The Treaty of Paris officially ended the American Revolutionary War.
Representatives of Great Britain and the United States signed the treaty in Paris on September 3, 1783. It recognized the Thirteen Colonies as free, sovereign, and independent states, giving diplomatic confirmation to the independence proclaimed in the Declaration of 1776.
The treaty followed the American victory at Yorktown in 1781, but the war’s formal conclusion took longer. Military operations and negotiations continued after Cornwallis surrendered. The agreement also set boundaries for the new United States, including territory extending westward to the Mississippi River and northward toward the Great Lakes.
This treaty is sometimes confused with the 1783 treaties involving France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic, which were part of the wider Peace of Paris. It is also distinct from the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 decades later.