This is a list of
historic regions of the United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, defined as regions that were legal entities in the past.
Colonial era (before 1776)
The Thirteen Colonies
- Province of New Hampshire
The Province of New Hampshire was a crown colony organized on October 7, 1691, during the period of British colonization of the Americas. The charter was enacted May 14, 1692, by William and Mary, the joint monarchs of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, at the same time that the...
- Province of Massachusetts Bay
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a crown colony chartered October 7, 1691 in British America by William and Mary, the joint monarchs of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland...
- Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Providence Plantation was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a theologian, independent preacher, and linguist on land gifted by the Narragansett sachem Canonicus. Roger Williams, fleeing from religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, agreed with his fellow settlers on an egalitarian...
- Connecticut Colony
The Colony of Connecticut was an English colony located in British America that became the U.S. state of Connecticut. Originally known as the River Colony, it was organized on March 3, 1636 as a haven for Puritan noblemen. After early struggles with the Dutch, the English gained control of the...
- Province of New York
The Province of New York resulted from the capture of the Dutch Republic colony of Provincie Nieuw-Nederland in 1664 by the Kingdom of England, and included all of the present U.S. state of New York. The province was renamed for James, Duke of York, brother to Charles II of England immediately...
- Province of New Jersey
The Province of New Jersey was an English colony that existed within the boundaries of the current U.S. state of New Jersey from 1674 until 1702. The original boundaries of the province when under English rule were slightly larger than the current state and extended into portions of the present...
- Province of Pennsylvania
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as Pennsylvania Colony, was a colony in British America founded by William Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted by King Charles II of England. Pennsylvania got its name for William Penn's father and the Latin word silva, meaning...
- Delaware Colony
Delaware Colony was an English colony in North America. It was part of the Middle Colonies.-Exploration:From the early Dutch settlement in 1631 to the colony’s rule by Pennsylvania in 1682, the land that later became the U.S. state of Delaware changed hands many times...
- Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen colonies in rebellion against Great Britain which established the United States and became the U.S...
- Colony and Dominion of Virginia
The Colony of Virginia was the English colony in British America that existed briefly during the 16th century, and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution...
- Province of North Carolina
The Province of North Carolina was originally part of the Province of Carolina in British America, which was chartered by eight Lords Proprietors. The province later became the U.S. state of North Carolina....
- Province of South Carolina
The South Carolina Colony was originally part of the Province of Carolina, which was chartered in 1663. The colony later became the U.S. state of South Carolina....
- Province of Georgia
The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States...
Colonial districts, other than the original thirteen
- Dominion of New England
The Dominion of New England in America was a short-lived administrative union of English colonies in the New England region of North America....
- East Jersey
East Jersey, together with West Jersey, was a distinct, separately governed Province of New Jersey that existed for 28 years, between 1674 and 1702. Its capital was located at Perth Amboy...
- Indian Reserve (1763)
The Indian Reserve was a territory under British rule in North America set aside in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 for use by Native Americans between 1763 and 1783....
- Jamestown Settlement
The Jamestown Settlement Colony was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Virginia Colony on May 14, 1607...
- Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, centered around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston...
- Narragansett Country
- New Haven Colony
The New Haven Colony was an English colonial venture in present-day Connecticut in North America from 1637 to 1662.- Quinnipiac Colony :A Puritan minister named John Davenport led his flock from exile in the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637...
- New Netherland
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the seventeenth-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...
- New Sweden
New Sweden was a Swedish colony along the Delaware River on the Mid-Atlantic coast of North America from 1638 to 1655. It was centered at Fort Christina, now in Wilmington, Delaware, and included parts of the present-day American states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Along with Swedes...
- Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts...
- Popham Colony
The Popham Colony was a short-lived English colonial settlement in North America that was founded in 1607 and located in the present-day town of Phippsburg, Maine near the mouth of the Kennebec River by the proprietary Virginia Company of Plymouth...
- Province of Carolina
The Province of Carolina from 1663 to 1712, was a colony of British America, controlled by the Lords Proprietary, a group of eight English noblemen led informally by member Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury...
- Province of Maine
The Province of Maine refers to several English colonies of that name that existed in the 17th century along the northeast coast of North America, at times roughly encompassing portions of the present-day U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as well as the Canadian province of Quebec...
- Roanoke Colony
The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County in present-day North Carolina was an enterprise financed and organized by Sir Walter Raleigh. It was carried out by Ralph Lane and Richard Grenville in the late 16th century to establish a permanent English settlement in the Virginia Colony...
- West Jersey
West Jersey, together with East Jersey, was one of two distinct provinces of the New Jersey. The political division existed for the 28 years between 1674 and 1702...
Colonies proposed, but unrealized or unrecognized
- Transylvania
Transylvania was a short-lived colony primarily in what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky. The colony was founded in 1775 by Richard Henderson of North Carolina, who purchased the land from the Cherokees...
- Vandalia
Vandalia was the name of a proposed British colony in North America that never materialized. The colony was to be located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what is now the U.S...
- Charlotina
Charlotina was the name proposed for a colony, the establishment of which was suggested in a pamphlet appearing in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1763, entitled The Expediency of Securing our American Colonies by Settling the Country Adjoining the River Mississippi, and the Country upon the Ohio, Considered...
- Mississippi Colony
The Mississippi Land Company was a land company formed in 1763 following the British victory in the French and Indian War . The company was formed by Virginians including George Washington, John Augustine Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Arthur Lee, and William Fitzhugh to acquire land grants in the...
Regions ceded, annexed or purchased from states or foreign powers
- Alaska Purchase
The Alaska Purchase, historically also referred to as Seward's Folly, was the purchase of Alaska by the United States from the Russian Empire in 1867. The purchase, done at the behest of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained 586,412 square miles of new United States territory...
- Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by President Franklin Pierce on June 24, 1853, and ratified by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 1854...
- Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of the French territory Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...
, originally Louisiana (New France)Louisiana or French Louisiana was the name of an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682-1763 and 1800-03, the area was named in honor of Louis XIV of France, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle...
- Great Plains
The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie and steppe which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
- Sabine Free State
The Sabine Free State, also known as the Neutral Ground, Neutral Strip, Neutral Territory, and No Man's Land of Louisiana was a disputed area between Spanish Texas and the United States' newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Spain and the United States agreed to leave the Sabine Free State temporarily...
- Mexican Cession
The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical name in the United States for the region of the present day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in 1848, excluding the areas east of the Rio Grande, which had been claimed by the Republic of Texas, though the Texas Annexation...
- Oregon Country
Oregon Country or Oregon was a predominantly American term referring to a region of the Pacific Northwest of North America...
- Red River Basin
- Rupert's Land
Rupert's Land, also sometimes called "Prince Rupert's Land", was a territory in British North America, consisting of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, that was owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870. The area once known as Rupert's Land is now mainly a part of Canada, but a...
(Minnesota, Montana, Dakotas)
- Florida Purchase
- East Florida
East Florida was originally a part of Spanish Florida. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris , which ended the Seven Years' War, Spain ceded all of its territory east and southeast of the Mississippi River to the Kingdom of Great Britain....
- West Florida
West Florida was a region on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico, which underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. Parts of the territory were held at various times by France, Spain, Britain, and the United States...
- State Cessions
The state cessions are those areas of the United States that the separate states ceded to the federal government in the late 18th and early 19th century...
- Illinois Country
The Illinois Country was the name used in the 17th century and afterwards to refer to an undefined region centered around present day southwest Illinois that was explored and settled by the French beginning in 1673, when Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette explored the Mississippi River, and France...
- Ohio Country
The Ohio Country was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie...
- Yazoo Lands
The Yazoo lands were the sparsely-populated central and western areas of the U.S. state of Georgia, when its western border stretched back to the Mississippi River. It was named for the Yazoo tribe of Native Americans. Several other places and things were named Yazoo, either for or along with the...
- Texas Annexation
The Texas Annexation of 1845 was the voluntary annexation of the Republic of Texas to the United States of America, becoming the twenty-eighth state...
Internal land grants, cessions, purchases, districts, claims or settlements
The following are land grants, cessions, purchases, defined districts (official or otherwise) or named settlements made within an area that was already part of the original 13 colonies or a state of the Union or U.S. territory, including major land acquisitions (of varying degrees of legality) from
Native AmericansNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
that did not involve international treaties or state cessions.
- Arizona Territory (CSA)
The Territory of Arizona was a territory claimed by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, between 1861 and 1865...
(Arizona, New Mexico)
- Carver's Tract (Wisconsin)
- Cherokee Strip
The Cherokee Strip of Kansas, in the United States, was a disputed strip of land on the southern border of the state.-Description:In 1825 the Osage Nation was given a reservation in eastern Indian territory in what is now Kansas. In the Treaty of New Echota, May 23, 1836, the northern border of the...
(Kansas)
- Cumberland District, North Carolina aka District of Miro (Tennessee)
- Department of Alaska
The Department of Alaska was the designation for the government of Alaska from its purchase by the United States of America in 1867 until its organization as the District of Alaska in 1884. During the Department era, Alaska was variously under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army , the United States...
- District of Alaska
The District of Alaska was the governmental designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884 to August 24, 1912, when it became Alaska Territory. Previously it had been known as the Department of Alaska. At the time, legislators in Washington, D.C., were occupied with post-Civil War reconstruction issues,...
- District of Arkansas
- District of Columbia
- District of Kentucky
- District of Louisiana
The District of Louisiana or Louisiana District was an official United States government designation for the portion of the Louisiana Purchase that had not been organized into the Territory of Orleans. The area north of present-day Arkansas was also known as Upper Louisiana...
- District of Maine
The District of Maine was a legal designation for what is now the U.S. state of Maine from American independence until the Missouri Compromise on March 4, 1820, after which it gained its independence from Massachusetts and became the 23rd state in the Union...
- District of West Augusta
The District of West Augusta was a short-lived historical region of the state of Virginia that encompassed much of what is now northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania.its...
(Pennsylvania, Virginia)
- Equivalent Lands (Connecticut-Massachusetts)
- Fairfax Grant (Virginia)
- German Coast
The German Coast was a region of early Louisiana settlement located above New Orleans on the Mississippi River — specifically, from east to west, in St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James parishes of present-day Acadiana...
(Louisiana)
- Gorges Patent (Maine)
- Granville District
The Granville District was a 60-mile wide strip of land in the North Carolina colony adjoining the boundary with Virginia, lying between north latitudes 35° 34' and 36° 30'....
(North Carolina)
- Honey Lands
The Honey War was a bloodless territorial dispute in the 1830s between Iowa and Missouri over their border....
(disputed tract of land, Iowa-Missouri)
- Jackson Purchase
The Jackson Purchase is a region of western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky, bounded by the Tennessee River on the east, the Ohio River on the north, and the Mississippi River on the west, that was ceded to the United States by the Chickasaw Nation in 1818....
(Kentucky and Tennessee)
- King's College Tract
The King's College Tract consisted of an area of forested land in the vicinity of the present towns of Cambridge and Johnson in the U.S. state of Vermont. The tract was granted in 1764 by Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden of the New York crown colony, in the name of King George III to the...
(Vermont)
- Marquette District (Wisconsin)
- Military Tract of 1812
In May 1812, an act of Congress was passed which set aside bounty lands as payment to volunteer soldiers for the War against the British...
(Illinois, Michigan, Arkansas, Missouri)
- Mobile District
The Mobile District was an administrative region of the Spanish territory of West Florida, which became part of the independent Republic of West Florida on September 23, 1810. The region was bounded in the north by the 31st parallel, in the south by the Gulf of Mexico, in the east by the Perdido...
- New Hampshire Grants
The New Hampshire Grants or Benning Wentworth Grants were land grants made between 1749 and 1764 by the provincial governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. The land grants, totaling about 135 , were made on land claimed by New Hampshire west of the Connecticut River, territory that was also...
(Vermont)
- New York Lands (Kansas)
- Pembina Territory
The Pembina Territory was a section of land covering part of the northern United States of America. It covers the Dakotas and Minnesota...
(Dakotas, Minnesota)
- Platte Purchase
The Platte Purchase was a land acquistion in 1836 by the United States government from Native American tribes that added to the northwest corner of the state of Missouri...
(Missouri)
- Pike's Peak Country
Pike's Peak Country was the name given to the gold mining region of the western United States near Pikes Peak during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858-1861...
(Colorado)
- Saginaw Cession (Michigan)
- Territory of Sagadahock
The Territory of Sagahadock included the eastern part of Maine, which was more sparsely settled than the west; the area included was the area east of the Kennebec River. The area was later absorbed into the Province of Maine....
(Maine)
- Trans-Mississippi
The Trans-Mississippi was the geographic area west of the Mississippi River during the 19th century, containing the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas, and the Indian Territory . The term was especially used by the Confederate States of America as the designation for the theater of...
- Transylvania Purchase
Transylvania was a short-lived colony primarily in what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky. The colony was founded in 1775 by Richard Henderson of North Carolina, who purchased the land from the Cherokees...
(Kentucky)
- Waldo Patent
The Waldo Patent, a letters patent also known as the Muscongus Patent or the Lincolnshire Patent, was an area of land 36 miles square in what is now the U.S...
(Maine)
- Washington District, North Carolina (Tennessee)
Iowa
- Black Hawk Purchase
The Black Hawk Purchase, sometimes called the Forty-Mile Strip or Scott's Purchase, was a land acquisition made in what is now Iowa by the United States federal government. The land, originally owned by the Sac, Fox and Ho-Chunk Native American people, was acquired by treaty following their defeat...
- Dubuque's Claim
- Giard Grant
- Half-Breed Tract
A Half-Breed Tract was a segment of land designated in the western states by the United States Government in the 19th century specifically for people of American Indian and European or European-American ancestry, known as mixed bloods. The government set aside such tracts in several U.S...
- Honey Lands
The Honey War was a bloodless territorial dispute in the 1830s between Iowa and Missouri over their border....
(disputed tract of land, Iowa-Missouri)
- Iowa District
- Keokuk's Reserve
Keokuk's Reserve was a parcel of land in the present-day U.S. state of Iowa that was retained by the Sauk and Fox tribes in 1832 in the aftermath of the Black Hawk War...
- Neutral Ground (Iowa)
- Potawatomi Cession
- Sac and Fox Cession
- Sioux Cession
New York
- Central New York Military Tract
The Military Tract of Central New York, also called the New Military Tract, consisted of nearly two million acres of bounty land set aside to compensate New York’s soldiers after their participation in the Revolutionary War....
(New York)
- The Holland Purchase (New York)
- The Mill Yard Tract
The Mill Yard Tract was a portion of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase of western New York State. It consisted of a tract deep and , abutting the west bank of the Genesee River stretching from the approximate locations of the present day town of Avon north to the community of Charlotte at Lake...
(New York)
- The Morris Reserve (New York)
- Macomb's Purchase
Macomb's Purchase is a large historical area of northern New York, USA purchased from the state in 1791 by Alexander Macomb, who had gotten rich as a merchant in the American Revolution.-History and geography:...
(New York)
- Phelps and Gorham Purchase
The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of the pre-emptive right to some 6,000,000 acres of land in western New York State for $1,000,000 . This was all land in western New York west of Seneca Lake between Lake Ontario and the Pennsylvania border...
(New York)
- The Triangle Tract
The Triangle Tract was 87,000 acre parcel of land abutting the Mill Yard Tract portion of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase in western New York State in the USA...
(New York)
- The Purchase of New Jersey (New York)
Ohio
- Canal Lands
- College Lands
- College Township
The "College Township" was the full survey township located in the northwest corner of Butler County, Ohio, now corresponding to the civil township of Oxford, designated by the Ohio General Assembly to be the site of the state university now called Miami University...
- Congress Lands or Congressional Lands (1798-1821)
- Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges
- Congress Lands West of Miami River
- Congress Lands East of Scioto River
- North and East of the First Principal Meridian
- South and East of the First Principal Meridian
South and East of the First Principal Meridian is a land description in the American Midwest.In 1817, the Ohio-Indiana border was surveyed and became known as the First Principal Meridian for all land surveyed in the rest of the United States. The 41st parallel of north latitude became the base line...
- Connecticut Western Reserve
The Connecticut Western Reserve was land claimed by Connecticut in the Northwest Territory in what is now northeastern Ohio.-History:Although forced to surrender the Pennsylvania portion of its sea-to-sea land grant following the Yankee-Pennamite Wars and the intercession of the federal...
- Dolerman's Grant
- Dohrman Tract
- Donation Tract
- Ephraim Kimberly Grant
- Firelands
The Firelands or Sufferers' Lands tract was located at the western end of the Connecticut Western Reserve in what is now the U.S. state of Ohio...
or Sufferers' Lands
- Fort Washington
Fort Washington was a fort in the early history of Cincinnati, Ohio.In 1789, Fort Washington was built to protect early settlements located in the Northwest Territory. The fort was located near modern-day Cincinnati, Ohio and was used to protect settlers of that city in its early years. Gen. Josiah...
- French Grant
The French Grant was a land tract in what is now Scioto County, Ohio that was paid out by the U.S. Congress on March 31, 1795 after a group of French colonists were defrauded by the Scioto Company of purchased land grants which rightly were controlled by the Ohio Company of Associates...
- Gnadenhutten Tract
- Indian Land Grants (Same as Moravian?)
- Maumee Road Lands
- Michigan Survey or Michigan Meridian Survey or Toledo Tract
- Miami & Erie Canal Lands
- Ministerial Lands
- Moravian Indian Grants
- Ohio & Erie Canal Lands
- Ohio Company of Associates
The Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company, was a land company which is today credited with becoming the first non-American Indian group to settle in the present-day state of Ohio...
- Purchase on the Muskingum
- Refugee Tract
-Size:The history of what is known as the Tracts is somewhat confused. Historians have described it variously as to its extent and number of acres. In some statements its length from west to east has been given at eighteen miles , while others make it double that, and more. In one statement the...
- Salem Tract
- Salt Reservations or Salt Lands
- Schoenbrunn Tract
- School Lands
- Seven Ranges or Old Seven Ranges
- Symmes Purchase
The Symmes Purchase, also known as the Miami Purchase, was an area of land in Southwestern Ohio in what is now Hamilton, Butler, and Warren Counties. It was purchased by Judge John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey from the Continental Congress...
or Miami Purchase and/or the Land Between the Miamis
- Toledo Strip, object of a nearly bloodless war
The Toledo War , also known as the Ohio-Michigan War, was the almost entirely bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan...
between Ohio and Michigan
- Turnpike Lands
- Twelve-Mile Square Reservation
- Two-Mile Square Reservation
- United States Military District
- Virginia Military District
The Virginia Military District was an approximately 4.2 million acre area of land in what is now the state of Ohio that was reserved by Virginia to use as payment for veterans of the American Revolutionary War....
- Zane's Tracts or Zane's Grant or Ebenezer Zane Tract
Oklahoma
- Big Pasture
The Big Pasture was of prairie land, in what is now southwestern Oklahoma. The land had been reserved for grazing use by the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes after their reserve was opened for settlement by a lottery conducted during June through August 1901...
- Cherokee Outlet
The Cherokee Outlet, more often referred to as the Cherokee Strip, was located in what is now the state of Oklahoma, in the United States. It was a sixty-mile wide strip of land south of the Oklahoma-Kansas border between the 96th and 100th meridians. It was about 225 miles long and in 1891...
, or Cherokee Strip
- Cimarron Territory
- Greer County
Greer County, created by the Texas legislature on February 8 1860 , was land claimed by both Texas and the United States.-Origin of the dispute:...
- Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the use of Native Americans...
- Neutral Strip, or No Man's Land
-Generic places:* No man's land, an unoccupied area between two opposing positions* Terra nullius, land not claimed by any sovereign state-Geographical places:Europe* No Man's Land, Cornwall, England* No Man's Land, Falkland Islands...
- Oklahoma Territory
The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian territory and admitted to the Union as the State of Oklahoma.-Organization:...
- State of Sequoyah
The State of Sequoyah was the proposed name for a state to be established in the eastern part of present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, faced by proposals to end their tribal governments, Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory proposed such a state as a means to retain some...
- Unassigned Lands
Unassigned Lands, or Oklahoma, were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled...
Indian Reserves
- Cheyenne
Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taa'e and the Tsé-tsêhéstâhese , which translates to "those like us". The name Cheyenne derives from Dakota Sioux Šahíyena, meaning "little Šahíya"...
-ArapahoThe Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, who are seen as an early offshoot of the...
Reserve
- Commanche, Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians who migrated from what now is Canada to their present location in Southwestern Oklahoma. Today the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma is federally recognized, with approximately 14,000 members...
and ApacheThe Plains Apache are a Southern Athabaskan group that lived primarily on the plains of North America...
Reserve
- Iowa
The Iowa , also known as the Báxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Their name has been said to come from ayuhwa , but they call themselves Báxoje...
Reserve
- Kaw
The Kaw are an American Indian people of the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language.The toponym "Kansas" was...
Reserve
- Kickapoo
The Kickapoos are one of the Algonquian-speaking Native American tribes. According to the Anishinaabeg, the name "Kickapoo" means "Stands Here and there". It referred to the tribe's migratory patterns. The name can also mean "wanderer"...
Reserve
- Osage
The Osage Nation is a Native American tribe in the United States that originated about 1200 CE in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. Ancestors lived in the area for thousands of years. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their...
Reserve
- Ponca
The Ponca are a Native American tribe. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.-Early history:...
and OtoeThe Otoe or Oto are a Native American people. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is closely related to that of the Iowa and Missouri.The Otoe were once part of the Siouan tribes of the Great Lakes region, commonly known as the Winnebago. At some point, a large group separated themselves and began to...
–MisouriaThe Missouria or Missouri are a Native American tribe that originated in the Great Lakes region of United States before European contact. The tribe belongs to the Chiwere division of the Siouan linguistic family, with the Iowa and Otoe. Historically, the tribe lived near the mouth of the Grand...
Reserve
- Citizen Potawatomi
The Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family...
and Absentee ShawneeThe Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are a people native to North America. They originally inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...
Reserve
- Sac and Fox Reserve
The Sac and Fox Nation is the modern political entity encompassing the historical Sac and Meskawki nations of Native Americans. There are three federally recognized Sac and Fox tribes: the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska,...
- Tonkawa Reserve
The Tonkawa are a Native American people indigenous to present-day Oklahoma and Texas. They once spoke the Tonkawa language, an isolate not related to languages of other tribes. It is now extinct. The tribe is federally recognized and most members live in Oklahoma.-History:Scholars used to think...
- Wichita
The Wichita are a tribe of Native Americans, indigenous inhabitants of North America, who speak Wichita, a Caddoan language. The tribe is indigenous to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.-Origins:...
and CaddoThe Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma...
Reserve
Former organized territories
The following is a list of organized U.S. territories that have become states, in the order of the date organized.
- Northwest Territory
The Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of...
(1789–1803), became the states of OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
, IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
, MichiganMichigan is a Midwestern state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Ojibwe term mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
, WisconsinWisconsin is one of the fifty U.S. states. Located in the north-central United States, Wisconsin is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the...
, and MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
east of the MississippiThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
- Territory South of the River Ohio (1790–1796) became the State of Tennessee
- Territory of Mississippi (1798–1817)
- Territory of Indiana (1800–1816) split into the Illinois Territory
The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois....
, Michigan TerritoryThe Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan...
, and the state of IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
.
- Territory of Orleans (1804–1812) became the State of Louisiana
- Territory of Michigan (1805–1837)
- Territory of Louisiana (1805–1812) (preceded by the District of Louisiana
The District of Louisiana or Louisiana District was an official United States government designation for the portion of the Louisiana Purchase that had not been organized into the Territory of Orleans. The area north of present-day Arkansas was also known as Upper Louisiana...
) renamed Territory of Missouri (1812–1821)
- Territory of Illinois (1809–1818)
- Territory of Alabama (1817–1819)
- Territory of Arkansaw (1819–1836) became the State of Arkansas
- Territory of Florida (1822–1845)
- Territory of Wisconsin (1836–1848)
- Territory of Iowa (1838–1846)
- Territory of Oregon (1848–1859)
- Territory of Minnesota (1849–1858)
- Territory of New Mexico (1850–1912)
- Territory of Utah (1850–1896)
- Territory of Washington (1853–1889)
- Territory of Kansas (1854–1861)
- Territory of Nebraska (1854–1867)
- Territory of Colorado (1861–1876)
- Territory of Nevada (1861–1864)
- Territory of Dakota (1861–1889) became the State of North Dakota and the State of South Dakota
- Territory of Arizona (1863–1912)
- Territory of Idaho (1863–1890)
- Territory of Montana (1864–1889)
- Territory of Wyoming (1868–1890)
- Territory of Oklahoma (1890–1907) (preceded, in part, by the Indian territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the use of Native Americans...
)
- Territory of Hawaii
The Territory of Hawaii was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 7, 1898, until August 21, 1959, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Hawaii....
(1898–1959)
- Territory of Alaska (1912–1959) (preceded by the Department of Alaska
The Department of Alaska was the designation for the government of Alaska from its purchase by the United States of America in 1867 until its organization as the District of Alaska in 1884. During the Department era, Alaska was variously under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army , the United States...
and the District of AlaskaThe District of Alaska was the governmental designation for Alaska from May 17, 1884 to August 24, 1912, when it became Alaska Territory. Previously it had been known as the Department of Alaska. At the time, legislators in Washington, D.C., were occupied with post-Civil War reconstruction issues,...
)
Possessions and overseas territories subsequently retroceded
- Milk River Region
The Milk River is a tributary of the Missouri River, 729 mi long in the U.S. state of Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta.-Course and watershed:...
(Treaty of 1818The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary, and the restoration of slaves between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, was a...
)
- Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone was a 553 square mile territory inside of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have fallen in part within the limits of the Canal Zone...
- Philippines
The Commonwealth of the Philippines , , was the political designation of the Philippines from 1935 to 1946 when the country was a commonwealth with the United States. Before 1935, the Philippines was an insular area with non-commonwealth status, and before that, it had been a U.S...
- Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from July 18, 1947, comprising the former South Pacific Mandate, a League of Nations Mandate administered by Japan and taken by the U.S. in 1944. On October 21, 1986,...
- Ryukyu Islands
- Chamizal
- South Korea
The United States Army Military Government in Korea, also known as USAMGIK, was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945 to August 15, 1948...
- Rio Rico, Texas
Rio Rico is a city near the Rio Grande in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas; it, and the surrounding land were part of the U.S. state of Texas that was ceded by the United States to Mexico in 1970. This is the most recent cession of land by the U.S...
(Horcón Tract)
Independent states admitted to the union
- Kingdom of Hawaii
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...
later the Republic of HawaiiThe Republic of Hawaii was the formal name of the government that controlled Hawaii from 1894 to 1898 when it was run as a republic. The republic period occurred between the administration of the Provisional Government of Hawaii which ended on July 4, 1894 and the adoption of the Newlands...
- Republic of Texas
The Republic of Texas was an independent state in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1845.Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico by the Texas Revolution, the state claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S...
- Republic of New Connecticut later the Republic of Vermont
- Republic of California
- Provisional Government of Oregon
The Provisional Government of Oregon was a popularly elected government created in the Oregon Country, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It existed from May 2, 1843 until March 3, 1849. Created at a time when no country had sovereignty over the region, this independent government...
- Deseret Territory, unofficially declared independence in 1857 in the Utah War
The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed dispute between Latter-day Saint settlers in Utah Territory and the United States federal government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 until July 1858...
between Mormon settlers and the U.S. government.
Unrecognized or self-declared entities
- Absaroka
Absaroka, named after the Absaroka Range, was an area in the United States, comprising parts of the states of Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming, that contemplated secession and statehood in 1939. One of the leaders of the secessionist movement was A. R...
- Kingdom of Beaver Island
Beaver Island is the largest island in Lake Michigan and part of the Beaver Island archipelago. Once home to a unique American monarchy, the island is now a popular tourist and vacation destination....
- Republic of California
- Kingdom of Callaway
- Territory of Cimarron
- Conch Republic
The Conch Republic is a micronation declared as a tongue-in-cheek protest secession of the city of Key West from the United States on April 23, 1982. It has been maintained as a tourism booster for the city since...
- Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a separatist political entity existing between 1861 to 1865, established by eleven southern slave states of the United States of America, each of which had previously declared their secession from the United States...
- Arizona Territory (CSA)
The Territory of Arizona was a territory claimed by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, between 1861 and 1865...
- State of Deseret
The State of Deseret was a provisional state of the United States, proposed in 1849 by Mormon settlers in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for slightly over two years and was never recognized by the United States government...
- State of Franklin
The State of Franklin was an autonomous, secessionist United States territory created, not long after the end of the American Revolution, from territory that later was ceded by North Carolina to the federal government. Franklin's territory later became part of the state of Tennessee...
- Republic of Indian Stream
The Republic of Indian Stream was a small, unrecognized, constitutional republic in North America, along the section of the US-Canada border that divides the Canadian province of Quebec from the US state of New Hampshire. It existed from July 9, 1832 to 1835...
- State of Jefferson
- Territory of Jefferson
The Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson was an extralegal and unrecognized territory of the United States that existed from October 24, 1859 until the creation of the Territory of Colorado on February 28, 1861...
- State of Kanawha
Kanawha was a proposed name for what later became the U.S. state of West Virginia, formed on October 24, 1861. It consisted of most of the northwestern counties of Virginia, which decided to secede from Virginia after Virginia joined the Confederate States of America on April 17, 1861 at the...
- State of Lincoln
Lincoln is one of several proposed states of the United States of America .-Historical proposal to call Wyoming Territory "Lincoln":When Wyoming Territory was formed in 1868, it was originally called Lincoln Territory...
- Republic of Lakotah
The Republic of Lakotah or Lakotah is a proposed country in North America to serve as a homeland for the Lakota.Its boundaries would be surrounded by the borders of the United States, covering thousands of square miles in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana...
- Long Republic
- Republic of Madawaska
The Republic of Madawaska was a small, unrecognized state in the northwest corner of Madawaska County, New Brunswick and adjacent areas of Aroostook County in the American state of Maine and of Quebec. The word "Madawaska" comes from the Mi'kmaq words madawas and kak...
- Territory of McDonald
McDonald Territory was an extralegal, unrecognized territory of the United States that existed for a short time in 1961. The area comprised all of present-day McDonald County, Missouri, USA. A provisional government chose the name when they attempted to secede the county from the state of Missouri...
- State of Muskogee
The State of Muskogee was a proposed sovereign nation located in Florida.English adventurer William Augustus Bowles was elected director general of the State of Muskogee by a congress of Creeks and Seminoles in 1799. Both these tribes speak Muskogean languages. At the time they were living in...
- Nataqua Territory
The Nataqua Territory was a short lived and unofficial territory of the United States. It consisted of a portion of what is now northeastern California and northwestern Nevada, centered on Susanville, California. In 1856, the border between California and the Utah Territory was unsurveyed and...
- Nickajack
Nickajack was the name of a proposed neutral state of Unionist areas of North Alabama and East Tennessee. In the period leading up to the American Civil War there was much talk of secession made by the politicians representing wealthy plantation owners in the Black Belt. Hill country residents were...
- Provisional Government of Oregon
The Provisional Government of Oregon was a popularly elected government created in the Oregon Country, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It existed from May 2, 1843 until March 3, 1849. Created at a time when no country had sovereignty over the region, this independent government...
- Great Republic of Rough and Ready
- State of Sequoyah
The State of Sequoyah was the proposed name for a state to be established in the eastern part of present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, faced by proposals to end their tribal governments, Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory proposed such a state as a means to retain some...
- Republic of South Carolina
The Republic of South Carolina is a term for the State of South Carolina as it existed from December 20, 1860 to February 8, 1861 ....
- State of Superior
Superior is the name of a longstanding 51st state proposal involving the secession of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from the rest of the state of Michigan, due to cultural differences, as well as the feeling that the capital in Lansing ignores the problems of the Upper Peninsula...
- Trans-Oconee Republic
The Trans-Oconee Republic was a short-lived, independent state established by General Elijah Clarke west of the Oconee River in Georgia in 1794.-Background:...
- Republic of Vermont
- Republic of West Florida
West Florida was a region on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico, which underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. Parts of the territory were held at various times by France, Spain, Britain, and the United States...
- State of Westmoreland
The State of Westmoreland was a proposed self-proclaimed state that would have seceded from Pennsylvania.Both Pennsylvania and Connecticut claimed ownership of the lands between 41° N and 42° N, and this gave rise to a series of land-conflicts collectively referred to as the Yankee-Pennamite Wars...
- Westsylvania
Westsylvania was a proposed state of the United States located primarily in what is now western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. First proposed early in the American Revolution, Westsylvania would have been the fourteenth state in the newly formed United States had it been recognized.-Background:In...
- Sovereign State of Winneconne
Winneconne is a village in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,401 at the 2000 census. The village is located within the Town of Winneconne...
- Republic of Winston
The Republic of Winston was a term applied to one of several places in the Confederate States of America where disaffection during the American Civil War was strong...
Native American-related regions
- Comancheria
The Comancheria is the name commonly given to the land occupied by the Comanche before further Anglo-American encroachment. The area was vaguely defined but generally was described as being north and west of a line that stretched from San Antonio, Texas in the south to the Arkansas River in...
, the Oklahoma Panhandle during the late 1800s.
- Dinétah
Dinetah, or Dinétah, is the traditional homeland of the Navajo tribe of Native Americans. In the Navajo language, the word "Dinétah" means "among the people" or "among the Navajo"...
, named for the Navajo Indian Reservation.
- Lenapehoking
Lenapehoking is a term for the lands historically inhabited by the Native American people known as the Lenape in what is now the Northeastern United States...
, named for the Delaware or Lenilenape Indians.
- Oklahoma as a separate Native American country, especially the Cherokee Nation and four of the Five Civilized Tribes
The Five Civilized Tribes is the term applied to five Native American nations, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, considered civilized by white settlers during that time period because they adopted many of the colonists' customs and had generally good relations with their...
.
- Aztlan
Aztlán is the legendary ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. "Aztec" is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan."-Legend:...
, the mythical land of the Aztecs located in the Southwestern U.S. in Mexican-American political activism.
Belts
- Bible Belt
Bible Belt is an informal term for an area of the United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a dominant part of the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is extremely high....
- Black Belt
The Black Belt is a region of the southeastern United States. Although the term originally describes the prairies and dark soil of central Alabama and northeast Mississippi, it has long been used to describe a broad region in the American South characterized by a high percentage of African Americans...
- Corn Belt
- Frost Belt
The Frost Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to include the Northeastern United States, the Great Lakes Region and much of the Upper Midwest. The region is known for its cold, frost-producing winters and heavy snowfall....
- Grain Belt
- Grain Belt :The Grain Belt is an informal name for a United States region composed of the prairie-region states across the Midwest.This region produces a substantial amount of the world's grain and soybeans.The Grain Belt area includes most if not all of...
- Jello Belt
The Mormon Corridor is a term for the areas of Western North America that were settled between 1850 and approximately 1890 by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , who are commonly known as Mormons....
- Rust Belt
The Rust Belt, also known as the Manufacturing Belt, is an area in parts of the Northeastern United States, Mid-Atlantic States, and portions of the Upper Midwest. The region can be broadly defined as the region beginning west of the BosWash corridor and running west to Minnesota, particularly the...
- Snow Belt
The snowbelt is a North American region, much of which lies downwind of the Great Lakes, where heavy snowfall is particularly common on predominately eastern and southern shores of the Great Lakes. Near the Great Lakes, lake-effect snow is caused by cold air picking up moisture while crossing the...
- Sun Belt
The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the South and Southwest . Another rough boundary of the region is the area south of the 37th or 38th parallels, north latitude. The main defining feature of the Sun Belt is its warm-temperate climate with extended...
- Tornado Alley
Tornado Alley is a colloquial term most often used in reference to the area of the United States in which tornadoes are most frequent. Although an official location is not defined, the areas in between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains are the areas usually associated with it.- Tornado...
See also
- European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492, although there was at least one earlier colonization effort...
- List of former United States counties
- List of regions of the United States
- List of U.S. states that were never territories
- Political divisions of the United States
The political units and divisions of the United States include:*The 50 states , which are typically divided into counties and sometimes townships, and further divided into incorporated cities, towns, villages, and other types of municipalities, and other autonomous or subordinate public authorities...
- Reconstruction era military districts
- United States territory
United States territory is any extent of region under the jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters . The United States has traditionally proclaimed the sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing its territory...
External links