Twenty-six Dunlap broadsides of the Declaration of Independence are known to survive.
John Dunlap printed about 200 broadside copies in Philadelphia shortly after Congress adopted the Declaration in July 1776. A broadside was a single large sheet, a practical format for quickly reproducing and circulating an important public text.
Most of the original print run disappeared over the centuries. The surviving examples are valuable because they preserve the text as it was first distributed through the colonies, before the later engrossed parchment copy became the iconic version.
The number 26 should not be confused with the Declaration’s 56 signers or the 13 colonies. One surviving copy was discovered at the National Archives in England in 2009, showing that additional historical evidence can emerge long after the founding era.