Thirteen colonies became the original states named in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. They were British colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.
The colonies were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Their delegates acted through the Second Continental Congress and presented themselves as thirteen new states.
The number thirteen appears in several familiar national symbols, including the thirteen stripes on the United States flag. The thirteen colonies should not be confused with the first thirteen states admitted under the Constitution: Vermont became the fourteenth state in 1791, after the original states had already formed the Union.