Territorial Evolution of The United States

Territorial Evolution Of The United States

This is a list of the evolution of the borders of the United States. This lists each change to the internal and external borders of the country, as well as status and name changes. It also shows the surrounding areas that eventually became part of the United States. Each stage has a map, to show what the specific makeup of the country was at any given time.

After achieving independence with the Treaty of Paris, the United States expanded westward, enlarging its borders seven times, with two major border adjustments, one each with colonies of the United Kingdom and Spain, and several small disputes. The original thirteen states grew into fifty states, most of which began as incorporated territories. The general pattern seen in this is of territorial expansion, carving of organized territories from the newly acquired land, modification of the borders of these territories, and eventual statehood. Only two states, Nevada and Missouri, grew appreciably after statehood, and five, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, lost land, in each case to form new states.

Read more about Territorial Evolution Of The United States:  Notes, 18th Century, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 20th Century, See Also

Famous quotes containing the words united states, territorial, evolution, united and/or states:

    “Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn’t he an archetype? Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can’t do with him. What’s wrong with him then? Or what’s wrong with us?”
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    “All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people’s wash.”
    —Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    “By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
    —Owen Barfield (b. 1898)

    “As a Tax-Paying Citizen of the United States I am entitled to a voice in Governmental affairs.... Having paid this unlawful Tax under written Protest for forty years, I am entitled to receive from the Treasury of “Uncle Sam” the full amount of both Principal and Interest.”
    —Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)

    “We cannot feel strongly toward the totally unlike because it is unimaginable, unrealizable; nor yet toward the wholly like because it is stale—identity must always be dull company. The power of other natures over us lies in a stimulating difference which causes excitement and opens communication, in ideas similar to our own but not identical, in states of mind attainable but not actual.”
    —Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)