Territorial Evolution of The United States - Notes

Notes

• This article does not include unincorporated territories and countries under free association. The fundamental difference between unincorporated and incorporated territories is that incorporated territories are considered to forever be under the jurisdiction of the United States Constitution, whereas it is possible for unincorporated territories to become independent. These are:
  • Nations under Compacts of Free Association: Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau.
  • Unincorporated, organized territories: Guam, United States Virgin Islands.
  • Commonwealths, another form of unincorporated and organized territory: Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico (This is different from the term commonwealth used by some states.)
  • American Samoa is unorganized, but has a constitution and self-government, making it functionally very similar to an organized territory.
  • The United States Minor Outlying Islands, which are uninhabited, unorganized, and except for Palmyra Atoll, unincorporated.
  • The former unincorporated territories of the Line Islands, Panama Canal Zone, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, and the Phoenix Islands.
  • The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a United Nations trusteeship granted to the United States following World War II. It has since dissolved, becoming the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau.
  • Various other unincorporated territories whose claims under the Guano Island Act have been abrogated by the United States Government.
• "Unorganized territory" is not a name; it simply means Congress has not passed an organic act for the territory. In most situations, the purpose of unorganized territory was to act as land for Native American settlement. Later, the last unorganized territory in the country was indeed referred to as "Indian Territory", though this is not an official name. The last territories acquired by the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Mexican Cession, began unorganized, but not as land set aside for Native Americans, but simply because they had not been organized yet. Palmyra Atoll is the only remaining unorganized incorporated U.S. territory.
• Dotted lines on the borders mean that region is part of a country not fully shown on the map, since it's confined to the present-day borders of the United States. An exception is Oregon Country, which was shared land which extended beyond the area of the map.

• Some territorial disputes and borders from early in the United States' history are unclear. For example, the border between West Florida and East Florida seems unclear. For the purposes of simplicity, this article uses the original border, the Apalachicola River, even though later maps tended to move it west to the Perdido River. This is partly because the Organic Act for Florida specified that it included parts of both West and East Florida; if the border were the Perdido River, then Florida Territory would not have included any of West Florida, it having already been divided among Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
• Several very small changes are included in the list but not included in the maps.

1. The switch of two extra counties from Virginia to West Virginia at the end of the American Civil War.
2. The Alaska Boundary Dispute, since it arose from a total lack of surveying, rather than a dispute over the surveyed lines; it would also appear quite small on the map.
3. When the Dakota Territory was created, it also included land south of 43° N and north of the Keya Paha and Niobrara rivers. This was transferred to the state of Nebraska on March 28, 1882.
4. The two small adjustments to Indiana Territory.
5. Various disputes along the Rio Grande with Mexico.

• Ratification of the Constitution, Confederacy formation and reconstruction are simplified to make the map simpler.