The America250 celebration of U.S. independence commemorates thirteen original colonies.
The thirteen colonies were British settlements along the Atlantic coast of North America that declared independence in 1776 and became the foundation of the United States. They were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
The colonies were not identical. They differed in geography, economies, religious traditions, settlement patterns, and relationships with Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans. Their delegates nevertheless participated in the Continental Congress and supported the move toward independence.
The number thirteen appears repeatedly in early American symbols, including the first national flag and the Great Seal’s arrangement of stars and stripes. The thirteen colonies should not be confused with the original thirteen states in every legal sense: the colonies became states through separate processes after independence.