1   Delaware When: 7 December 1787 [8]
(ratified) Delaware [b] Colony. 2   Pennsylvania On this day in 1787, December 12: [10]
(ratified) Pennsylvania, a Proprietary Province 3   New Jersey On this day in 1787: [11]
(ratified) New Jersey, a former British colony. 4   Georgia Initially published: January 2, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Kingdom of Georgia 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) Maryland, a colonial possession 8   Columbia, South Carolina1 May 23, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Royal Province of South Carolina 9   This New Hampshire1 June 21, 1788 [8]
(ratified) New Hampshire, a Colony under the Crown 10   Virginia June 25, 1788 [8]
(ratified) Virginia, Royal Colony and Dominated State 11   New York July 26, 1788 [13]
(ratified) New York, the "Crown Colony" 12   Carolina del Norte On this day in 1789 [14]
(ratified) North Carolina, a former Crown colony 13   It's in Rhode Island1. May 29, 1790 [8]
(ratified) Providence Plantations and the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, British 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) The Southwestern Region 17   Ohio March 1, 1803 [19][e]
(admitted) Province of the Northwest 18   Louisiana April 30, 1812 [21]
(admitted) Region of Orleans 19   Indiana Wednesday, December 11th, 1816
(admitted) Hoosier State 20   Mississippi As of today, December 10th, 1817 [22]
(admitted) The Mississippi Valley 21   Illinois December 3rd, 1818 [23]
(admitted) Part of Illinois Territory 22   Alabama It was on this date in 1819, December 14th, that [24]
(admitted) Located in Alabama 23   Maine March 15, 1820 [25]
(admitted) (Maine F District) Massachusetts 24   Missouri Tenth of August, 1821 [26]
(admitted) State of Missouri (in part) 25   Arkansas June 15, 1836 [27]
(admitted) The Arkansas Valley 26   Michigan January 26th, 1837 [28]
(admitted) In the State of Michigan 27   Florida March 3, 1845
(admitted) Location of Florida as a Separate Political Entity 28   Texas On this day in 1845, December 29th, [29]
(admitted) Texas Republic 29   Iowa Last Updated: 28 December, 1846
(admitted) An Area of Iowa 30   Wisconsin May 29, 1848 [30]
(admitted) State of Wisconsin, Inc. 31   California This day in 1850, on September 9 [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) A Portion of Kansas 35   Western Virginia June 20, 1863 [34]
(admitted) Fifty counties in Virginia's Trans-Allegheny area. 36   Nevada On this day in 1864, October 31st,
(admitted) The State of Nevada 37   Nebraska March 1, 1867
(admitted) Expansion of the Nebraska Territory1 38   Colorado On this day in 1876, August 1: [37]
(admitted) Said of the area now known as Colorado: 39   It's in North Dakota1. On this day in 1889, November 2 [38][i]
(admitted) A Portion of Dakota Territory 40   State Name: South Dakota1 Two thousand and eleven on November [38][i]
(admitted) South Dakota Section 41   Montana Saturday, November 8th, 1889 [41]
(admitted) The State of Montana 42   Washington On this day in 1889, November 11 [42]
(admitted) State of Washington 43   Idaho July 3, 1890
(admitted) Location: Idaho, in the Territory 44   Wyoming July 10, 1890
(admitted) The State of Wyoming 45   Utah First Day of the Year, 1896, January 4 [43]
(admitted) The State of Utah 46   Oklahoma Tuesday, November 16th, 1907 [44]
(admitted) Geographical Regions of Oklahoma and Indian Country 47   New Mexico The date was January 6th, 1912
(admitted) Region of New Mexico 48   Arizona 14 February 1912
(admitted) Location: Arizona 49   Alaska On this date in 1959:
(admitted) Alaskan territory 50   Hawaii Today in History (August 21st, 1959)
(admitted) Hawaii's Home Islands

The 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. On March 1, 1781, after being ratified by all 13 states, the Articles of Confederation entered into force. The Articles of Confederation were abolished on March 4, 1789, and the current federal government under the Constitution was established. [45]

State Date 1 Virginia Sunday, December 16th, 1777 2 Carolina del Sur 05 Février 1778 3 New York On this day in 1778, February 6 4 The Ocean State: Rhode Island Nineteen Seventy-Eighth Day, February 5 Connecticut Dated: February 12th, 1778 6 Georgia February 26th, 1778 7 A New England State: March 4, 1778 8 Pennsylvania March 5, 1778 9 Massachusetts March 10, 1778 10 Carolina del Norte April 5, 1778 11 New Jersey Thursday, November 19th, 1778 12 Delaware Day of the Sun, February 1, 1779 13 Maryland The date was February 2, 1781.

See also [ edit ]

• The admission of California to the Union was a part of the "Compromise of 1850," a collection of legislative acts passed by Congress.
• During the years of 1854–1861, just before Kansas became a state, anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups engaged in a series of violent conflicts in Kansas Territory.
• The Enabling Act of 1889 granted the people of the Dakota, Montana, and Washington territories the right to organize themselves into new states and join the Union.
• 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. call for a vote on whether or not the two areas should be united as a single state
• The Alaska Statehood Act officially made Alaska a state on January 3, 1959.

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

The term "external links" is used to indicate links [ edit ]

• United States of America Video Map History com
• "Independence Day" 50states com