The Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia, the city honored in America250’s founding story.
The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, then the largest city in British North America. Congress used the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, for its deliberations and the adoption of the Declaration.
Philadelphia was a major political and intellectual center in the colonial era. It hosted the First Continental Congress in 1774 and later the Constitutional Convention in 1787, giving it an unusual concentration of events in early United States history.
Boston and New York were also crucial Revolutionary-era cities, but neither was the location where Congress adopted the Declaration. Charleston played an important role in the southern colonies and the Revolutionary War, yet the Declaration’s adoption took place in Philadelphia.