In what state was Abraham Lincoln born?

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. He entered the world on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, in what was then Hardin County, Kentucky.

Lincoln’s family stayed at the farm for only about two years before moving to nearby Knob Creek after a dispute over land titles. In 1816, when Abraham was seven, the Lincoln family left Kentucky for southern Indiana. He later spent his early adulthood in Illinois, which is why Illinois is often strongly associated with him.

Kentucky remained important to Lincoln’s story as his birthplace, but it was not where he spent most of his formative years or launched his political career. Indiana shaped much of his frontier childhood, while Illinois was where he became a lawyer, legislator, congressman, and national political leader.

The birthplace site is now preserved as part of Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. The cabin displayed there is a symbolic reconstruction rather than the exact original structure.