The Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia, marking the event behind America’s 250th anniversary.
The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. The city was a major political and commercial center, and Congress conducted the independence debate there in the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall.
Philadelphia’s role is not limited to the Declaration. The First Continental Congress also met there, and the U.S. Constitution was drafted at the same building in 1787. Those connected events can make the city’s founding-era history difficult to separate, but the 1776 Declaration and the 1787 Constitution were different documents produced by different proceedings.
The Declaration’s engrossed parchment is now preserved in Washington, D.C., at the National Archives. Preservation in the capital does not change the place where Congress adopted it. Philadelphia remains the historic setting associated with the congressional decision that the 2026 semiquincentennial commemorates.