Thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain in the 1776 founding story commemorated by America250.
The thirteen colonies were British settlements along the Atlantic coast of North America. Their representatives met in the Second Continental Congress and acted together during the crisis that became the American Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence presented their collective decision to separate from Great Britain.
The colonies were not identical. They differed in geography, economies, religious traditions, and political structures. New England colonies included Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; the Middle Colonies included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; and the Southern Colonies included Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
The number thirteen also appears on later U.S. symbols, including the stripes on the national flag and the arrows and olive-branch elements of the Great Seal. The thirteen colonies became the original states, although the United States later expanded to fifty states.