Thirteen colonies declared independence in the founding story commemorated by America250.
The thirteen colonies were British possessions along the Atlantic coast of North America. Their delegates formed the Second Continental Congress and adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776, announcing that the colonies were politically separate from Great Britain.
The colonies were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Their names appear in the Declaration’s concluding indictment of King George III.
A common mix-up is confusing the thirteen colonies with the states in the present-day United States. The original colonies became the first states, but the nation later expanded westward and eventually grew to fifty states. America250 focuses on the 1776 independence milestone, not the later admission of all U.S. states.