The current United States flag has 50 stars.
Each star represents one U.S. state. The flag also has 13 horizontal stripes, representing the thirteen colonies that declared independence from Great Britain. The stars are white and arranged on a blue canton in nine alternating rows of six and five.
The 50-star flag became official on July 4, 1960, after Hawaii joined the Union as the fiftieth state. Alaska had become the forty-ninth state in 1959, so the United States used a 49-star flag for one year. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the executive order establishing the 50-star design in August 1959.
The flag’s 13-star design dates from 1777, when the Continental Congress adopted the first official national flag resolution. The modern flag is often associated with Betsy Ross, but historians have found no conclusive evidence that she designed the first flag. The flag’s stars have changed as states entered the Union, while the number of stripes was fixed at 13 by the Flag Act of 1818. This distinguishes the modern flag from earlier versions with 15 or other numbers of stars and stripes.