What territory did the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 establish?

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the Northwest Territory.

Congress enacted the ordinance on July 13, 1787, to govern the region north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. It created the new nation’s first organized incorporated territory and supplied a process by which territories could eventually become equal states rather than permanent colonies.

The ordinance set population thresholds and stages of government. When the free male population of a territory reached 5,000, it could form a legislature; when a territory reached 60,000 inhabitants, it could seek admission as a state. The law also prohibited slavery in the territory, although it did not immediately eliminate slavery elsewhere or fully resolve Indigenous sovereignty and displacement.

The Northwest Territory eventually produced Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. The ordinance was first passed under the Articles of Confederation and later reaffirmed, with modifications, by the First Congress in 1789. That continuity links the Confederation era to the constitutional government.