Thirteen British North American colonies were represented in the independence movement commemorated by America250.
The colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast from New Hampshire in the north to Georgia in the south. They were not identical: their economies, religious traditions, political institutions, and relationships with Indigenous nations varied considerably. Together, however, they formed the political group that declared independence from Great Britain in 1776.
The thirteen names were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Their delegates met in the Continental Congress and eventually supported independence.
A common confusion is counting the British colonies that existed in North America more broadly. The thirteen were the colonies that became the original United States, not every British possession on the continent. East and West Florida, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and other territories remained outside the new union in 1776.