List of U.S. states by date of statehood

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This is a list of U.S. states by date of statehood, that is, the date when each U.S. state joined the Union. Although the first 13 states can be considered to have been members of the United States from the date of the Declaration of Independence – Thursday, July 4 1776 – they are presented here as being "admitted" on the date each ratified the present United States Constitution; most other such lists, including the 50 State Quarters program, do the same. The admission dates for later states were set by either the act of admission or a later resolution issued under that act, except for Ohio, whose date of admission was determined by act of Congress in 1953 (see note below).

This list does not account for the secession during the American Civil War of 13 states, 11 of which formed the Confederate States of America, and the subsequent restoration of those states to representation in Congress (sometimes called "readmission") between 1866 and 1870, or the end of Reconstruction in those states. Nor do the dates on the list reflect ratification of the Articles of Confederation, which is the original document naming the United States as such, and giving the initial label of "states" to the subnational political entities.

#	State	Ratification‡ or Admission	Preceding Entity
1	Delaware	Friday, December 7 1787 ‡	Lower Counties on Delaware, then sovereign state in Confederation
2	Pennsylvania	Wednesday, December 12 1787 ‡	Province of Pennsylvania, then sovereign state in Confederation
3	New Jersey	Tuesday, December 18 1787 ‡	Province of New Jersey, then sovereign state in Confederation
4	Georgia	Wednesday, January 2 1788 ‡	Province of Georgia, then sovereign state in Confederation
5	Connecticut	Wednesday, January 9 1788 ‡	Connecticut Colony, then sovereign state in Confederation

Notes

‡ Original 13 Colonies.

* Congress recognized the state of Ohio on February 19 1803, but no formal date of statehood was set by the act of admission or a later resolution, as occurred with all other new states. On August 7 1953, Congress passed a law retroactively setting the date of Ohio's statehood at March 1 1803, the date when Ohio's first legislature convened.

† The actual statehood proclamations for North and South Dakota were intentionally shuffled so that no one actually knows which was admitted first; President Benjamin Harrison always refused to tell the order in which he signed the two statehood bills. However, North Dakota's proclamation was published first in the Statutes at Large (since it is first in the alphabet); hence, it is listed before South Dakota by most sources (including the 50 State Quarters program).

References

50 State Quarter Program from the United States Mint (including dates of statehood) [Retrieved: January 19 2006]
Dates of statehood, via 50states.com (includes notes, retrieved January 19 2006)

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