The Flag of the United States has 13 stripes, a design closely associated with America250’s founding-era symbolism.
The thirteen alternating red and white stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence and became the original states of the United States. The flag’s blue canton contains stars representing the states in the Union, so the stripes and stars refer to different parts of the nation’s history.
Congress adopted the first official national flag resolution on June 14, 1777. That resolution called for thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, although the arrangement and appearance of early flags varied. The modern flag keeps thirteen stripes while updating the number of stars as states joined the Union.
A common mix-up is reversing the symbols: the stripes do not represent the current number of states. The current flag has 50 stars, reflecting the 50 states, but it retains 13 stripes for the original colonies.