The current United States flag has 50 stars, a design displayed during America's 250th anniversary.
Each white star represents one state in the Union. The stars appear on a blue canton, the rectangular section in the flag's upper-left corner. The present 50-star arrangement has nine alternating rows containing six and five stars.
The 50-star flag became official on July 4, 1960, after Hawaii entered the Union as the fiftieth state. Alaska had become the forty-ninth state in 1959, prompting an earlier 49-star design. The flag has remained at 50 stars since Hawaii's admission.
The stars and stripes carry different historical meanings. The 13 stripes refer to the original colonies, while the number of stars changes when new states join. This is why the flag's star count has changed many times, but its stripe count was fixed at 13 in the nineteenth century.